Volume 652 Week 3 - Tuesday 10 February 2009 
Volume 652 Week 3 - Tuesday 10 February 2009 
[Volume:652;Page:1041] 
Tuesday 10 February 2009 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Motions 
Bushfires—Victoria Australia 
Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 I seek the leave of the House to move a non-controversial motion with debate to express its sorrow at the devastating bushfires raging in the Australian state of Victoria. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection? There is none. 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: I move 
 That this House express its deepest sympathy and condolences to the people of Victoria Australia who have suffered such devastation and tragic loss of life in the bushfires that have raged across the state in recent days and that it commend the men and women who are working to put out the fires and to assist the many victims of this tragedy.  
On behalf of the Government and all New Zealanders I would like to offer my sincere sympathy to the people of Victoria Australia as they battle some of the most horrific bushfires in their nation’s history. Over the past days as we have seen the devastation unfolding on our television screens the enormity of what is happening has burned into our consciousness. At times like this the closeness and importance of the relationship between our two countries comes to the forefront. The outpouring of support from New Zealanders has been genuine and heartfelt. Throughout our relatively short history the Anzac partnership has remained strong. Whether on the sporting field in business or in the theatre of war we are partners. We are competitive certainly but at heart we are always friends. At times like this we realise just how special that bond with Australia is. 
On behalf of the New Zealand people the Government has offered 100 firefighters to assist the Australians who are already battling the blaze and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has accepted. Since January 2003 there has been a formal agreement in place to facilitate this process because in the world of firefighting there are no borders between New Zealand and Australia. Our firefighters have always been there for Australia’s firefighters just as I am sure that they would be there for us if unthinkably we suffered such a great tragedy. Our Government has also pledged $500000 to a Red Cross Society fund that will go directly to help those injured or left homeless by the bushfires and that New Zealanders are already supporting in their thousands by telephone and bank donations. The Red Cross Society will take no administration fee. 
The suggestion that some of these fires have been deliberately lit defies belief and magnifies the tragedy of the situation. If words can convey our message to Australia we say this: in the times of greatest need New Zealanders look across the Tasman for support and we immediately find it—our relationship is like no other—and at this time we stand shoulder to shoulder with Australians to battle the blaze that will be marked forever in the history of their great nation. Kia kaha. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 As the leader of the Labour Party I wish to join with I believe all other members of this House and indeed all New Zealanders in expressing our condolences to the families of some 173 people who are now confirmed as dead in the fires in Victoria Australia. This is a huge human tragedy and I think that as New Zealanders all of our hearts go out to those who have lost loved ones and to the many others who have lost their homes and their personal possessions. I think something in excess of 700 homes have been destroyed in the fires. We can talk about the statistics but the photographs on the front page of the  
Dominion Post 
 this morning show the human tragedy behind those statistics. 
 New Zealand and Australia have a renowned competitiveness on the sports field—it is no holds barred no prisoners taken—but I think this is a time to remind ourselves that our family and our personal links with Australia and Australians are closer than those with any other country in the world. As New Zealanders we have enormous sympathy for those whose lives have been devastated by the fires. We want to help and I believe that the offer of our firefighters is a good first step. They went there in 1986 and they performed their role in a way that made New Zealanders proud. Our firefighters want to be there alongside their Australian mates to help them out. I support the district health boards that have offered places in the burns units and I certainly support the Government’s initiative and the initiative of individual New Zealanders in making financial assistance available to those who have suffered losses. 
The fires are still burning. I support the resolution before the House and any assistance that we are called upon to give or can offer to give as good neighbours to our friends in Australia. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The Green Party of Aotearoa / New Zealand sends its sympathy and condolences to those who have lost loved ones in the tragic bushfires in Australia. We also support the offer made by the Prime Minister to send firefighters to assist. We respectfully note the debate that is under way in Australia as to the role of climate change in these tragic fires. The Green Party stands in support of the Government motion and of the Government’s actions. 
Hon RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 On behalf of the ACT Party I rise to support the motion. I join Parliament and all New Zealanders in offering our heartfelt sympathy and condolences to our brothers and sisters in Australia. What we are witnessing on our television screens and in our newspapers is hell on Earth. It is hard to imagine a graver and more serious tragedy being unleashed on our neighbours and friends. The ACT Party supports the initiative of the Government and it supports New Zealanders from one end of this great country to the other in their pledge of support. It is terrifying to think that it appears that this hell on Earth is the work of arsonists. We can only hope that that evil is brought to book with the full force of the law and that the arsonists get their just desserts. Thank you. 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 The Maori Party joins with the House in expressing our deepest sympathies to the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the families and communities throughout Australia that have suffered the catastrophe of the wild fires that have ravaged Victoria. A crisis of such proportion for our neighbours is a crisis that all New Zealanders will connect to. We make that connection knowing full well that so many of our w’anau have loved ones living in Melbourne—children and mokopuna who may well have been placed at great risk of tragic loss of lives and homes as the merciless fire has raged on. We can only express our profound and heartfelt grief for all those families who are for ever scarred by this bushfire disaster. We support the role that this Government and this country will play in supporting Australia. 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 The Progressive Party joins parliamentary colleagues and all New Zealanders in the thoughts already expressed and in sending our sympathies to our brothers and sisters in Victoria as they deal with this blaze and the destruction it has caused. Melbourne has experienced one of the biggest most destructive fires in recent history anywhere in the world. The destruction is not over yet nor is the loss. When we look at the pictures of crumpled houses reduced to ashes we can only imagine the trauma suffered. When we look at scenes of exhaustion and the traumatised faces of firefighters and families we are compelled to share their grief. We send our best wishes as we imagine the rebuilding of homes and lives and communities that lie ahead. One thing we New Zealanders know about our brothers and sisters across the Tasman is that they are people of enormous courage. Victorian families will need all that Aussie dauntlessness now and in the months ahead. 
I am proud that New Zealanders are doing their bit to pitch in and we support the Prime Minister’s resolutions on this matter. I remember the heroic New Zealand firefighters who fought alongside some fantastically brave Australians in the 2006 bushfires. Some of them are going back yet again. For Australia the toll caused by the inferno is as shocking as the 9/11 tragedy in America—if one compares the size of the populations. It is all the more bitter irony that the fire is blazing while floods drench north Queensland. Many homes have been lost many lives have been lost many lives have been shattered and many families have lost everything. So I say to Australia and Australians that we in New Zealand wish them well in the face of this crisis with the assurance that we stand with them in any way we possibly can. 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 On behalf of United Future I support the resolution that has been moved this afternoon by the Prime Minister and endorse the comments that others have made in this debate. Australia is enduring its worst peacetime tragedy with these fires. The loss of so many innocent lives and the destruction of property livelihoods experiences and communities are things that will not be put to rest once the fires are extinguished. Life will take a very long time to return to normal for affected communities and families and for that country as a whole. 
It is great that New Zealanders are showing their support and their encouragement for their Australian kith and kin at this time. I think that the enormity of what has happened is difficult to comprehend but simple images convey a stark story—the cars on the edge of the road where the fire overtook the victims the houses that look like crumpled messes and the people standing shell-shocked amongst those ruins shaking their heads and saying they have lost everything from children to material possessions. Those images are beyond our ability to comprehend. They suggest the enormity of what has taken place and the need for people all around Australia and this country to come together to support the Australian people in their moment of crisis. 
I support the motion and I encourage New Zealanders to be as generous with their resources as they are with their sentiments at the moment to help Australia address this awful tragedy. 
Motion agreed to. 
Honourable members stood as a mark of respect.  
Speaker’s Statements 
Speaker’s Procession—New Route 
Mr SPEAKER 
: From the next sitting day I intend to make a change to the Speaker’s procession. In order that this longstanding parliamentary tradition may be more accessible to the public the procession at 2 p.m. each sitting day will move south along the Speaker’s corridor from the Speaker’s office into the Parliament House foyer turn right into the lobby through the double doors and enter the House through the visitors’ door past the Bar of the House. The Serjeant-at-Arms will take up a position at the end of the Table ready to lay the Mace on the Table and the Speaker will take the Chair via the Government side of the Table. 
The new route for the Speaker’s procession will take no longer than the previous one but it will be in view of the public. Members will be held back momentarily in the Parliament House foyer and at the visitors’ door entrance while the procession passes but will be able to join the tail of the procession to enter the Chamber after the Speaker before the doors are closed for prayers. The doors to the Ayes and Noes lobbies and the Ministers’ and Speaker’s doors will be closed at 2 p.m. when the Serjeant-at-Arms announces the Speaker’s arrival in the House as is the current practice. This will ensure that members do not impede the Speaker moving through the Chamber to the Chair. 
These new arrangements for the procession will apply only at 2 p.m. each sitting day. At all other times the presiding officers will enter and leave the Chamber through the Speaker’s door. For members’ information I will make a copy of this announcement available in members’ bill boxes. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Perhaps in order to ensure the dignity of your office you will be making it clear that you will not be available for questions from the media during that procession. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I thank the honourable member for that point. 
Motions 
Members of Parliament—Submission to Remuneration Authority 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I seek leave to move without notice or debate a motion on MPs’ remuneration which has been advised to all party leaders. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS 
: I move  
That the members of this House recognising that in the current economic situation Government revenue is reduced many New Zealanders are losing their jobs or overtime and more Government spending is required to invest in job creation and income support agree to support a cross-party submission to the Remuneration Authority asking it to refrain from raising MPs’ salaries during the 2009 review and commit to revisiting this issue in 2010. 
Motion agreed to. 
Points of Order 
Bills—Availability 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek your assistance and support really. It has been indicated to us that a number of important bills are coming up for debate very shortly and I am becoming a bit concerned that members are getting into the habit of having to debate and vote on legislation before we have had a chance to properly digest it. I am seeking your support and am asking you to put some pressure on the Leader of the House to provide bills to us earlier than half an hour before we have to debate and vote on them. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I accept the concern expressed by the honourable member. There may be a chance to discuss that issue at the Business Committee today. I am aware that the Government recognises the concern of the member and I think steps will be taken to try to make sure that bills are available a little sooner. 
Questions to Ministers 
Recession—Government Actions for Economic Growth 
1. NATHAN GUY (National—Otaki) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: What steps has the Government recently taken to help ease the sharpest impacts of the current recession and prepare New Zealand’s economy for future growth? 
Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 The Government has taken a number of steps including introducing legislation that will ensure there are tax reductions from 1 April this year that will provide much stimulus and support to those in great need. We have introduced the ReStart package to ensure that we can provide extra support to those hard hit by redundancy. We have announced the first phase of the Government’s reforms to simplify and streamline the Resource Management Act. We announced last week a group of initiatives in the form of the small-business relief package which will help lighten the load of small and medium enterprises. And we have only just begun. 
Nathan Guy 
: Is the Government planning to announce any further measures in the near future? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes. Tomorrow I will be announcing the Government’s plans to bring forward a number of infrastructure projects and to start a number of brand new ones. They are in the areas of State highways school property and State housing. They are projects that will be ready to start and get under way as soon as possible. In addition on 27 February I will be hosting the Job Summit which will bring together the private sector local government non-governmental organisations and public sector participants to discuss how we can ensure that people are kept in employment. Those are simply some of the announcements we are making in February but of course we may announce more soon. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Can the Prime Minister confirm that by far the largest part of the so-called stimulus package actually was in Labour’s 2008 Budget where tax cuts totalling nearly $11 billion were legislated for; that the bulk of his tax bill being introduced actually already is in Labour’s 2008 tax bill; and that most if not all of the projects that he will announce tomorrow have already received approval are in the pipeline and are ready to go as a result of the last Government’s actions? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The honourable Prime Minister may answer one of those questions.  
Hon JOHN KEY 
: No. What I can confirm is that this Government has taken about 100 or so days to start cutting taxes whereas Mr Goff’s Government took 9 years to cut taxes. What I can confirm is that our package for small and medium enterprises which includes some of the initiatives that the previous Government had considered is actually seven times larger than the initiatives proposed by his Government. What I can confirm is that in the 2009-10 period which his Government’s tax cuts had nothing to do with the effect of our stimulus package is negative 4.4 percent relative to negative 2.9 percent in terms of cash deficits. The New Zealand public is rightfully looking towards our Government to ensure they get through this economic recession. 
Nathan Guy 
: Has the Prime Minister seen any reports about the level of fiscal stimulus in New Zealand compared with other OECD countries? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes. I have seen a report on fiscal stimulus across the period 2007-10 in all OECD countries. That report shows New Zealand having the third-highest fiscal stimulus in the OECD. This level of fiscal stimulus is an appropriate response to the circumstances facing New Zealand. However I would warn members who are calling for more that overdoing fiscal stimulus would mean our running very large deficits and building up levels of Government debt that would be a huge burden not just on this generation but on future generations. Maybe Mr Goff could give that some consideration. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Can the Prime Minister confirm that three-quarters of that stimulus package that he is now bragging about is a result of Labour Government actions? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: What I can confirm is that it took 9 years and an impending electoral defeat for the member’s Government finally to decide to cut taxes. The reason Labour did not cut taxes was not that it could not afford to do so; the only reason was that the then Minister of Finance Dr Michael Cullen had absolutely no interest in cutting taxes. That was why New Zealanders had to wait 9 years for a change of Government in order to have any confidence that their taxes would come down. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That was a very straightforward question. It required a yes or no answer. I was unable to tell from the burble from the Prime Minister whether the answer was yes or no. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I listened very carefully to the answer from the Prime Minister and I believe he did address the question. He did refer to measures in respect of fiscal stimulus taken by the previous Government. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: As the Prime Minister in his answer quoted OECD figures for the years 2007 and 2008 in terms of fiscal stimulus could he confirm that National was not in Government in those years; and secondly if the aim of the business tax package was to help ease the effects of recession and prepare for growth why did it not mention in any way shape or form the words “agriculture” or “primary industry” given that primary industry earns 65 percent of our overseas exchange earnings and why did the word “exports” not come into that package or into any statement that the Government has made since it was elected? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Again the Prime Minister may answer one of those questions. 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: I can confirm that National was not in Government in the 2007-08 period except for the end of 2008. But I am surprised that the member who used to be the Minister of Agriculture does not realise that many farms up and down the country are small to medium enterprises and that many exporters are as well. No wonder the agricultural sector was so pleased to see the back of him! 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Has the Prime Minister seen the proposal from the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for a “Green New Deal” which would address both the global economic crisis and the global climate crisis at the same time; and which elements of the “Green New Deal” will be incorporated in his economic package when it is released? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: I have seen it and when we announce the projects the member will be pleased to see that some of them address issues not only of energy efficiency but of insulation and climate change. I think he will be pleased when he sees the final package. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Will his Government be following in the steps of the US President Barack Obama who is not only addressing elements of a “Green New Deal” but also talking about creating 5 million new and innovative jobs in green-collar industries that will actually save the climate and produce good economic results; will the Prime Minister be following in the steps of Barack Obama and what elements of his economic package will be along the lines of creating green-collar jobs? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: I have long since learnt that it is dangerous territory to start likening oneself to Barack Obama but I can assure the member that we will be creating jobs in our economy and those jobs not only will have consideration for economic growth and for providing good wages for those who are in them but also will have an eye to ensuring that environmental responsibility is taken seriously by our Government. 
Nathan Guy 
: Is the Prime Minister concerned about building up excessive levels of Government debt? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes I am very concerned about New Zealand’s future debt levels. In the short term the prospect of excessive levels of Government debt could well bring about a downgrade from credit agencies. Members will be aware that Standard and Poor’s recently gave New Zealand a negative outlook. A downgrade would lead to New Zealanders paying higher interest rates and would risk our having lower growth rates into the future. I remind the Leader of the Opposition that if he wants to make promises about doing more and spending more he should know that the money can come only from debt given our current cash deficit. Maybe he should show some restraint. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: I seek leave to table a media release about the award given to me by Federated Farmers for being the only leader in the last election to emphasise the importance of the role of agriculture. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave has been sought to table an award. I remind the honourable member that it must be tabled before the end of the day. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Ministers—Confidence 
2.  
Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he have confidence in all his Ministers? 
Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes because they are talented people who are working hard for New Zealand. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Can the Prime Minister—or the country—have any confidence in the transparency and honesty of the Minister of Finance who while ramming through legislation before Christmas without subjecting it to the scrutiny of a select committee deliberately suppressed and withheld from the public and parliamentarians the advice he received from his own ministry that the fundamental parts of that legislation were deeply flawed? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes. I have complete confidence in the Minister of Finance. If we want to have concerns about Ministers of Finance maybe we should have concern for a former Minister of Finance who may well find himself in breach of the Public Finance Act. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Why was the National Government so frightened of releasing the briefing to Bill English at the same time as it released other briefings; and now that the briefing has been found to reveal that the legislation the National Government pushed through was fundamentally flawed will the Prime Minister admit that he was wrong and change that legislation? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: We are far from frightened. I remind the member that when he was last in Government his Minister of Finance the Hon Dr Michael Cullen described a briefing from Treasury as an “ideological burp”. But let us put that all to one side. I refer the member to the  
Wall Street Journal 
Asia 
 in which a very interesting editorial appeared just last week commending New Zealand for its economic packages in contrast with many countries around Asia. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Was the Prime Minister or his office directly or indirectly involved in the decision to not make available the Treasury briefings when they were relevant to the debate before the House; if so how does that reflect on the Prime Minister’s supposed commitment to openness and transparency? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: No I was not personally involved. It may come as a shock to that member but I have such confidence— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I asked whether he or his office was involved. 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: No I was not involved and to the best of my knowledge my office was not involved. It may come as a great surprise to the member but I have such confidence in my Minister of Finance that he can choose to release his briefing from Treasury whenever he likes. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Can the Prime Minister categorically assure the House that National is not concealing Treasury advice or other departmental advice against any of the legislation now being introduced in the House today under urgency? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes I can confirm that the Government is not concealing any briefings or hiding anything from the House. If the member wants to talk about concealing things maybe he should go and ask people in his own research unit about that because the last time I saw them they were concealing the booze from the parliamentary Christmas party. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member is taking a point of order and the ministerial benches know that points of order are heard in silence. Thank you. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I point out to you that the Prime Minister has categorically assured the House that the Government is not withholding anything. In fact it has not even released anything so how can he give— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The honourable member may like to reflect on how that matter was a point of order. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: There is a clause in the Standing Orders that states that a Minister cannot mislead the House. The Prime Minister has categorically assured the House that Treasury advice or other departmental advice was not withheld— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will take his seat. The member has been in this House as long as I have. He knows there are ways of dealing with issues if he is concerned about anyone misleading the House and it is not by way of a point of order. The honourable member knows that well. 
Prisoner Housing—Prefabricated Units 
3.  
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
 to the  
Minister of Corrections 
: What cost savings can be achieved through building prefabricated modular units to house prisoners and when can we expect to see the first prefabricated prison in place and occupied by criminals? 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Corrections 
: I am advised that the use of prefabricated modular units is one of a number of options being considered to accommodate prisoners. The Department of Corrections expects that modular units will cost approximately half of the $643000 per bed that it cost when the previous Government built its four new prisons. If that option is agreed to the department expects the first modular unit to be occupied by prisoners in or around September 2012. 
David Garrett 
: Can the Minister confirm that the prefab prison—when it is built—will not have underfloor heating plasma televisions in every cell and expensive gymnasium facilities and that criminals in those facilities will be required to work? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: I can advise that there will be no underfloor heating or plasma televisions in a new prison. Inmates will have appropriate exercise facilities rather than the type of gymnasium I saw at one of the new prisons built by the previous Government. It seemed flash enough to charge a joining fee and for yearly membership. As for work in prisons the Government has pledged to boost by 1000 the number of prisoners who will be learning industry-based skills through the department’s inmate employment scheme by 2011. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Can the Minister assure the House that those prefabricated modular units will provide at least the same level of security as is provided by current prison facilities; and further given that the current lifespan of prisons is over a hundred years will the modular units provide a similar level of durability so that the taxpayer does not end up paying twice: once for those units and a second time for more substantial replacements? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: The Minister is confident that the new measures introduced by this Government will meet many of the standards that we would expect from our prison system including the matters raised by the member opposite. I tell the House that we will act on measures to keep our prison system safe. This Government will not take 9 years to introduce a corrections amendment bill. 
Sandra Goudie 
: Has the Minister received any other feedback on the cost savings from building prefabricated modular units? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: Yes. The Leader of the Opposition has criticised the Government’s plan to save taxpayer dollars stating that “If you are short-sighted enough to build something cheap and nasty you will be rebuilding before very long.” and “When you are building a public institution you build it to make it last.” That is a surprising claim when the four prisons built under Labour where costs blew out by half a billion dollars have already racked up $9 million in repair bills. 
Unemployment—Current and Projected Rates 
4.  
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: What reports if any has she received on current and projected unemployment rates in New Zealand? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I have received a number of reports on unemployment. The latest official figures show the unemployment rate at 4.6 percent responding to the economic downturn. I have seen reports on how the unemployment rate will rise with predictions ranging from 4.4 percent to an extreme of 14 percent and many numbers in between. There is no doubt that the rate will continue to rise due to the economic storm buffeting the world. This Government’s focus is to blunt the sharp edges. 
Hon Annette King 
: Was the Minister invited to the hastily arranged Cabinet summit in mid-January to discuss jobs knowing that the 170000 people predicted by Treasury to be unemployed over the next 3 years will be her portfolio responsibility; if so why did she not attend? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Let me assure the member of Parliament that that was a small meeting of economic Ministers and let me assure the member that I am meeting with my colleagues daily to talk about the impacts of this economy and the effect it is having on New Zealanders’ jobs and how we will blunt those sharp edges. 
Hon Annette King 
: Which statement is correct: the Minister’s comments on Radio New Zealand on 27 January stating that a number of job initiatives are ready to go or her quote in her sole press release on employment in the last 3 months on 5 February saying “the Job Summit … will investigate initiatives”; if the job initiatives are ready to go when will the 105000 unemployed people hear something other than platitudes and excuses at a talkfest in late February? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: There are of course so many initiatives happening with this Government that it is hard even to know where to start. Unfortunately the last Government took a head in the sand sort of approach to preparing for the downturn. In fact in March last year the unemployment rate was at 3.7 percent but when this Government came in it was already well over 4 percent. So in just 3 months we have seen the Government kick off a major jobs and growth plan to help New Zealand navigate through these turbulent times. On Labour’s watch the unemployment rate continued to rise for three consecutive terms— 
Hon Members 
: What! 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: —three consecutive quarters—OK; shall we do this again? For three consecutive quarters the unemployment rate rose under that Labour Government and we did not see a jobs and growth plan. In fact New Zealanders will remember a promise of a mini-Budget that had no details attached to it but they are seeing from National a clear plan forward for New Zealanders to keep their jobs. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Before I take the next honourable member’s question I just remind Ministers that question time is not a time for speeches. 
Jo Goodhew 
: What is the Government doing to manage rising unemployment and to help ordinary New Zealanders who are struggling with the impact of the economy? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: This National Government has a firm jobs and growth plan in place to help ordinary Kiwis combat these tough times. We have been working with employers to squeeze the maximum jobs out of the labour market. We have been planning to keep people in work even if that means some reduced hours. We will be making CPI adjustments for benefits and New Zealand superannuation. We have cranked up front-line services within my ministry to deal with the increased demand. The Prime Minister is holding a national jobs summit at the end of this month. We are holding regional jobs summits to come up with locally based options. We have already amended legislation to help employers and employees with the 90-day legislation which will be quite magnificent. Just yesterday we saw an increase in the minimum wage under this National Government. 
Hon Annette King 
: Can she confirm that rather than sitting on its hands as she claimed Labour in Government reduced the unemployment rate from 7.5 percent to 3.8 percent through active labour market policies that saw 140000 fewer people on the unemployment benefit and if the previous Government’s policies did nothing which programmes has she cancelled since she became Minister? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: This Government is focused on accountability back to taxpayers for their money and we are quite proudly standing up and saying that we are looking at all programmes that are being done. We are looking at best value for dollar and we will be delivering back to families that really need it. 
Hon Annette King 
: What advice did she give regarding the 50c an hour increase to the minimum wage and its impact on unemployment and did her advice include a comparison between a Cabinet Minister’s tax cut of $120 a week from 1 April and the $20 a week gross a low-income earner will receive on the minimum wage from 1 April? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The question was fairly wide of the primary question but I will allow the Minister to answer. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: This Government has an unrelenting focus on work and we will be supporting New Zealanders to stay in their jobs to keep their jobs and to get back into jobs whenever possible. 
Security Intelligence Service —Files on Sitting MPs 
5.  
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
 to the  
Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service 
: How many current members of Parliament does the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service maintain personal files on? 
Hon JOHN KEY (Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service) 
: 
 In accordance with longstanding practice I decline to provide details on the work of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. This matter will undoubtedly be considered as part of the review that I have asked the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to undertake. 
Keith Locke 
: Does the Prime Minister favour the Security Intelligence Service relooking at existing personal files and as the legislation requires closing all of those that do not involve sabotage subversion espionage or terrorism and for a start closing my SIS file which has been running without any ethical or legal basis for over 50 years? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: The methods and information collection priorities of the SIS have altered over the years as the nature and perception of threats to security have changed. The practices of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service that are reflected in some of the personal files are of a different era from today’s. They were meticulous in detail and often included material that would not be collected today. It is my understanding that the member’s file was closed in 2006 and there is not a new file. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Is the Prime Minister concerned that the information on my colleague’s SIS file and on other recently released files shows that over the years many of the targets of SIS surveillance have been legitimate critics of Government policy; if so what will he as the responsible Minister do to ensure that the service properly targets its activities at those who genuinely present a risk to New Zealand’s security? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: It is very clear and important that there should be a delineation between political activism and genuine security risks. I am concerned enough about that to have asked the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to undertake an investigation. He has assured me that he should be able to report back within 2 to 3 weeks. I am happy to table this afternoon the letter sent to Paul Neazor if the member wants that to be done. For the member’s benefit I can tell her that included in the terms of reference are the following: the adequacy and suitability of the service’s policies relating to the creation maintenance and closure of files on New Zealand persons in light of the service’s functions under the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Act 1969 and the adequacy and suitability of the service’s compliance with such policies in light of the matters raised in the public domain. 
Dr Kennedy Graham 
: Will the Prime Minister confirm that the Intelligence and Security Committee Act will be amended to ensure that the relevant committee that has oversight of the SIS is transformed into a proper select committee that includes members of all political parties represented in the forty-ninth Parliament thereby ensuring broader accountability to the public? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: No I cannot confirm that the committee will be widened to include all parties but I point out to the member that there are currently five independent bodies which are officers of Parliament that are separate from the executive who have some responsibility for overseeing the activities of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. They include the Privacy Commissioner the Chief Ombudsman the Controller and Auditor-General the Commissioner of Security Warrants and the Inspector-General of Security and Intelligence. 
Keith Locke 
: Will those New Zealanders who have recently received their files from the Security Intelligence Service—files that show a gross abuse of their privacy—be given an opportunity to make submissions to Justice Neazor particularly in light of the broad range of his mandate as the Minister has just expressed it; and will he recommend that perhaps the inquiry could take longer that the 2 to 3 weeks he mentioned in his previous answer? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: I am not proposing that Paul Neazor undertakes a broader consultation process. But obviously the member feels strongly about his own personal file and the collection of that file. There would be nothing to stop the member from writing to Justice Neazor and I am sure he would take correspondence such as that into consideration in his findings. 
Dr Kennedy Graham 
: I seek leave to table the current list of members of the Intelligence and Security Committee. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave has been sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. The member will table it before the end of today’s sitting. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Dr Kennedy Graham 
: May I just add— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member cannot add to that unless he is raising another point of order. If he wishes to raise another point of order to table another document then that is fine; the member may do that. 
Keith Locke 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I hate to cut across my colleague but there is a slight problem with that document in that it seems to include the Rt Hon Winston Peters in the list and I was of the understanding that he is not represented in this Parliament. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member knows that that is not a point of order. 
Hon John Key 
: I seek leave to table the letter I wrote yesterday to the Hon Paul Neazor in relation to the terms of reference that I have asked him to look at or take into consideration in his investigation of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that letter. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Roading and Public Transport—Development of New Projects 
6.  
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: Does he support the statement in the Speech from the Throne that “of particular focus will be the development of new roading and public transport projects”; if so why? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 Yes; because improving our transport infrastructure is important for the economic growth and development of New Zealand. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Why did the Minister grandly announce over the summer that he was bringing forward the construction of the Kopu Bridge to the 2010 financial year when the previous Government had already announced to the Waikato regional transport committee that that would be the year it would start; and if he is so committed to the project occurring in the same year as Labour was having it built but as a new Minister felt a great need to differentiate is it not a little hollow not to tell the Thames-Coromandel District Council at least which month in 2010 the bridge will be started? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I did indicate over the summer that there was a possibility that the Kopu Bridge would be brought forward. I suggest that the member wait until the Prime Minister’s announcements tomorrow. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Why did the Minister reopen the debate on Transmission Gully when it was the preferred route of the previous Government and continues to be the preferred route of the Wellington region; and is it not a little hollow to claim as he tried to yesterday that the Crown contribution was unfunded when it has been earmarked in the Crown accounts since 2005 when the Wellington regional transport package was first announced? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I raised it because the previous Labour Government which was in office for some 9 years raised expectations regarding this route that were unfunded at the time that it left office. It suggested that $400 million would be allocated to complete the $1 billion project but left the remaining $600 million to be funded by local bodies in the region. A regional fuel tax was talked of as a means by which that might happen; I am informed by the ministry that a Wellington regional fuel tax in the order of 13.5c per litre would be needed to fund the $600 million that the Government of the time left unfunded so it could be described as more of a wish than a plan. 
David Bennett 
: What is the forecast expenditure over the next 3 years for new and improved infrastructure for State highways as funded through the Government policy statement? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Thank you for that question. I was surprised to discover that the expenditure on new and improved State highways was forecast to decrease by 9 percent over the next 3 years in the Government policy statement signed off by the previous Labour Minister of Transport. We are therefore urgently reviewing the Government policy statement so that that decrease will not happen. The Government will be increasing funding for State highway construction not decreasing it. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Why did the Minister claim that the cost of the critical Waterview Connection in Auckland had blown out to more than $3 billion when his own report shows that the cost was actually $2 billion—when like is compared with like—before he started adding bells and whistles to the project in order to undermine it and does he not think that getting his figures wrong by 50 percent makes his claim for a review sound a little hollow? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The business case that the member refers to was commissioned by the previous Government and provided to the current Government. It says that the expensive tunnelling option would cost $2.77 billion for the twin two-lane option or over $3.1 billion for the twin three-lane option. That is a massive amount of money for one 4.5-kilometre highway. It represents 1.6 percent of GDP and there is a common theme here because Waterview was also unfunded by the previous Government. 
Small and Medium Sized Enterprises—Small-business Relief Package 
7.  
CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What comments has the Minister seen following the Government’s announcement last week to provide assistance to small and medium businesses? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Many people have welcomed the Government’s package which reduces compliance costs for business and provides support for provisional taxpayers over the next few months. Among the comments I have seen are those from Claire Massey the Director of the New Zealand Centre for Research into SMEs who says: “It’s sending a signal that ‘we are listening we can help we are thinking about what we can do to reduce the pressure points’.”; and another comment from one Ms Dot Kettle Chief Executive Officer of the Nelson Tasman Chamber of Commerce and—I understand—a former staffer of the former Government stating that reducing compliance costs and providing tax relief was imperative and that the chamber welcomed the Government’s good intentions in this area. 
Craig Foss 
: What further comments has the Minister seen following the Government’s announcement last week to provide assistance to small and medium businesses? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: There were a range of other published comments from people representing business but the most heartening comments have been—for me—from those battlers who are running small businesses who have said that at last they had a Government that was on their side. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Has the Minister seen the comment from Brian Gaynor in the  
Weekend Herald 
 that the Australian Government’s approach to the current downturn makes our response to the economic crisis look extremely cautious and conservative; the comment from John Armstrong in the same paper that the $480 million package was widely welcomed as long overdue but likely to be a drop in the bucket when the crunch comes; or the comment from the  
National Business Review 
 describing it as “largely mundane” and does the Minister now agree that these measures although positive largely reflect Labour’s pre-election announcements and incentives and in no way reflect a sufficient response to the coming grave economic crisis? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Yes and no. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: Does the Minister accept the analysis that the $480 million package for 220000 small to medium sized businesses over 4 years amounts to $10.50 a week which would hardly buy a big packet of peanuts at the supermarket? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The package sets out what are reasonable measures that will benefit a range of businesses. Some of them are measures that the previous Government came up with but the significant measures are related to the provisional tax requirements around the next payments in May which will leave $250 million or one-quarter of a billion dollars in the bank accounts of businesses. That is about as far as the Government can go at the moment without heading down a path of incurring large deficits and ever-increasing debt. 
Craig Foss 
: How does the Government’s small to medium sized enterprise package fit with its jobs and growth plan for managing the economy through the recession? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: This package fits along with a number of initiatives designed to protect people from the sharp edge of recession but also in the long run to ensure that we prepare our economy for recovery. Businesses across New Zealand have told us that these are reasonable and responsible measures and are pleased to see these measures taken alongside significant changes to the Resource Management Act reductions in tax and further spending on infrastructure. 
Minimum Wage Increase—Real Income Gain 
8.  
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
 to the  
Minister of Labour 
: What will be the gain in real income per week adjusted for inflation since 1 April 2008 of a full-time worker on the minimum wage as a result of the Government’s decision on the 2009 minimum wage increase? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 The 50c increase in the minimum wage announced yesterday is intended to maintain the real income and purchasing power of people on the minimum wage. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Why do the figures that the Minister supplied to Cabinet include theoretical job losses in firms as a result of an increase in the minimum wage but do not recognise jobs created as a result of the economic stimulus of such an increase? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: Protecting jobs is our priority. We believe that we have struck the right balance between protecting jobs and preserving purchasing power. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask you to ask the Minister to address the question. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Speaker is he allowed to do that? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The honourable member knows he must not interject during a point of order. The member is raising a valid point of order. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: There was a very clear question about the figures supplied; the member read from an answer that did not relate to the question asked and did not come close to addressing it. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: The Minister gave an answer to the question. She most certainly addressed the question. The interesting thing is that Mr Mallard alluded to some documents; he should table them if he wants to be taken seriously. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Members I will do a slightly unusual thing here. I am going to go back to the question laid down by the Hon Trevor Mallard. It is a very clear question. I invite the Minister to answer the Hon Trevor Mallard’s question given on notice. 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: In making a decision on the minimum wage consideration was given to much documentation that had been provided. The minimum wage is a balancing act and we took all figures and information into account when making that decision. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Why did the Minister change her mind as to whether there should be increase in the minimum wage? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: The member is assuming too much. There was significant consultation throughout the process of the minimum wage review and the decision was made based on that consultation and based on the information received. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You have been very clear that you want Ministers to answer questions; in fact you have asked the Minister twice now to answer this question. The answer is a number. A number has been asked for. The question is very very explicit as you yourself said. On neither occasion has the Minister come up with the number that has been asked for. She has given us a bunch of words. She has not even addressed the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think this is a very interesting question and I want Ministers to take note of it. If one reads the question laid down by the Hon Trevor Mallard one sees that it is a very clear question. The Minister had time to prepare an answer to that question. It would not take a large amount of departmental time to prepare an answer to that question. 
I note that the member asking the question did not seek my assistance when the substantive question was answered. He sought my assistance following the answer to the first supplementary question. If he had sought my assistance following the answering of the question laid down I would have been tougher on the Minister in requiring her to answer it. But I cannot be the judge of whether the member is satisfied with an answer. 
I want to make it clear to Ministers that where a question is as clear as this question is—it is probably one of the clearest questions on the Order Paper today—I expect Ministers to answer it unless they consider it not to be in the public interest to do so. We heard the honourable Prime Minister today say that to answer a particular question would not be in the public interest and that is a perfectly legitimate answer. If a Minister decides that to answer a question is not in the public interest I will accept that. But where a question is as clear as question No. 8 on today’s Order Paper is I think New Zealanders expect Ministers to answer it. 
However I point out again to the honourable member Trevor Mallard that he did not seek my assistance at the first answer. I think we need to leave the matter there for today but I think I have made it very clear to Ministers that when questions are as clear as that I think New Zealanders expect Ministers to answer them. I have made it clear now. I have intervened and I do not expect this issue to be taken any further. I thank Dr Russel Norman for raising his point of order. I think I have made it very clear to Ministers what I as Speaker expect. Unless there are further supplementary questions I will move on to question No. 9. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: On how many occasions did the Minister honour the mana-enhancing arrangement with the Maori Party and receive representations from Maori Party Ministers on the minimum wage and how many of those were in writing? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: The minimum wage review included extensive consultation including consultation with other parliamentary and Cabinet colleagues including a call for submissions. The views expressed were all given careful consideration. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have two points. First I called for the submissions; the Minister did not. But the important point is that I did not ask about Cabinet Ministers which the Minister referred to in her reply; I asked about Maori Party Ministers who are not Cabinet Ministers. She did not address that question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think I have assisted the honourable member as far as I can today in respect of answers to questions and— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. At the point when submissions were called for—and I called for the submissions—there were no Maori Party Ministers. They cannot be caught in that group of people that as part of the review was asked for submissions because it happened in September and October of last year. This is a very specific question about a group of people who were not Ministers before the election and are not Cabinet Ministers which was what the Minister discussed. She did not therefore address that question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will be aware of course that the Minister has no responsibility for matters that took place before the election. What I am prepared to do on this occasion is to allow the honourable member to ask a further supplementary question. I invite the member to do so. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The extra question should come off the Labour Party total because that member has been in the House for a very long time and he would know from his 9 years of experience of dodging all sorts of questions that quite often questions are asked the answers to which are not appreciated. The Minister made it clear that in terms of the part of the process she was responsible for there was consultation on a widespread basis. That should stand as an answer. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have heard sufficient on this. I have made it clear. I have already decided to allow the member a further supplementary question because I want to make it very clear to members and to Ministers in particular that where questions as clear as this one are laid down on the Order Paper the public of New Zealand has the right to an answer. That is why I am allowing the member a further question. But I point out to the honourable member Trevor Mallard that he cannot ask the Minister about matters that took place prior to her becoming the Minister. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Mr Speaker can I make it clear that I am not. On how many occasions did the Minister honour the mana-enhancing arrangement with the Maori Party and receive representations from Maori Party Ministers on the minimum wage and how many of those were in writing? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: Extensive consultation was undertaken in relation to the minimum wage review and I am satisfied that that consultation was sufficient for a rational reasonable and fair decision on the minimum wage to be made. 
Dr Jackie Blue 
: Has the Minister seen any reports with regard to the minimum wage? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: Yes. I have seen a report from Trevor Mallard hinting that the Opposition wants to raise it to $15 an hour. I have seen a report from Phil Goff demanding a raise to $13. I have also seen Labour’s election manifesto which promoted an increase to $12.65. Perhaps the Opposition members should sit down and work out who is actually in charge of their decisions. 
Hone Harawira 
: What steps will the Government introduce to meet the Maori Party call that the minimum wage be increased to $15 an hour and when will it be achieved? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: As with the review of the minimum wage all economic conditions at the time are taken into account. We are informed and advised that increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour may result in the loss of up to 17000 jobs and our priority is job protection. 
Electoral Finance Act—Repeal 
9.  
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: What steps is the Government taking before the next general election to improve the law governing campaign finance? 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 Later this week I will bring a bill to the House that seeks to repeal the Electoral Finance Act 2007. The Act will be replaced with an interim regime that largely reverts back to the previous law except for the rules surrounding donations and a penalties structure. The Government has committed to passing this legislation in its first 100 days. It is my intention to then embark on behalf of the Government on a wide-ranging consultative series of meetings and other consultation to form a more enduring reform of electoral finance law which will be in place for the 2011 general election. 
Chester Borrows 
: What consultation has he undertaken on these proposals? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: The repeal of the Electoral Finance Act was clearly signalled to the public as a priority for the incoming Government and last week I wrote to the leaders or the representatives in the justice area of those parties who are not represented in the Government to offer to meet with them to discuss this legislation. I am pleased to say that to date very many of those parties have accepted that invitation. 
Chester Borrows 
: Has he received any feedback on the Government’s proposed approach to electoral finance reform? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: Yes. I have taken the opportunity to speak with the Leader of the Opposition who has indicated that he is interested in engaging in the process. Incidentally I have also read a press release by the New Zealand Public Service Association which welcomes the Government’s decision to repeal the Electoral Finance Act. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: We come to question No. 10. I call the Hon Lianne Dalziel. [ 
Interruption 
] I beg the member’s pardon. I ask members if they are going to call to please do so promptly following the previous question. 
John Boscawen 
: Why does the Minister propose to carry through the donation provisions in the Electoral Finance Act when most of these were introduced after public submissions both written and oral had closed and the public had been denied a chance to comment on them? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: Transparency is an important part of enduring electoral law. 
Community Law Centres—Funding 
10.  
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: What reports if any has he received on funding for community law centres? 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I have received two reports from the Legal Services Agency and two reports from the Ministry of Justice outlining a significant drop in funding available for community law centres. As the member will know community law centres receive their funding from interest earned on solicitors’ nominated trust accounts. Because of the cooling housing market and falling interest rates I am advised that community law centres have been informed by the Legal Services Agency that their funding could drop by an initial assessment of up to 43.9 percent in some cases in the 2009-10 financial year. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Does the Minister agree in principle with the proposal for the Government to provide alternative funding for community law centres to ensure they do not need to drastically cut services at a time when demand for those services will inevitably increase; if not why not? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: I can assure the member that I am taking this matter extremely seriously. This Government is committed to access to justice for all not just for those privileged few who can afford to access such redress as that offered by for example the Supreme Court. Coincidentally the drop in community law centres’ funding is roughly equivalent to the $4.3 million that was committed by the previous Government to the bronze plating of the new Supreme Court. 
Shane Ardern 
: Why is the drop in funding occurring? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: Community law centres are funded primarily through revenue from the Lawyers and Conveyancers Special Fund. The fund consists of 60 percent of interest earned on solicitors’ nominated trust accounts. As I said earlier the recent cooling of the housing market is reducing the availability of funding. This matter requires the Government’s attention and that is what it is receiving. I can advise the House that this issue is forming part of my discussions and is part of Budget considerations. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Is the Minister aware that the Ministry of Justice deferred its planned review of services and funding arrangements of community law centres in 2006 due to the then high level of the special fund— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: And the previous Government did nothing. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: —yes it was under the previous Government—and also the stability of the special fund? Circumstances have changed and we have just heard that it is the interest generated from the special fund that is the source of the funding so it is not unreasonable to ask the Minister when he instructed the Ministry of Justice to commence that review in light of the report of the Legal Services Agency. 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: When this matter was brought to my attention just prior to the new Government being sworn in it was one of the first things I raised with officials upon my taking the warrant of Minister of Justice. Since that time as well as receiving those reports I can advise the member that I will be meeting with the Coalition of Community Law Centres on 19 February. Kevin Campbell will be leading that delegation as I understand it. As I said I take this matter seriously. It will be forming part of my Budget deliberations and considerations with the Minister of Finance. 
Rahui Katene 
: What actions will the Government take to review the actual percentage of interest earned on solicitors’ nominated trust accounts that is retained by the banks in order to be able to support those most in need of gaining access to justice and to enable them to continue to benefit from the services of community law centres? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: I can advise the member that the very matter she raises is currently forming part of my deliberations as I work towards what I hope will be a solution that meets at least some of the expectations of most parties. 
Resource Management Act—Reforms 
11.  
NICKY WAGNER (National) 
 to the  
Minister for the Environment 
: What progress has the Government made in meeting the confidence and supply agreement that “National and ACT agree to promote investment jobs wages employment and prosperity as well as environmental improvement through amendments to the RMA.”? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 We have made good progress with the first phase of Resource Management Act reforms. The technical advisory group was established in early December. Ministers and officials have worked over the holiday period on a package of about 162 amendments to the Resource Management Act. These were approved by Cabinet and the Government caucus. The Parliamentary Counsel Office is beavering away on the drafting of that bill as we speak so that it can be introduced to the House at the earliest opportunity. 
Nicky Wagner 
: Are there provisions in the bill that will improve New Zealand’s environmental management as well as reducing the costs delays and uncertainty of the Resource Management Act? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Yes. The environment is as much a loser from the excessive bureaucracy of the Resource Management Act as our economy because if it takes for ever to fix water transport and such other infrastructure it comes at a considerable cost to the environment. The bill will also have specific provisions that help the environment. There will be tougher fines for those who breach consents and the powers of the court to be able to change the conditions of consents will bring about environmental benefits. The bill will also include provisions to strengthen and improve national policy statements and national environment standards. A significant change requires that authorities like telecommunications companies and power companies will no longer be the decision makers on their own applications for designations. Instead these decisions will be made independently. 
Brendon Burns 
: Can the Minister explain why neither he nor a single member of any group representing environmental concerns was able to be present at a major forum on the Resource Management Act and water issues held in Christchurch last December when three other senior Ministers from the South Island were present; and does this highlight the lack of priority being given to protecting our environment when the Government is promoting its changes to the Resource Management Act? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: There was a very constructive meeting between the Minister of Finance the Minister for Economic Development and the Minister of Agriculture on the very important issue of water storage in Canterbury. I confess to being buried in these Resource Management Act reforms albeit I have to say that the chair of the Canterbury Regional Council Mr Kerry Burke— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Sir Kerry to you. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Sir Kerry Burke a former Labour MP has issued a press release strongly endorsing the Government’s environmental reforms in respect of the Resource Management Act that is completely out of step with what Labour has had to say about those reforms. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Has the Government considered the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s concerns in her report on the clean-up of the contaminated site at Mapua where the previous Government breached conditions of the consents yet the council was powerless to act under the existing Resource Management Act? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Yes. It is wrong that any private person or company can be prosecuted for breach of consents but Government agencies cannot. The amendments we propose will enable councils to issue enforcement orders abatement notices excessive noise directions and prosecutions where Crown agencies breach consents. It is the view of this Government that this law needs to bind the Crown in the same way it binds private individuals. 
Brendon Burns 
: I seek the leave of the House to table a document. It is a media report of the Christchurch Resource Management Act water forum and it details that environmental groups were deliberately excluded by Government Ministers. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Is it to be your convention that the tabling of documents will occur at the end of questions rather than—as the member chose to do—midway through them? It was the practice of the previous Speaker to require the tabling of documents to occur at the end of supplementary questions. Is it your intention to continue that practice? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The honourable member makes a good point. Although the Standing Orders are I think not precise on that matter for the courtesy of all members in the House it may be a good practice to continue—that leave to table documents is sought at the end—although sometimes it is difficult for members to know when the end of supplementary questions arises. Where members are seeking the call to ask a supplementary question it is clear the end of supplementary questions has not arisen so in the future the member could perhaps attempt to wait until it has. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think part of the problem that arose in that case—and we have had a number of examples of it already today—is that the practice has grown that because you have a list in front of you as we all know people are often not really calling or are barely calling clearly when they stand up. Members stand up open their mouths and hope something happens at that point. Of course they may simply be leaving the House at that stage. I think it would be helpful to remind members that in fact they are not entitled to the call unless they make the call and you Mr Speaker cannot be expected to divine the intentions of people just because they stand up. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I thank the honourable member for a very good point of order. I would urge all members of the House to reflect on that. Members are not entitled to speak unless they are acknowledged and named by the Speaker. I cannot tell that a member is seeking the call unless he or she actually seeks the call. The honourable member has made a very good point and if we could try to adopt that as we move ahead I would certainly appreciate it and it would help the good order of the House. 
David Bennett 
: Noting the very long time frames in getting approval for major roading projects like the Wellington City bypass and the Albany to Puhoi realignment B (ALPURT B) under the existing Resource Management Act how will these reforms streamline the process so we can get on and build the infrastructure New Zealand so desperately needs? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The member is absolutely right to highlight fiascos like the Wellington City bypass which took 15 years and ALPURT B which took over a decade. [ 
Interruption 
] I hear the Labour spokesperson on transport demanding that we build new roads at the same time as members opposite oppose any reform of the Resource Management Act—the Act that prevents us from being able to build the roads. The reforms that we will advance will provide for a new national consenting process with an environmental protection authority and an enhanced board of inquiry that will ensure that there are tight appeals and that we get decisions in a timely way so this new Government can get on and build the infrastructure New Zealand needs. 
Nikki Kaye 
: Are there measures in this reform package to address the sort of supermarket circus we see going on in Auckland where families are missing out on cheaper groceries because the Resource Management Act is being used as a tool to block competing supermarkets? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Yes there are very specific provisions to try to prevent the Act from being used for trade competition purposes. The changes curtail such behaviour by prohibiting objections based on the effects of trade competition removing standing for trade competitors and allowing damages—not just legal costs—where the courts find that an objection was trade motivated. We will also have provisions to deal with astroturfing. This is where business competitors create artificial grassroots organisations to oppose a development. The bill will require disclosure where trade competitors are funding community objections. 
Katrina Shanks 
: Has the Minister noted the case in Wellington where one of the councillors lodged an Environment Court appeal under the Resource Management Act against his own council’s decision; and does the Minister think this is appropriate? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: No I do not think it is at all appropriate. Effectively a councillor who did not win the argument around the council table is now trying to relitigate the issue in the Environment Court. It is a good example of why we need to constrain appeal rights from being used in ways for which they are not intended. The argument to me appears to be far more about local politics than about the environment. 
Tourism—Credit Crunch Impact 
12 
.  
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
 on behalf of  
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) 
 to the  
Minister of Tourism 
: Does he agree with the statement that there need to be “short-term steps” to “reduce the impact of the international credit crunch on the tourism sector so it is strongly placed to achieve growth” if so why? 
Hon JOHN KEY (Minister of Tourism) 
: 
 Yes I agree with the full quote which is from the National Party’s tourism policy and actually states: “take the necessary short-term steps to secure the stability of the banking system and reduce the impact of the international credit crunch on the tourism sector so it is strongly placed to achieve growth as markets improve.” I certainly hope the member is not about to suggest that the New Zealand banking system is unstable. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Given that as the Minister has acknowledged the statement in the primary question comes from the 2008 National Party manifesto will he undertake to the House to honour the manifesto promise that his Government will ensure a reversal in the 1 percent decline in tourist numbers experienced by New Zealand in 2008? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: The member can rest assured that I will do everything possible to ensure that the New Zealand banking system is stable. 
Charles Chauvel 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That was not my question. I do not think the question was addressed; it certainly was not answered. The question was not about the banking system at all. 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: If the Labour Party wants to doctor quotes from the National Party it should expect the answer it got. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think I have heard enough on this. I do not think the House needs to waste more time on that. The Prime Minister made a perfectly fair point. The quote was barely a full quote so the member cannot expect much other than a political answer. I invite the member to ask his further supplementary question should he wish to. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Does the Minister agree with the statement that tourism is “quite a low-value part of our economy”; if so why? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: The tourism industry is extremely important. That is why I chose to take it as a portfolio and why I chose not to have it a long way down the ministerial order as the Government that the member once represented did. 
Charles Chauvel 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I asked the Minister whether he agreed with the statement and if so why. He did not answer that. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member has been around for a while now. When members ask for opinions they know they cannot expect explicit answers. I made it very clear today that when members put down detailed questions I will endeavour to ensure that members and the public of New Zealand get sensible answers to those questions. But where opinions are sought members cannot expect precise answers. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Is the Minister aware that it was John Key when he was the Leader of the Opposition who called tourism “low value” and suggested that the problem was that “people just don’t get paid enough from it”; if he is aware of that why does he not heed the former Opposition leader John Key and give the thousands of tourism workers on the minimum wage more than a measly 9c an hour increase in their wage? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: It is reasonably well known that one of the challenges for the tourism industry is to try to increase the yield in that industry and that is something we are doing. It is also true that a lot of people who work in the tourism industry are paid the minimum wage. They would have been pleased yesterday to receive an increase of 50c per hour. They will also be very pleased that we are a Government that has a sense of balance and is not putting their jobs at threat. 
Charles Chauvel 
: I seek leave to table the article in  
Mountain Scene  
from February 2007 in which Mr Key said that workers in tourism just do not get paid enough. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that article. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Can the Minister of Tourism confirm in a way that the Minister of Labour was unable to confirm that in fact the real increase after the effect of inflation has taken place for workers in the tourist industry was 9c an hour or $3.60 a week which is not even a fraction of the block of cheese that the Prime Minister used to talk so fondly about? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is a fair stretch from the question but I am sure the Prime Minister is capable of handling it. 
Paul Quinn 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am a bit confused. I thought I heard you agree that leave to table papers should be sought at the end of supplementary questions. We have just had a supplementary question after the honourable MP moved to table a piece of paper. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member has raised a perfectly valid point. But it is not a matter of the Standing Orders; it is a matter of courtesy to members. The fact that the member sought to table a document prior to the question by the honourable Leader of the Opposition is not a matter of order; it is a matter of courtesy. My concern was that the honourable Leader of the Opposition’s question was somewhat stretching the primary question but I am sure the honourable Prime Minister can handle it. 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: There is no debate that the increase in the minimum wage is there to reflect the increase in the CPI and of course in real terms it is not large. But the point here is that it represents a 4.2 percent increase. The minimum wage in Australia was reviewed on 1 October 2008; it was a 4.1 percent increase. I think that workers in New Zealand will look to this Government and say there is a sense of balance here and that it is increasing their pay to take advantage of the situation that there is an increase in the CPI. I make the point that maybe the Leader of the Opposition should go and read his own party’s manifesto because what it actually states is that in these difficult economic times the minimum wage should be increased either relative to the CPI or average wages. Guess what? That is what we did. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Can the Minister quantify that the real increase in wages that he granted yesterday to low-paid workers in the tourism industry was actually 9c an hour or $3.60 a week—yes or no? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: I can confirm that yesterday someone who works 40 hours a week got $20 as an increase. I can also confirm that he or she will almost certainly get a tax cut. I have made no attempt to argue otherwise than that the increase is relevant to the CPI. The member will not find any debate on that on this side of the House. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Earlier when the Minister of Labour was asked to quantify a sum you said that my colleague the Hon Trevor Mallard should have raised a point of order because the Minister did not address the question in that way. You have just heard the Prime Minister do exactly the same thing. I presume that the same rule that affected Kate Wilkinson also applies to John Key. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not need to have any further contribution on that. The honourable member tests my goodwill a little. The clear difference is that the Hon Trevor Mallard put down a clear question on the Order Paper. The Minister had a significant amount of time to prepare an answer for it. In the case of the honourable member’s supplementary question it was stretching the primary question. I did not stop him from asking it and I allowed the Prime Minister to answer it. The member then asked a further supplementary question on the basis of the Prime Minister’s answer and received a further answer to the question. I believe that there has been a fair balance in the exchange on that final question. But I repeat for the benefit of members of the Opposition that in relation to the Hon Trevor Mallard’s question earlier on today I think it was a valid point that where a question is so clear in the way it is put on the Order Paper members of the public can expect an answer to be given to it. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You appear to be setting down some reasonably stringent standards for the way in which questions are asked and answered. I ask you at the end of proceedings today to look at the  
Hansard 
 record of the question and then particularly as the question is about “short-term steps” to “reduce the impact of the international credit crunch on the tourism sector” at how we got on to the debate about a 9c an hour increase or whatever it might have been. I think that really does stretch the process on this question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not need any further assistance on this matter. I do not want to take up further time of the House. Had the Prime Minister not wished to answer the question he could have made it very clear that he believed the question was out of order. The Prime Minister seemed to answer it with some enthusiasm. That entitled the Leader of the Opposition to ask a further supplementary question and I believe that is the way the House should flow in good order. We do not need to get too precious and pedantic about these things. I repeat what I said earlier: where primary questions are laid down clearly members of the public expect an answer. When Ministers are answering questions they can expect that the answers they give may be further questioned by members of the Opposition. 
Address in Reply 
Debate resumed from 9 December 2008. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Economic Development) 
: 
 I am very pleased to make a few comments today in support of the Speech from the Throne. I start off by calling the House’s attention to the amendment to the Address in Reply. The amendment is in the name of the Hon Phil Goff the current Leader of the Opposition. If people were to read the amendment they would see that it does not state that the Opposition has no confidence in the Government. That is what Opposition parties normally do; they move an amendment to express no confidence in the Government. But Mr Goff has moved an amendment to add some words to the Address. I will not go through the words of the entire amendment but I encourage people to read them and see whether my interpretation is correct. The amendment mentions many things that should be done but in effect Mr Goff is asking the Government to fix up the mess left by the Labour Government when it left office. I ask subsequent Labour speakers whether they intend to support the confidence motion when it is voted on later in the week. Clearly Labour members know they made an absolute pig’s ear of their last few years in Government and this nice piece of prose on the front page of today’s Order Paper shows that it would like to see the National Government kindly fix that up. Indeed that is our intention. 
It is about 84 days since the National Government came to office and those 84 days have seen a record of achievement very much focused on the prosperity and well-being of New Zealanders. We have come into Government at a very difficult economic time. The whole world is experiencing difficulty and everybody knows a great deal about those difficulties. But we have decided not to sit behind a cloud of doom. We have been very very proactive in getting out there and making sure we do what is necessary and what is possible to ensure that New Zealanders are able to weather this difficult time as well as possible. I want to talk about a number of the things we have done. We have introduced a stimulus package for the economy worth more than $9 billion over the next 3 years. That is one of the biggest packages provided by any Government anywhere in the world. It is designed to ensure that New Zealanders are as much as possible insulated from the worst effects of these economic downturns. 
The first aspect that will be most notable to New Zealanders who are fortunate enough to still be in work is the assurance of a support package for those who might be out of work on a temporary basis. From April this year there will be a tax cut. There will be another one in 2010 and another one in 2011. That will see more of the dollars that New Zealanders earn in their jobs every day stay in their pockets and it will give them a great deal more choice. It is notable too that even though the Government has introduced this big fiscal stimulus package interest rates have fallen and that will be making things a little easier for some households. It will also make things a little easier for some of our businesses. In this environment we have also seen a slight drop in our exchange rate and although we do not want to see an unnecessary reduction in the purchasing power that New Zealanders have with their hard-earned dollars it does help our exporters and we encourage that. The export receipts that we have seen so far are looking very very good considering the circumstances. We know that fluctuations in the dollar are not good but this is a time of tough trading and we are encouraged that our exporters are doing what they can to get out into markets and are adapting very very quickly to those difficult circumstances. 
Last Wednesday the Prime Minister unveiled a package of measures for small to medium enterprises in New Zealand and it was interesting to note that although on the one hand it was very much welcomed by people who understand what it is like to be in business—to worry about paying the wages about staying inside the overdraft about paying their suppliers—on the other hand those commentators who largely have never had anything to do with a small to medium enterprise were typically critical. This is a package of measures designed to assist the cash flow of small to medium enterprises and anyone knows that cash flow is the arterial blood of those businesses and needs to be protected. That package focuses on cash flow. It has 11 different tax changes in it and the cost of those will be some $480 million over the next 3 years. The interesting thing is that most of that cost was met by compliance. There was an unproductive amount of money being sucked out of businesses and we have said it is better placed back in the tills of those in business and back in their bank accounts where they can use it for the betterment of their business. The package sees a reduction in the amount of form-filling that is necessary: the easing of provisional tax returns and the calculations that go around those. That is the bread and butter that we need to put on the table to help small business and this Government has done that. 
What is more we note that a lot of those small-business operators are pretty much out there on their own. They might employ five six seven eight nine 10 or even 12 people but by and large they carry the can themselves. They cannot always go to their bank manager to talk about their difficulties. They cannot always go to their accountant to talk about their difficulties. They cannot always talk to their workforce about what they might want to do inside the business. So we have expanded the mentoring service and we have expanded the business health check service. Those people are able to ring up and get hold of someone who will understand what their position is and who will want to help them get through the worst of these times. 
We are not only doing things to help small business we are not only doing things to ensure that New Zealanders adversely affected by job loss are supported but we are also embarking on a very large infrastructure plan for New Zealand. The Prime Minister will be announcing the key elements of that plan in a speech tomorrow. But what should be remembered is that this country has a significant deficit of infrastructure. There has been a poor spend in that area for quite some time and it is infrastructure that is the enabling aspect of business in this country. Not only does it help our quality of life but it also oils the wheels of the economy. The important thing is that this programme will see jobs created it will see jobs stay in place and it will see wages at least stabilise if not grow over the next few years. Most important it will leave New Zealand in a position where once the recovery comes—and it will come and it will come for us much more quickly than for many other jurisdictions—we can take advantage of that and see our economy grow once again at the sorts of levels that we would like levels that will see the incomes of New Zealanders significantly rise. 
Not only have we taken care of those economic matters that are very early on and very embryonic in the stage of life of this Government but we have also dealt with some of the social excesses that the last Government became so unpopular for. It was known for telling New Zealanders what they could do when they could do it and how they could do it. So we have in fact said to New Zealanders that they can choose the sort of light bulbs they want to put into their lights. We have said to New Zealanders that we are getting rid of the so-called food police out of school canteens. We have also said that many of those people who decide to go down to the gym and want to leave their kids in a little bit of care will be able to after we have dealt with those regulations very very shortly. This has been 84 days of activity entirely focused on the betterment of New Zealanders—84 days focused on doing what a Government needs to do to ensure that New Zealanders survive and prosper in difficult times. It is a privilege to be part of this. All of us who are in Government recognise and respect the fact that New Zealanders have great expectations of us; the first 84 days most certainly indicate that we are up to that challenge. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 That contribution was from the Hon Gerry Brownlee the Minister of Energy and Resources who appears to have summered well. I would like to say to Mr Brownlee: “Please please do not attempt any more jawboning of petrol companies.” because since the member told them to put their prices down the prices have gone up every week. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I seek leave to table a document showing that oil companies put prices down 3c today. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Can he also please stop telling electricity companies to keep their prices down because those prices have gone up as well. 
On 1 April this year the chief executive officer of Telecom will receive a $500 - plus-a-week tax cut. On 1 April a home-care worker looking after a sick and disabled person will receive a $12-a-week tax cut. The chief executive officer of Telecom earns $1.75 million a year plus that amount again in incentive bonuses cars and so on; the home-care worker earns $26000 a year and uses his or her own car and petrol to provide the service. That worker will get $3.60 net a week in an increase in the minimum wage. On 1 April this year a pensioner will get less in his or her pension per week than the chief executive officer of Telecom will get in a tax cut. On 1 April this year a couple with two kids on a joint income of $48000 will get $18 a week in a tax cut; the Prime Minister John Key will get $183 a week in a tax cut. So when it comes to real messages to New Zealand about the seriousness of the world economic situation I have to say that I think that Fran O’Sullivan in the  
New Zealand Herald  
got it about right when she said that John Key should postpone the upcoming tax cuts on 1 April and instead redirect the already budgeted funds to provide a fillip to our most cash-strapped consumers. I agree with her and I say to John Key: “Don’t lecture low-income New Zealanders on the need to keep their wages as low as possible.” as he did when he announced the rise in the minimum wage while refusing to turn down the $183-a-week tax cut that he will get on 1 April. I say to Mr English: “Don’t lecture wage earners to keep their wages low when you are going to take $120 a week in a tax cut.” Where is the moral high ground in that? It makes a mockery of the freeze on MPs’ salaries that we have talked about in this House today. 
What we are seeing is the real meaning of a fair society under a National Government. This is how it looks after the vulnerable. This is how it looks after the underclass when it tries to keep those people out of poverty. This is that Government’s response to the economic crisis that we are facing as Kiwis the like of which we have never seen before. The poorest in our society will carry the biggest load; they will be the victims of this depression. It will be low-income earners it will be those who lose their jobs and it will be those who care for families for the sick and for the disabled. It will be those who are on a fixed income and who are too old to work any more. If this Government truly cares for the people of New Zealand as it claims to do these are the people it should be taking care of. But you see the last 80 days of the 100 days of action promised by John Key have been about a long hot summer holiday. They have been about the surf the sun the seashore and a fair bit of political posturing. 
Before Christmas the National Government rammed legislation through this House under urgency without select committee scrutiny or any public input and that has raised many concerns from commentators around New Zealand. They are saying that if the National Government which was going to be so open so transparent and so consultative starts its term of office like this then that does not bode well for the next 2 years. I have to ask whether it was absolutely crucial that workers starting a new job now should have their rights removed for their first 90 days of employment. Was it absolutely crucial to do that before Christmas? Was it extraordinarily urgent for bail laws to be changed before Christmas while legislation cracking down on gangs was ignored? Was it imperative that education standards that already existed had to be put into legislation and passed before Christmas when legislation to address family violence was only talked about? You see that is what I call political posturing. The legislation passed before Christmas did not make a blind bit of difference and it did not make New Zealand a better place over the Christmas holidays. Did the man who was charged with violently beating up a small child over Christmas get bail? Yes he did. Did the changes in education standards matter during the 6 to 8 weeks of the school holidays when nobody was at school? No they did not. Did the murderers of Nia Glassie get longer sentences? No they did not. What this Government should have been putting first second and third was this country’s response to the economic crisis that we face. 
You see National is failing New Zealanders by not treating the economic problems we have and the looming problems we have with any urgency at all. I believe that we are living in a fool’s paradise. I hear it every day; people say “New Zealand will be OK. She’ll be right. It won’t happen here. Our businesses are different.” Why do we think that the whole world is facing an unprecedented crisis but New Zealand is immune? And that view I have to say is being fostered by the drip-feed “no worries mate” approach from the Government. It is fostering this complacency in New Zealand because it has not put any urgency into addressing this problem. 
 First of all it has been a long summer holiday and Anne Tolley proudly proclaimed that she was Prime Minister for 1 week of it. Goodness me! Thank goodness the banks in New Zealand did not know that. Then there was the hastily called so-called Cabinet summit. Five Cabinet Ministers without the Minister for Social Development and Employment huddled around a table in a hastily called summit and said: “What will we do? What will we say? John’s just got back from Hawaii and people are saying we’re doing nothing.” They called a meeting of five people a Cabinet summit. As my colleague Clayton Cosgrove said what do they call a full Cabinet meeting? Is it a Nuremberg rally? Cabinet meetings of Ministers are held every day of the week but what was interesting is that the Minister for Social Development and Employment herself was not even invited. That is how important National believes unemployment is in New Zealand. She did not even get the phone call or the invitation. Today in the House she blustered and flustered and said that the Government is doing lots. But did those Ministers invite her to sit around the Cabinet summit? No they did not. She is not a player in the game. In fact who is playing this game? 
New Zealand has seen nothing from this Government so far. The Minister for Social Development and Employment has managed one press release on employment matters in the 3 months that she has been Minister. It is 3 months today. There has been one press release in 3 months such is her concern about unemployed people in New Zealand. I ask the Government: why do we have to wait for a talkfest before we get some action out of it? After all the Government does not believe in talkfests. It cancelled the talkfest for doctors and nurses. It cancelled a little conference that the Families Commission was going to hold. But the Government is going to hold a talkfest at the end of February. Nobody knows the cost. It will do nothing and the Government has done nothing. 
Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health) 
: 
 That was a most interesting speech from the temporary deputy leader of the Labour Party Annette King. She failed to remind Parliament that she and Mr Goff were members of a Government that voted in 1987 to give Cabinet Ministers a tax reduction of $500 a week. Annette King voted to give herself a $500 tax cut in 1987—that is what she voted for for herself—but she does not want to tell that to New Zealanders. 
We are seeing the sad remnants of a once successful Government and those Labour members do not know where they are going. The National Government has been working hard on the issues that matter. The Labour Party has been busy issuing press releases from the cafes of Western Europe berating the new Government. Do members recall Mr Goff’s press release from early January saying that the Government should be on the job doing the business? Phil Goff said that from Adelaide South Australia. Then the next day Helen Clark issued a press release saying: “The Government’s not on the job.” She was speaking from a European ski field. What we have at the moment from the deputy leader of the Labour Party Annette King is yet more of the ridiculous cant and slogans that sustained Labour members in Government for a few years and she is now trying to get away with it in Opposition. 
New Zealand is facing serious economic challenges. Fortunately we now have a Government that is up to those challenges and is providing the leadership that New Zealand needs. As our Prime Minister told the House today New Zealand has the third-largest economic stimulus package in the Western World and that package is made up of tax cuts for hard-working New Zealanders to give them every incentive to get ahead and to keep the money that they are earning at a time when they need it. 
The Government has also announced a raft of measures to assist small and medium enterprises to weather the economic storms that are coming. One of those changes includes in my own portfolio of State services a requirement for Government departments to pay their bills on time if not early in order to assist the cash flow of small business. The Prime Minister also announced today that tomorrow there will be more announcements on infrastructure investment in New Zealand spanning not only State housing but roading and other projects that will be of interest to New Zealanders. On top of that this Government has a very strong focus on improving front-line services for New Zealanders. The response has been swift and clear. There are tax cuts a business package for small and medium sized enterprises investments in infrastructure and a Government commitment to focusing on front-line services. 
There are very difficult times ahead for this country and it is fortunate that we have a Prime Minister and a Minister of Finance who say that this is a problem that requires sensible long-term solutions in order to assist New Zealand in the way forward. I think that is very important. I do not think New Zealanders should listen to the failed deputy leader of the Labour Party when she talks as she does about an agenda that is not relevant to ordinary New Zealanders. Ordinary New Zealanders are worried about the future. They are worried about their hospitals they are worried about their schools and they are pleased that they have a Government that will deal with it. 
If we look at the problems that we have inherited in the New Zealand public health system we realise that the previous Government should hang its head in shame. Not only have we inherited a massively worsening financial situation in our district health boards but we have deficits growing by the day. The previous Government said that hospitals would record deficits of $110 million. We now know that it is probably much closer to $160 million—a 50 percent increase on what it told the country—and that is indeed very serious. 
But there is good news in the way that this Government is dealing with the health portfolio. Firstly we have secured the additional $750 million put aside for Vote Health despite the deteriorating financial conditions. Our health service is in a privileged position in that we have that money coming forward and it is our responsibility to make sure that it is spent in the best and most effective way in order to help New Zealanders with their front-line services. 
Secondly we have appointed a high-powered ministerial group which has been established with some of New Zealand’s best health and financial people that is aiming to assist the Government in its agenda of expanding the role of clinical leadership in the New Zealand public health system and giving a much greater say to doctors and nurses in the running of the New Zealand public health service and also in the role that they can play in assisting us to provide better quicker and more convenient care for New Zealanders. The ministerial group is also looking at areas of poor-quality spending on the bureaucracy that can be moved into providing additional front-line services. 
We have put a cap on the health bureaucracy and we have delivered on our pre-election commitments in order to ensure that publicly funded Herceptin is available to the women of New Zealand. As recently as last week I met with the chief executives from the three Auckland district health boards and we are rapidly commencing progress on building Auckland’s first elective surgery super-theatre complex to help the Government address the shortfall in elective surgery around the country. 
We have inherited an incredible number of vulnerable health services. Yesterday I met with representatives from the Royal New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. I was alerted by them to the large number of rural and regional hospital services that are vulnerable because of the staffing crisis that the previous Government ignored. This Government is determined to deal with those issues in order to make sure that we have an opportunity to ensure that New Zealand’s public health services are maintained and improved. 
The Government’s focus on improving front-line services is also a part of the important work that other Ministers have been doing. The Minister of Education Anne Tolley in setting that cracking pace in bringing in legislated national standards in schools is providing the leadership that New Zealand parents are looking for. The Minister wants to ensure that we do have those national standards in our schools and doing this will send a strong message to the education sector and to parents that the Government gives strong priority to that policy. 
 The Government has also moved rapidly to advance its agenda in the law and order area. It has made changes to legislation brought before the previous Parliament and those changes will be made in the next few weeks as we advance through the rest of our legislative programme. These are things that matter to New Zealanders and they are the priorities of the new Government. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Thank goodness! 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Thank goodness because the previous Government had lost its way and its focus. In fact it was so fixated on winning the election that there were all sorts of things that it did not tell New Zealanders about. We already know that there were burgeoning deficits in the health system that the previous Government did not talk about. We know about the huge number of vulnerable services and workforce shortages that the previous Government did not want to talk about. 
As Mrs Wong has said the previous Government did not want to talk about the billion-dollar Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) liability that it kept covered up and did not tell New Zealanders about. We know that there is an investigation into how the Public Service and the previous Government dealt with that knowledge about the ACC liability and I think New Zealanders will be interested to see how the Public Finance Act was respected—or not—in the way that that was dealt with. 
I am proud to stand up in this House and support what the Prime Minister has been saying. I think he is providing New Zealanders with the leadership that they need at this difficult time. As Ms Bennett so appropriately said during question time today the Government cannot turn away the storm clouds of the economic crisis that are travelling towards our country and washing over our shores. However we can certainly blunt some of the worst impacts of that crisis for New Zealanders and their families. That is part of the package that the Government has been working on and will continue to deliver for New Zealanders and their families. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rawhiti) 
: 
 That was very interesting. The first speaker this afternoon Gerry Brownlee said a whole lot of platitudes about how great things are going to happen for this nation. There has been a lot of blame when looking back on the previous Government. Let us remind ourselves what Dr Cullen left the current Government. He left a stable economy and an advancing regional economy that was consistent with profit over 7 successive years and those who milk cows have done very very well. A lot of the big businesses in this country continually maintained profits and sizable margins. 
Hon John Carter 
: Dear old Parekura! 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I tell John Carter—“Hone” Carter—that there were sizable margins especially north of Auckland. It was one of the highest-performing regions and was driven by the previous Government’s stimulus package which was more than what that member could do in his time. 
It is amazing when we listen to half of the stuff that comes out of those members’ mouths over there. Mr Brownlee said that the Government is heading to a great place and that it is talking about infrastructure. Some of that infrastructure was so bad when the previous National Government left office—after it sold a whole lot of the State houses; do members remember that?—that infrastructure has taken a long time to recover. We have to ask where this Government is leading us. Will it create jobs and businesses? When we listen to the Minister of Labour who sits at the back there we can already tell that she has been sucked in by the framework of long-tooth bureaucrats who talk about the labour market. All of a sudden she pops up and says that 75000 people have to be made unemployed because of this just in case the minimum wage is lifted up. 
Let us look at some of the facts about this great package that the Prime Minister announced today. There were some simple things. If a person is earning $750000 a year—and a lot of those members’ mates are—that person will gain $260 a week under National’s plan but all that the families on the average wage of $45000 a year will gain is an extra two bucks a week. The $20 figure being touted by the Prime Minister is a real con. It is outrageous. On $45000 a year families barely break even. And what was the edict of the Labour Government that was driven by Dr Cullen? It was about Working for Families. It was about early childcare support. It was about all those issues that were relevant and how a Government can balance progress in the economy with ensuring that those in need get help rather than those with heaps of money and pockets full of greed. That is what has happened. 
National members were so serious about things. One of the first things that happened when they became the Government was they knocked the 4 percent minimum KiwiSaver contribution to 2 percent. What is that all about? It tells us that they are scrambling. I suspect that there are a whole lot of late-night photocopying sessions going on. They are talking about these programmes but when we test them on the detail they do not know what the programmes mean. They are photocopying what this Opposition left for them when it was in Government. They have had a cakewalk since they came into Government. It was recognised by the OECD; we were third out of countries that have a recognised stabilised economy. I fear for the fate of this country with those members handling the books as they do not even understand the basic assumptions relating to the CPI. It is more that just hourly rates of pay—and here we go again. If we go back to the last time the National Party came into Government what did it do in its first year? It talked up the recession. I am not denying that there was a global recession but the Government talked it up big time. And who did its members attack? The workers of this country. 
What do Maori get out of this package? What do the average workers of New Zealand get out of it? Government members talk about the ordinary people. I am trying to define what they mean by “ordinary people”. Is it those people who funded their last election run? Is it other people? It is the working-class people Labour cares about? As a Christmas present the Government dished out a hire and fire bill that deprives workers of their rights. It is one of the most sanctimonious evil bits of legislation that this country has seen for a long long time. A person can work for 3 months with no rights whatsoever. Where else in this Government’s legislation can we recall that happening? That bill was about undermining people’s rights. 
Today the Minister for Social Development and Employment said that Labour did nothing. When we previously came into Government the unemployment rate for Maori was at 21 to 22 percent and we got it down to 6 percent. The general unemployment rate was 18 percent and we took it down to 4 percent. That is real action. We ensured that income-related rents survived. What are those members saying? It is important that we support businesses but the other thing those members did along with stripping down KiwiSaver was to remove the research and development fund. There has been a heck of a lot of pontification about keeping the export market up and keeping businesses global—all of those aspects. But the Government’s members are just picking and choosing what matters more for their friends. The Minister of Education amazed me because I was at the function where she said that she had been Prime Minister for a week and that it was very difficult. I was the Prime Minister for 6 days one year and I ran the Government from the beach in Tolaga Bay. That was how quiet it was so I am not too sure what she was up to. 
We have tax legislation that was rammed through Parliament which proves that National does not care about tens of thousands of Kiwi battlers. I remember someone from that side of the House reciting about a block of cheese. Do members remember that? The members said “Ha ha! A block of cheese!”. The hourly rate is so miserable that people cannot even afford one of those slices in the packs. This is disgraceful; it really is. You know it is just unfair and it is really interesting to see what Hone Harawira said in the House tonight. The Prime Minister John Key said that he did not really consult with the Maori Party on the minimum wage. I commend Hone Harawira because he was musing about why his party is connected with a party that has a totally different position from where his people want to be. He was talking about maintaining the issue of $15. It will be very interesting to see where that will get to. Let us talk about the minimum wage. When National left Government last time and we came in the minimum wage was $7. National increased it by 86c in the 9 years it was in Government. This is what we have to watch with this Government—what is it really going to deliver to the working people? In 9 years National took the minimum wage up by 86c. When we came into Government it was $7. We took it up every year for 9 years to $12. We also took the youth minimum wage up to $9— 
Chris Tremain 
: Every year? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: —I say to Mr Tremain and a lot of those people in Hawke’s Bay would have benefited from what we did. 
Chris Tremain 
: 50c in 84 days isn’t too bad. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: No the truth is that it is $2 not $20. That is what those members have to hang their heads on. Despite all the rhetoric this is back to the 1990s. You know leopards cannot change their spots and if we look at this front bench we see that it is the same front bench that did all of that stuff. Those members are reciting and enticing the public to suggest that they have the answers. Mr Tremain knows that they do not have the answers. Even though the Maori Party is there in partnership—86 days Mr Brownlee says—the honeymoon is heading for a crash. The bridal suite is closed the posy has been thrown over the shoulder and they are starting to make up reasons for why they are doing supposedly great things for New Zealand. 
I believe that the next 3 years will be some of the worst years for this country not just because of the global recession but because of the return of these people who wounded the working class in this country. They are at it again. The member Tony Ryall was talking about the improvement in health. What did he leave us with? This is the same person who was talking about people lying on beds in the corridors. He closed down a whole lot of the hospitals. The other thing that seems to be happening is the blaming of two lots of people: the Public Service and the governance—“If they don’t agree with us we’ll sack them.” That is one thing this Labour Party can say it would never get involved with. Like one of our great leaders here has said— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I regret to advise the member that his time has expired. 
Hon Dr RICHARD WORTH (Minister of Internal Affairs) 
: 
 I had the good fortune in the course of the Waitangi weekend to go to an Indian Sikh temple in South Auckland for a number of hours. The message from that temple to those who were there to listen was a very simple one and it was contrary to what the previous speaker Parekura Horomia said: the legacy that Labour has left is a legacy of distrust discontent and waste. What were the issues confronting that community then and what will they be in the next 3 years? I think it is very easy to articulate them. These are ordinary New Zealanders. These are the types of people whom Parekura Horomia has spoken about. These are the types of people like him like myself who have aspirations for New Zealand to do well and for our families to do well. These three issues that were so significant for them as they are significant for us can be encapsulated I would say in perhaps three short phrases: the first is the strength of the economy the second relates to issues around family values and the third relates to issues around law and order. 
I think it is with real sadness that members—certainly the ones on this side of the House—contemplate the legacy that Labour has left us. It was a time when there were opportunities to be seized. It was a time when there could be substantial spending because of surpluses that the Government made in infrastructure and in health. Sadly those investments were not made and those opportunities were squandered. 
If I look at the issue of family values for a moment I just reflect that to a number of people family values will have a range of responsive feelings. I look at the inclusiveness of Waitangi Day when multi-ethnic New Zealand is gathered together in what is I think a startling and committed display of support. We saw that at Waitangi with the Prime Minister. Members on both sides of the House have been to those Waitangi ceremonies for many years; in my case I have gone for some 12 years. We have seen the disturbances. What did we see this time? We saw I would say inclusive goodwill. We saw this not only at Waitangi but also in Auckland where there were other such displays from the Indian and Chinese communities. That is why I think it is time to start reflecting again on this issue of family values and on how we can strengthen relationships not only within whanau and smaller family groupings but more widely within the diverse ethnic community that is now our heritage and our treasure. So I touch on that. 
It is quite clear is it not that New Zealand faces a difficult and uncertain period in the context of what is going on globally. It seems to me that 2009 will be a year that will be difficult for many. It will be a year when many will hunker down. It will be a time when in the context of businesses such as retail and hospitality there will be particular challenges. But I think that we are well placed because of our resilience as a people to come through that period in a reasonable way. For some it will be hurtful. For most of us it will be very challenging. But we do have some particular advantages and one of those advantages must surely be our self-sufficiency in food. That is why to date the Government has released and plans to further announce a whole step of measures that should strengthen our small to medium sized enterprises which contribute to the wealth of the nation. Ninety-five percent of all business entities in New Zealand are reflected in the small to medium sized enterprise sector ranging across small unincorporated businesses partnerships and of course companies themselves. 
The final thing I would like to talk about which was brought home so strongly by that Indian community in South Auckland is the issue of law and order. Under the previous Labour Government we tolerated a circumstance where law and order was not given the focus and commitment that it should have been given. Sure it was a significant talking point and it was very much a talking point in this House. But so often that is where it stopped. 
We can look at a whole raft of law and order issues and organised crime would be a good illustration. We have seen a very determined advance by organised crime into areas of activity where traditionally it was not an entrant. It starts with drugs and goes on to a whole lot of racketeering being committed. 
Moana Mackey 
: All talk no action! 
Hon Dr RICHARD WORTH 
: To respond to the interjector opposite I say that is why we plan to launch a whole lot of initiatives that start with issues like DNA testing of those convicted of serious offences. These initiatives go on to deal in a determined way with abuses in the parole system and to provide effective targeting of young people who are in trouble. There are a whole lot of initiatives that I feel certain—and I know my colleagues do—will produce significant gains to the community. 
Moana Mackey 
: When will we see the legislation that is being debated today? 
Hon Dr RICHARD WORTH 
: The legislation will be available for debate today. It will go to select committees for review for refinement and for report back. So these catcalls that are coming across the House towards me are empty because there will be an opportunity for public participation and for debate in this Chamber on the merits of that law. Why those opposite should contend otherwise I do not understand. 
Those are three issues that this Government is absolutely committed to dealing with—issues around the economy issues around the family and issues around law and order. Surely if those issues are robustly and properly addressed the first term of this Government—and I hope it will be the first of many terms—will be characterised by robustness by advance and by benefit. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Could the Green Party split this call with me speaking first and Sue Kedgley speaking second? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: That is agreed. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I begin my speech by complimenting the director of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Dr Warren Tucker on the new spirit of openness that he has conveyed since he took over in the position a year or so ago. It is very good that he is allowing under the Privacy Act people like me—and others who have been involved in various progressive movements—to look at their files. What those files show are some very bad practices in the history of the Security Intelligence Service in respect of targeting dissenters. My file was concerned with my involvement in the anti - Viet Nam War movement the antinuclear movement the anti-apartheid movement and movements for human rights in Latin America the Philippines and elsewhere. 
The horrific thing about that file is that it shows that the Security Intelligence Service had infiltrators pretending to be fellow campaigners. Those infiltrators reported on everyone who was present at the meetings—public and private—and they reported on who was doing what who was carrying the banners and who was going out. They even reported on trivial details such as the fact that at 0900 hours a person went out to buy a Sunday newspaper. It was very detailed stuff. My own file detailed my movements around the country and around the world what car I was driving and my romantic attachments. All of this was completely unjustified in terms of the law of the Security Intelligence Service and in terms of any concept of fair play. In my case the record goes from when I was aged 11 in 1955. This file has been updated and continued since I have been in Parliament not only with newspaper clippings but also with the monitoring of my private conversations with constituents in the Tamil community of Sri Lanka back in 2003 before I went off on a peace-monitoring trip to Sri Lanka. 
It is good that the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa and other groups have also obtained their files. Those files show a similar pattern over the years of the Security Intelligence Service not upholding the new legislation. It should have been watching only people involved in treason espionage and terrorism but in the interests of the Government of the day it has been countering the activities of campaigners. In my case that countering meant trying to stop me from getting jobs and conspiring directly with employers. It was recorded and reported back to the Security Intelligence Service that I supported someone who was applying for permanent residence in New Zealand. The fact that I had a personal Security Intelligence Service file probably stopped that person from getting permanent residence. So having such a file had concrete effects. It was not just about being watched; it hindered my career and probably the careers of many many others. 
It is good that John Key has responded by asking the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Paul Neazor to look at the way in which files are set up maintained and closed. It is good that John Key says that I—and hopefully others whose files show a similar pattern—can cooperate with the inspector-general to really get to the bottom of this issue. We need a much broader inquiry but that is a good start. 
The surveillance—or what might be called oversight or accountability measures—of the Security Intelligence Service is very weak. In Parliament today my colleague Kennedy Graham tabled what he received from official sources as being the current membership of the Intelligence and Security Committee. It still lists the members of the previous Parliament including Winston Peters. No new committee has been set up over the past few months of this Parliament. When I have put forward written questions in the past I have found that the committee meets for only about an hour a year which is enough time to hear a little report from the director of intelligence and perhaps have a cup of coffee. It is not an oversight body and that is why over the years the Security Intelligence Service has effectively been able to be a law unto itself—even spying on members of Parliament. 
This MMP Parliament represents a much wider range of views than was the case when we had a Labour-National monopoly. The Green Party in particular represents movements outside Parliament. It represents people fighting for social change environmental issues and international social justice issues like the ones I have been involved in. The twisted logic is that if organisations are spying on these movements for social change and international solidarity they are also spying on MPs. This practice is an offence to democracy in this country—particularly parliamentary democracy—and it is an offence to Parliament’s independence from the executive. That is why it must be opposed. Thank you. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 Last week when the Secretary-General of the United Nations was calling for a green new deal he observed that if we are to emerge from the present global financial crisis we must break the tyranny of short-term thinking in favour of long-term solutions. Short-term thinking he pointed out got us into the present crisis; only long-term thinking will get us out of it. Surely that is the challenge before our Parliament and this Government—long-term thinking and long-term solutions. 
But last Friday we had a stunning example of short-term thinking and in my view incredibly stupid thinking when the Minister of Education announced that she was removing the requirement for schools to sell healthy food in school tuck shops. That move has effectively scrapped the school food guidelines which have been developed over 3 years and were working well in schools around the country. I believe this is an extraordinarily short-sighted and stupid move when we consider that New Zealand like most of the Western World is facing a long-term epidemic in obesity-related diseases and poor nutrition is the leading cause by miles of death and premature disease in New Zealand. The Ministry of Health estimates that obesity costs $500 million in direct health costs and that one-third of our children are overweight or obese. Experts are warning that unless we radically improve the diets and eating habits of young New Zealanders our health system will shortly be overwhelmed in coping with the epidemics of type 2 diabetes obesity cardiovascular disease and so forth and that the damage will be irreversible. 
Most people are aware of these looming long-term epidemics and most New Zealanders therefore accept that we must improve the eating habits and diets of young New Zealanders. That is why the school food guidelines were introduced and why the previous Government passed a regulation requiring schools to sell healthy food. Sure a couple of principals bleated about it but most schools and most parents have been right behind the idea of providing a food environment that promotes better learning and behaviour in pupils. The principal of Wellington East Girls’ College said in the media a few days ago that she had been sceptical when the guidelines were brought in but they were having a very positive effect. A Wellington College pupil said he was quite gutted when lollies were removed from the tuck shop last year but now he thinks that is a great idea. He says it is actually good to have the temptation taken away. 
I could quote many other examples of the overwhelming support for getting junk food out of schools and for promoting healthy eating. It is well established that diet affects children’s behaviour and also their ability to concentrate and learn in class. It is well accepted that children who are loaded with sugar and caffeine struggle to concentrate and that when they eat healthy food they are better able to concentrate in class better able to learn and better behaved. It is also well established that eating high-sugar food contributes to dental disease; we have a major problem of that in New Zealand. 
So all of that begs the question of why just as real progress is being made in changing the food environment in our schools the Government would ditch that very positive initiative. Why would the Minister ditch it and remove any obligation to sell healthy food in tuck shops so that there is now no standard and no expectation that schools have to sell healthy food? That is an astonishingly stupid and short-sighted policy. 
 I now seek an amendment to the amendment to the motion for the Address in Reply in the name of Sue Kedgley. I seek to move an amendment to the amendment in Phil Goff’s name to insert before the words “and expects” the words “and commits to a green new deal to simultaneously combat the economic crisis and the climate crisis in a way which is fair to all New Zealanders to give our environment the greater protection it desperately needs and on which our economy entirely depends and to conduct politics in a way which is honest open and democratic; and supports the continued representation in this House of the true diversity of voices in Aotearoa New Zealand;”. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 I move  
That this debate be now adjourned 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That this debate be now adjourned. 
Ayes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
Urgency 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That urgency be accorded the introduction and first reading of the Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill and the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill. 
 These bills are all part of the Government’s 100-day programme. These matters were of prominence for members of this Government during the election campaign so it is a matter of ensuring that we honour the commitments made to New Zealanders that these bills would be introduced and sent to select committees within the first 100-day period. I appreciate that this means that some parties will not have the 3 days that are normally available to them to scrutinise the bills. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Three minutes would be nice. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Well we will do something about that. A number of the bills have been made available to spokespeople so that they can peruse what is in them. I think the measures that are in the bills have most certainly been very well signalled. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That urgency be accorded. 
Ayes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill 
New Zealand Bill of Rights Act Compliance 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) 
: 
 I hereby present a report under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 on the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill. This report is made pursuant to section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and Standing Order 261. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: This paper is published under the authority of the House. 
Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill 
First Reading 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue) 
: 
 I move  
That the Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Finance and Expenditure Committee that the committee report finally to the House on or before 23 March 2009 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 187 and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
This bill gives effect to many of the tax assistance measures that were announced by the Government last week as part of its relief package for businesses particularly for small and medium sized businesses which make up the bulk of New Zealand enterprises. These tax changes are aimed at easing the burden of tax on the cash flow of smaller businesses and making it easier and less expensive for them to pay their taxes. For many businesses cash flow is particularly tight at present and even in the best of times it takes time and effort to meet normal tax obligations. Some of the proposed changes contained in this bill will allow businesses to hold on to tax moneys longer. Others will lower costs by reducing the number of forms businesses have to fill in the number of calculations involved and the number of payments businesses have to make. 
Not every tax measure in the package announced last week is contained in this bill. Indeed one of the more important changes was made by Order in Council last week. That gave effect to reduced use-of-money interest rates for underpayments of tax from 14.24 percent to 9.73 percent and for overpayments from 6.6 percent to 4.23 percent. Those new rates will take effect from 1 March. 
 Another very important tax change that was announced last week is the removal of the 5 percent uplift ratio in the calculation and payment of provisional tax—a change that is included in this bill. Businesses pay provisional tax instalments throughout the year and for many that is a heavy commitment especially in the current economic climate. To estimate the amount of tax they have to pay in the coming year those paying provisional tax use the previous year’s income and add 5 percent to the total. That extra 5 percent is known as the uplift factor or ratio. Underlying the extra 5 percent is the assumption that income will in fact grow over the new income year. However given that we are clearly in a time of negative growth nationally that is not a fair or helpful assumption to make in terms of those in our small and medium sized business sector and the burden it would impose on them needs to be removed. For that reason the uplift is being cancelled for the current and next income years. That should help relieve some of the pressure on small businesses by allowing them to hold on to tax moneys a little longer. The longer the money stays in their pockets the more robust their financial position will be in these tough times. 
The bill also makes it possible for a greater number of individual taxpayers to use the standard uplift method of provisional tax rather than estimating their income thus reducing their compliance costs and their exposure to use-of-money interest. This change was part of the omnibus taxation bill that was introduced in July last year but has been included in this bill to ensure its more speedy enactment. It is particularly important that the Government moves with speed clarity and determination in times such as those we find ourselves in today. 
The bill also proposes practical changes to a number of tax thresholds. Similar amendments are part of the July tax bill that I referred to a moment ago but in many cases the threshold measures in the present bill have been enhanced. Again the proposed threshold changes can lower costs for many businesses by reducing the number of returns they have to fill in the number of calculations they have to do or the number of tax payments they have to make. 
Some of the measures will also allow businesses to hold on to money longer. The GST payments threshold will be raised from $1.3 million to $2 million. That will allow more businesses to enjoy the cash-flow advantages of accounting for GST when payment from invoices is received rather than when invoices are issued in which case there can often be a big time lag or in some cases non-payment. The income threshold over which GST registration is mandatory is being raised from $40000 to $60000. That means that businesses whose GST turnover is below $60000 can opt out of the GST system if they wish to thus removing the costs of accounting for GST. Still on the subject of GST the bill raises the turnover threshold under which businesses may make their GST returns 6-monthly instead of 2-monthly from $250000 to $500000. Businesses with a highly seasonal income in particular may well find this change helpful. 
The PAYE once-a-month filing threshold is being raised from $100000 to $500000 which will allow more employers to file PAYE returns and pay PAYE once a month rather than twice a month as at present. Again this is a small but important measure to ease cash flow. The threshold under which businesses may file fringe benefit tax returns annually is also being raised from $100000 to $500000. That will allow a greater number of employers to file their returns once a year instead of quarterly. That should certainly save time and money spent on interacting with the tax system. Still on the subject of fringe benefit tax the bill increases the value of minor fringe benefits—small things such as flowers and chocolates—that can be provided to employees without attracting fringe benefit tax. That figure rises from $15000 to $22500 a year per employer and from $200 to $300 per quarter per employee. The changes mean that fewer employers will have to account for fringe benefit tax in relation to minor unclassified benefits that they may provide to their employees. 
In a similar vein the bill introduces a new $10000 threshold for business-related legal expenditure. If a business in a given income year has a total bill for business-related legal fees of $10000 or less the entire amount will be tax deductible without the business having to identify which amounts relate to non-deductible capital expenditure and which relate to deductible revenue expenditure. That will obviously save businesses time and money. 
These are the main changes proposed in the bill. The measures announced by the Government last week represent a $480 million package—a nearly eightfold increase on the cost of similar measures in the tax bill that I introduced in July. As I have said on a number of occasions short of abolishing tax altogether no single measure will reduce tax-related costs for all businesses. A change that reduces costs for one business may not affect a smaller or a larger business or a business with a different income flow. But I believe that the changes proposed in this bill taken as a group will help relieve the pressure many businesses are facing at present with regard to cash flow. The bill will make it easier and less expensive for them to pay their taxes and will help them through this difficult time to survive and to continue to be good employers. That is an important goal in the interests of business but it is also in our national interest and for that reason I commend the bill with pleasure to the House. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 Labour will support the Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill as a small step in the right direction. In so doing we point out that we have just witnessed one of the modern miracles of MMP. The member who has just resumed his seat—small but perfectly formed—which seems appropriate to this tax package was indeed also the former Minister of Revenue who worked on many of these items during the time of the previous Government so he knows well that what we have here is essentially a continuation of previous thinking. 
In my remarks today I will take the House through some of those commonalities and illustrate where the thinking really does reflect what Labour was doing anyway. I ask who would dispute the idea that we need to cut some red tape lower some compliance costs and ease the burden on business because we all need particularly at this time New Zealand businesses to be able to employ improve their bottom lines and cope with the cold winds that are coming in from overseas. The second part of my remarks will balance that with a recognition that this bill is in no way a sufficient response to the challenges that we see. 
First I refer to the content of the bill. As the previous speaker has illustrated the bill contains several measures in the area of tax simplification and forms part of the recent package announced by the Prime Minister which includes several elements already implemented through Order in Council. The first of those was the reduction in the use of money interest rate. Of course that is the rate that the Inland Revenue Department charges a business if it underpays its provisional tax. The Government has generously reduced that from 14.24 percent to 9.73 percent. Labour’s policy was to make it reciprocal with the credit interest rate that a business would get if it overpaid which has now been reduced to 4.23 percent. In other words under the current Government businesses will still pay twice the use-of-money interest rate that they would have paid if Labour had been re-elected and implemented the policy that we had already signed up to before the election. So that provision is as good as far as it goes and it goes only half as far as Labour would have gone anyway. 
The second one is implementation of a higher GST payments basis threshold. Labour had already commissioned advice on that matter and we had already signalled that we would raise it. The GST registration threshold is similarly raised and that was already a measure contained in Labour’s previous tax bill. Businesses with $10000 or less of business-related legal expenditure can claim deductions for that—good news for lawyers! The PAYE once-a-month filing threshold is raised from $100000 to $500000. It was already Labour’s policy to increase it to $250000 and I think it is fair to say that with the current events that would likely have been reviewed upwards. 
It is the same with the changes to the fringe benefit tax annual filing threshold. It was already Labour’s policy to increase that from $100000 to $250000 so again in this bill we are seeing the implementation of policy that was already in the works anyway. That is no bad thing. I am pleased to see the Government doing it and happy to support it on the way through but I just want to be very clear about the fact that it was already in the pipeline. 
Of course there are some grab-bags here of tax simplification measures where the bill fast tracks certain things like ensuring that fringe benefit tax liability on vehicles is simplified “safe harbour” thresholds for provisional tax use-of-money interest increases lower stock trading thresholds and GST 6-monthly filing return thresholds. The thing all these seeming details have in common is that they were already in Labour’s tax bill. They were already there. By giving it urgency we welcome the fact that the Government is implementing Labour’s policy. Good on it I am happy to support it but that is where the nice stuff ends because this is in no way a sufficient response to the crisis we face. 
Now members may have thought when they woke up this morning and read their  
Dominion Post 
 that they had fallen on to a different planet because there in Tracy Watkins’ excellent column was the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund telling us that Governments around the world must “commit … whatever it takes to avoid a depression.”; “Above all adopt clear policies and act decisively … Do too much rather than too little.” In other words no less than the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund is telling New Zealanders we need to do something more like the Rudd package. The difficulty this Government has is that the so-called rolling maul of initiatives is really drip-feeding. Businesses are telling us that they do not want to be drip-fed and they certainly do not want to be drip-fed only a rehash of stuff they knew was in the pipeline anyway. It is like putting a new set of clothes on something that was already there. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: It’s plagiarising. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: It is plagiarism. Thank you. It is plagiarism but we are happy to support it. We are not proud. Getting the job done is what counts—that is fine. But I say to the Government it should recognise the dangers of drip-feeding. It does not give the business on the corner a vision for the future. It does not give it a game plan. That is why people are saying to this Government: “Where’s the plan Sam? Where’s the plan Bill? Where’s the plan John?”. 
 One large business in Lower Hutt rang us and said: “ Look we’re largely National voters we voted for this Government . We are having to review our position week by week to see whether we can stay open. A week for us is a long time in business. What are these guys doing? Why haven’t we heard a plan from them?”. And every time we raise that issue what we hear is that a little more is coming next week a little more is coming next week. This week apparently we are getting an infrastructure package of wait for it $500 million. Woo hoo—500 million! Now if my memory serves me correctly Labour had already committed to around $2 billion worth of new infrastructure pre-election so it is a case of “Vote National and you get a quarter of what you would have got.” Well maybe there is more coming after that. The point for New Zealanders is that they do not want to be drip-fed. They want to see the game plan. They want to know that the Government has a plan because that in itself will underpin confidence. It will mean that businesses are able to go to their banks and underpin the needed borrowing to get them through the rough weather. Indeed it underpins the ability of the banks to go to their international swap partners and say that they need to have the credit to keep New Zealand businesses running and that the Government is up for it the Government is good for it and the Government has a plan. 
Maybe it does but who would know? The Government members are not telling New Zealanders. They are taking this measure under urgency. They are taking a whole lot of other very small measures under urgency most of which are policies of the previous Government which we are happy to support but the point is that Mr English knows that that is not a Southland farmer’s version of a game plan. He knows that businesses are saying they are hungry for more. They have an employment talkfest coming up. By God expectations are being raised that something substantive will come out of that; if not there will be huge disillusionment. 
To sum up there are a range of small useful desirable measures in this bill. They are very largely measures that the previous Labour Government had under way before the election. In some cases—probably the most important the reduction in use of money interest on provisional tax—the cuts go only half as far as Labour had already announced it would go. In speeding things up and giving urgency to tax simplification the bill simply accelerates measures that had already been announced in previous Government legislation. 
Let no New Zealand business owner no New Zealand worker be in any doubt. This stuff is OK as far as it goes but there is nothing new here and it is nobody’s idea of a crisis response plan. The rolling maul is jargon for drip-feeding while what New Zealanders need is confidence that there is a way through this unprecedented crisis. They need confidence that their Government has a way through can see the big picture and has the credit markets the debt levels and the stimulus package lined up so we can chart our way forward. Only then can they go to their bankers. Only then can their bankers go to their partners and underpin the confidence we all need. 
Labour will be voting for this package. We wish we were able to vote for a whole lot more. We look forward to the Government coming back to the House with the next round of measures. It could not be too soon. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I rise to support the Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill. This is part of the Government’s overall plan to deal with the particular challenges that the New Zealand economy faces. 
The member who has just resumed his seat has overlooked the fact that under the previous Government somehow well before the rest of the world and long before the global crisis New Zealand managed to get into its own recession. In fact that has been one of the events one aspect of history that has to some extent hamstrung the choices of the incoming Government. The member also suffers from the delusion which is widely shared among Labour members that to announce something is to do it. Well it is not. In Labour to announce something is certainly not to get any money for it let alone to make any decisions about how a measure might actually be implemented. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: No it is the first of a six-stage step towards doing it. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is or it is the 12-step method of Alcoholics Anonymous. One of the primary functions of the new Government has been to find Labour’s promises littered around the landscape and then to find that the announcements we thought had been given in good faith were not it turns out given in good faith at all. [ 
Interruption 
] As the member is finding day by day his relevance to what is really going in the economy is becoming pretty marginal. 
Our plan is pretty straightforward and it is to protect people from the sharp edges of recession. That is as much as can be achieved. We cannot roll back a recession. There is no stimulus package large enough or necessarily effective enough to actually prevent a recession. The second and in my view just as important part of the plan is to get the economy ready for recovery. This recession will end and at that stage we will need an economy that can grow fast so that we can replace the jobs that will inevitably be lost over the next period of months as the world economy goes into coordinated recession. That economy will have to be in much better shape than it was in when it went into this recession. Otherwise it will not be able to grow. So these measures sit alongside other measures such as the announcement of the extensive revision of the Resource Management Act as part of a suite of changes that will occur over the next 12 to 18 months or couple of years to get this economy into shape. 
A few people—only a few—have criticised the measures in this bill for small and medium sized enterprises as being insufficient. The fact is that there is no one big shot that will make it a lot easier for businesses to find their way through this recession. I do not know what the member opposite is suggesting. If for instance car dealers are finding that New Zealanders just are not buying cars what does the Opposition propose that the Government should do about it? 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: How about keeping them in jobs? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well we could go and buy cars for them so that the car salespeople can keep their jobs! You see when we get past the crisis management vision workshop plan that Labour is proposing there is not much left to it. Getting this economy in shape to grow again will take 100 different measures none of which is a big shot but all of which focus on productivity and confidence in business so that businesses will have the confidence to invest to replace jobs and to lift the incomes of New Zealanders. 
I want to focus on a couple of aspects of this particular package that I think are important. One is the change in the use of money interest. The previous rates were simply way out of line and needed to change so this package cuts those interest rates quite considerably. The Government can hardly go around complaining about the interest rates that banks are charging on credit cards when the Inland Revenue Department is charging similar rates for underpaid tax. So the Minister of Revenue is making the adjustment pretty much according to the formula and it is quite expensive—$72 million I think per year. That money will stay in the pockets of taxpayers who would otherwise be paying very high rates of interest. 
Probably the more important measure in the shorter term anyway has been removing the uplift on provisional taxpayers. They are people who do not estimate their provisional tax and automatically have to use an income that is 5 percent higher than it was in the previous year. The effect of removing that uplift is to leave $250 million in businesses’ bank accounts across New Zealand. People who have operated a small or medium sized business—in fact even a large business—will know just how difficult it can be to incur tax liabilities related to their previous profitable year then find themselves in an unprofitable year where cash flow is pretty limited and they have to find the money to pay the extra tax. So this measure is a pretty decisive move to leave that money in the bank accounts of businesses around New Zealand. 
Those are the two principal measures. There are a range of other ones some of which as the member has pointed out were already included in a tax bill. We have decided to proceed with those measures urgently plus to add a number of others all of which are focused on simplifying the taxation system and trying to reduce the compliance costs for business. 
We have had the odd comment from for instance the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand that some of these thresholds do not go far enough. Well it is a pretty straight trade-off: the more the thresholds are raised the more revenue the Government can potentially lose. Given that the revenue outlook for New Zealand is pretty poor we will actually see tax revenues drop over the next couple of years which has not happened for a long long time. We need to make sure we are striking the balance between promoting the vigour and efficiency of business on the one hand and making sure we maintain a reasonable tax base on the other hand. So these measures will be fast-tracked so they can apply to businesses just as soon as possible. 
Other propositions have been put up by the Small Business Advisory Group about reducing compliance costs. We are very keen to look at those. I myself believe that there is an opportunity right now for the Government to get reasonably aggressive about the way that it sets out to reduce compliance costs and to change some of the balances that have been built into policy over the last few years. 
But this is one measure that will stand alongside many others over the next couple of years. We have dedicated ourselves to undoing the misdirected and complacent policy of the last 9 years which has left New Zealand business lacking in confidence when it needs it most and confused under the previous Government about whether that Government was in favour of wealth creation or against it. There can be no doubt now about what the public want to see and what this Government will deliver: a strong focus on creating jobs and creating wealth. We have learnt that when the economy grows it is good for everybody—everyone benefits. A rising tide raises all boats. In the previous year and this year in New Zealand we are experiencing for the first time in a while growth stopping and the economy actually shrinking. 
This measure will be there along with dozens of others to help to lift the potential as we come out of this recession. We will do that in a way that does not pile up problems for the future. Everyone will ask why we do not do more now. As they are finding out in the US and Australia the public are quite wary of piling up large amounts of debt because they know that it is their debt and that they will have to repay it. It is easy for politicians to say “I’ve solved all your problems today and I’ve spent $2 billion on doing it.” but the public are going to have to pay back every dollar with interest before too long. In a country that already has high levels of debt it is incumbent on the Government to be responsible. That is why this kind of measure strikes the right balance between giving some cash help to businesses which is debt finance that will help them in the shorter term but does not create larger problems for the future. 
This bill is a sensible measure that deserves the support of the whole House and I hope that is what it gets. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 The Labour Party will be supporting the Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill. I take issue though with some of the comments made by the Minister of Finance who has just resumed his seat which were trying to redraw history. He was trying to say to the electorate that the National Government inherited a very poor set of accounts that it inherited problems with unemployment and that the country was heading in the wrong direction—all of those are fictions. 
Let us deal firstly with the question of unemployment. The Labour Party places a high value on employment growth and a high value on low unemployment. Keeping people employed is always at the centre of a Labour Party policy agenda. Employment is the best way to share income and wealth. Reliance on a benefit is very much a poor relation to having a regular income from a job particularly in a country where the minimum wage was raised by Labour from around $7 an hour to $12 an hour under our watch. During the time of the previous Labour Government unemployment dropped sharply. In fact it dropped so sharply that for the last couple of years New Zealand regularly traded places with South Korea as to whether we had the lowest unemployment rate in the world or the second-lowest unemployment rate in the world. That is what this current Government inherited: a legacy of low unemployment built through sound economic management and prudent fiscal policy on the part of the Labour Government—not high unemployment. 
This Opposition will hold the National Government responsible for unnecessary rises in unemployment. There is no doubt that unemployment is on the rise around the world. Although we in Labour do not hold the National Government responsible for all rises in employment we will hold it responsible for the excessive rises of unemployment that it has already occasioned in some small industries in New Zealand. 
For example we saw hundreds of millions of dollars in direct inward foreign investment in the forest sector lost as a consequence of the National Government’s ill-considered talk of suspension of the emissions trading scheme. We have seen losses of jobs in the biofuel industry through the injustices that were caused to that industry via the legislation that Mr Brownlee forced through the House under urgency just prior to Christmas. Those are but two instances of already increasing unemployment that could have been easily avoided by the National-led Government. It inherited low unemployment; it did not inherit high unemployment. 
I think one of the policy challenges of the next decade internationally will be how we deal with the unemployment that will be a consequence of the global recession. I say with some confidence that that will be more central to the policy agenda of any Labour Party than it will be to that of the National Party. 
The second indicator of the state of affairs that the National Government inherited from the Labour Government which again it says was a poor set of cards is Government debt. Government debt was reduced from 38 percent of GDP when the Labour Government took office to under 20 percent of GDP when it left office. People who are regular listeners to Parliament on the radio or regular readers of the newspaper will remember that virtually every year when the Labour Government reduced debt through running Budget surpluses at a time of plenty the National Party claimed that we were not returning money to taxpayers that should have been returned to taxpayers in the form of tax cuts. Year after year it said that tax cuts were the preferred way to deal with those surpluses not retirement of Government debt. 
Chris Tremain 
: So how much did you actually retire? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: We retired enough to reduce Government debt from 38 percent of GDP to 20 percent of GDP. Chris Tremain says that is not good enough. If the state of affairs had been as had been proposed then by National Government debt would still be a far higher proportion of GDP and New Zealand would be in the position of some other countries like Great Britain for example and many other developed OECD countries that approached this recession not having reduced their debt as a percentage of GDP in recent years. They are in the invidious position of having rising Government expenditure as a consequence of rising numbers of people reliant on unemployment benefits and at the same time they already have high Government debt. 
The UK Government is in danger of going down the route the last but one National Government—Muldoon’s National Government—left New Zealand in which was with high levels of Government debt and rising unemployment. It was a very very difficult state of affairs to overcome. Indeed it took this country 20 years to recover from that and there was a period—I admit—of good stewardship of the fiscal position of the Government by the previous National Government. But then the previous Labour Government under Dr Cullen did even better and should be congratulated on recognising that in boom times we must retire Government debt if we are to have a strong enough balance sheet to help people through a recession by maintaining levels of decent social provision as this country is now able to afford as a consequence of the previous Government’s management of the fiscal position of the State. We must not let the National Government try to rewrite that history and say that National has somehow inherited a terrible state of affairs and such a difficult position and that therefore the bad job it does is all that can be expected because that is not based on fact. It inherited low Government debt and low unemployment. 
 Turning to what the Government should be doing in this bill but is not it should be looking to the future and restoring the research and development tax credit which it abolished prior to Christmas. That was a ridiculous thing to do. The Government had tax cuts that gave an extra three-quarters of a billion dollars to people who were already better off so do not need the extra money to pay for the groceries every week. The Government funded those tax cuts in part by taking money out of the business sector but that is the very sector that this bill is intended to affect. But more important it took it out of the part of the sector that will be responsible for the development of high-value products. New Zealand needs the development of those products in order to earn export revenues to grow the economy. 
I do not criticise this bill as far as it goes and I think it is a good idea to reduce the default income assessment for provisional taxpayers from 105 percent to 100 percent of current year earnings. That is a good measure. Some of the other measures like changing the thresholds for GST etc. are also good moves. I do not deny that but the Government has not yet undone the damage it caused by abolishing the research and development tax credit and it has not done much to improve the productivity of our industrial output. 
The Government has said much about its changes to the Resource Management Act. I have read the changes proposed. I agree with most of them but not all of them. The Government is kidding itself if it thinks that changes to the Act will significantly improve the GDP growth of New Zealand. It will not do that. The changes to the Act are much less significant— 
Chris Tremain 
: No one said it’s a silver bullet. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Mr Tremain says that no one claims it is a silver bullet but I have heard National members ranting on for years claiming that the Resource Management Act is the big obstacle to growth and productivity. I say it is not the big obstacle to growth and productivity; it is far less significant than the research and development tax credit which National abolished prior to Christmas. The research and development tax credit would have had a far greater effect on improving New Zealand’s economic growth and the wealth of New Zealanders and on improving our ability to afford the things we all want. 
This bill will not do much to reduce the growth of unemployment. I repeat the National Government ought not to get away with the myth that it is trying to portray—that it has inherited a poor state of affairs. New Zealand is in better shape in terms of the Crown’s financial position and unemployment than just about any other country in the world. Thank you. 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party’s policy on small businesses is to support those businesses by means of the relaxation and elimination of red tape and compliance costs. For that reason I am happy to stand here today to support the Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill going to the select committee. Perhaps some people will be surprised by that but I have to say that our support is cautious and extends no further than voting for the bill to be referred to the select committee. The reason for this is that this bill is being introduced under urgency. Of course taxation bills will sometimes need to be introduced under urgency but nothing in this bill requires that. Once again we see a Government that is causing a further affront to democracy and an affront to healthy politics in the way it is using the processes of the House. We oppose that practice. Today is the first time we have seen this bill and consequently I have not had the opportunity to read it thoroughly. My comments will be general ones. 
I will talk about the bees for a second. Those of us who live in rural areas and particularly in the bush sometimes have a problem with bees. They come into our house because they are looking for their nests. They come in a straight line and they end up buzzing against the windows of the inside of our house. If we go away for a couple of weeks we come back and there is a snowdrift of dead bees. The bees know no other way of getting to their nest and no mater what we try the only way we can fix that problem is to shift the nest. 
Einstein said that solutions to problems would not be found by using the same kind of thinking that created the problem in the first place. Yet that is precisely the kind of thing that this Government and many around the world seem to be doing. The responses we have seen to this recession—or this depression or whatever it may turn out to be—are ones that assume that any economic activity is as good as any other and that the answers to those problems lie in continued consumption and continued credit. Those are ultimately doomed responses. They are like the responses of the bee that sees no other way. We desperately need to shift the goalposts. 
I am a person who has come to this House after a background in owning and managing small businesses. I have to say that there are many aspects of this bill that clearly I would support and it will actually make the running of a lot of small businesses easier. However I am also frustrated by the lack of coherence in the Government’s response and in its measures to assist small businesses. As the Hon David Parker has just said in this House on the one hand the Government is providing a helping hand to small businesses by relieving some of those compliance costs and by relieving some of that unnecessary tax burden. However on other hand it is pulling the rug out from under the feet of many small businesses—those very small businesses that display the innovation that our nation so desperately needs in order to see a way forward in this time of crisis. 
There is no coherent reason for the Government’s withdrawal of the research and development tax credit yet now it is offering small business another hand. I was very pleased to hear the Hon Bill English talk about his readiness to consider the recommendations of the Small Business Advisory Group. I want to focus on a couple of them because that group has consistently provided a number of extremely useful constructive and positive suggestions for Governments to be able to assist small businesses. Many of those suggestions come in the form of extra tools that businesses could use—web-based business centres and online checklists guides and case studies. Those are a couple of things recently suggested by the group. 
I want to focus on a couple of recommendations from the last report of the Small Business Advisory Group. It recommended that “publications be produced that give practical and implementable advice and support for small and medium enterprises to improve their environmental performance and to derive business benefit from the recognised or certified environmental sustainability of their products and processes.” It sounds like good sense to me. It sounds like the kind of thing that could be done for a lot less than $500 million. The group also recommends that “all foodstuffs sold in New Zealand be required to be labelled with the country of origin of the defining component or the most significant component of the foodstuff.” The Green Party would strongly support such a measure. 
In 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his inauguration address spoke about the origins of the financial crisis that was gripping the world at that time. In particular he spoke about the motivations of those who had speculated through greed and now had no answers to offer. In outlining the principles upon which his New Deal lay he said: “The measure of that restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.” As Dr Russel Norman said earlier today in the House talk around the world is now focusing on a “Green New Deal”—on the need to confront not only the financial crisis but also the crises in environment and energy. They should be confronted not as separate things—not as alternatives as the Government has tended to suggest—but as a coherent whole. The idea of a “Green New Deal” is to tackle those financial problems in a way that also leads and adds to our ability to focus on the environmental crisis we face. 
In January this year Dr Norman issued five challenges to the Government in relation to that green new deal. He challenged the Government to restore the Green Homes Fund because it would keep Kiwis and their economy healthy. He challenged it to set standards for smart meters. It is a shame that Mr Brownlee has just left the Chamber because at a time when it becomes increasingly clear that we also need to rebuild the infrastructure for our national grid it is important that we also set a standard for a smart grid and not simply rebuild the previous old failing one. Smart meters would save New Zealanders money and would save the country power. In the same way that compliance costs for business actually drag down our nation paying for power that we do not need to pay for is another drag on business. This is a smart way forward. By owning the most fuel-efficient cars taxpayers can be saved at least $30 million a year. We could cut our oil consumption by a quarter and save the country $2 billion a year. And for every dollar spent on roads we could spend at least $1 on public transport. 
The economy and the environment are not competitors and they cannot be if we are to survive this. They must be dealt with coherently and as an integrated whole. As Ban Ki-moon said: “Today with the economic downturn and climate change the stakes for companies have never been higher. But for businesses with vision the rewards are equally high. The green economy is low-carbon and energy-efficient. It creates jobs and it creates investment in sustainable technologies that will turn today’s crisis into tomorrow’s sustainable growth.” 
The Green Party supports the bill going forward to a select committee but we announce our frustration that it is actually such a small part of the solution. We look forward to tomorrow’s announcement from the Government and we take heart from the Prime Minister’s assurance that we will be impressed by the things that it contains. Let us hope that he really will embrace a green new deal—a true integrated way forward for this country. 
JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the first reading of the Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill. This is a bill that the ACT Party will be supporting. However before commenting on the bill in particular I will refer back to my maiden speech where I said that it was a real privilege to be a member of this House. One such privilege was representing the ACT Party at Waitangi over the weekend. It was a privilege and an honour to be welcomed by the Ngapuhi people on to Te Tii Marae. The feeling of goodwill and harmony was overwhelming and it was a credit to both the Ngapuhi people and other iwi from throughout the country and to both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition who led their respective teams. 
This bill introduces a raft of changes to the way our small and medium sized businesses are taxed. Small and medium sized businesses are the engine room of the New Zealand economy. Ninety-six percent of businesses are small and medium sized enterprises employing fewer than 20 staff. Collectively they employ around a third of our workforce. However the question that has to be asked is why these measures are necessary. I was quite incredulous to hear the Hon David Cunliffe and the Hon David Parker talk about National attempting to rewrite history. The facts are that over the 9 years of the Labour Government Government expenditure over and above inflation and over and above population growth increased by double the rate of inflation—it increased by 6.5 percent and by the equivalent of $12000 per household per year which is $1000 a month or $230 a week. So over the last 9 years we saw a massive increase in Government expenditure. 
The Hon David Parker talked about the Hon Michael Cullen being frugal and paying off debt. He talked about the wisdom of paying off debt during times of buoyancy. But in the last 9 years Mr Cullen presided over the greatest spend-up our country has ever had. The reason this country is in recession—and I fear depression—is that opportunities have been lost in the last 9 years. We have had very very high export prices for our commodities during most of that time and the opportunity to put that money through tax cuts back into the hands of ordinary New Zealanders has been squandered and lost. 
During the period of the 1980s and the early 1990s labour productivity increased by over 2 percent per annum. We can compare that with the last 9 years when it was less than 1 percent—it was three-quarters of 1 percent. I heard the Hon Parekura Horomia talk earlier in the debate about the incomes of low-income people. Well the people who have been affected most by the large spend-up have been those people. They have been denied tax cuts and the chance to spend their own money. One of the key issues this country has to address is how we increase productivity. 
Mr Parker also spoke about rewriting history. Well let us look at accident compensation. One of the first moves of the Labour Government was to renationalise accident compensation and that was despite the overwhelming evidence that the system was far more efficient during the short period when it was available for private tender and private operation. People got back into work from their injuries far earlier than they do under the current State-nationalised accident compensation. 
I also heard the Hon David Cunliffe say that the Labour Government was going to do that anyway: “We were going to do this anyway; we were going to introduce these changes.” Well I have a very simple question for him; I ask him why he did not. This National - ACT - Maori Party Government with United Future has taken urgency in introducing this bill. It took urgency on a number of measures in the last 2 weeks of last year. One of the measures that passed into law last year was to make it easier for employers to employ people. We are already in a recession and an important point to note is that this recession started long before the last election day on 11 November. It started long before then. This country has been in recession for the last 12 months. We led the world into recession. Yes the situation has got a lot worse since October; the whole world is now in recession—that is acknowledged—but our country was one of the first to lead the world into recession. 
So when I hear the Hon David Cunliffe say that the National Government is trying to rewrite history I tell members that this country is in this situation right now because of the decisions that his Government made. He also said that he would like to do so much more. Well on that note the ACT Party and the Labour Party are absolutely united because we in ACT would also like to do so much more. One of the problems this Government has is that it has committed itself to a number of stakes in the ground. Let us look just at the area of health. Earlier I mentioned labour productivity. Over the last 9 years expenditure on health since the Health Funding Authority was cancelled has increased by 18 percent over and above inflation and over and above per capita increases—by 18 percent—and the number of operations performed under the district health board structure has actually reduced. So we have had a drop in productivity in the health sector. 
This country has a number of challenges. Labour’s mismanagement in the spending of more than $230 per week per household over and above population per capita and inflation is just one of them. That Government robbed every family of the ability to spend its own money. As our country moves further into recession we will hear more about tax cuts but ACT does not believe that National has gone far enough. I heard the Hon Peter Dunne say that short of cutting tax altogether it is hard to imagine that one could do better than this bill. The reality is that we can do a lot better than this bill. We can introduce low flat tax taxes. We can provide an incentive for people to get off benefits. We can reward people who actually want to work and contribute to the productivity of this country. We do not want to create a psyche in this country as we have that the people who receive Working for Families have effective marginal tax rates of 50 60 or 70 percent. Where is the incentive for someone to go to work if he or she will lose three-quarters of his or her income? 
Yes reference has been made to the changes to the Resource Management Act. We will be hearing a lot more about that because of the changes that have been pushed through by the ACT Party. One of the concessions that was made to the ACT Party in its confidence and supply agreement was the appointment of a Minister in charge of fiscal responsibility. Over the next 3 years I look forward to challenging my National Party colleagues on the changes that are required to turn this country round. We need to do more than just tinker. These changes are required in order to make the significant changes in productivity necessary to get this country back on its feet. I note with interest that my colleague Sir Roger Douglas has taken the opportunity to address members of the Orewa Rotary Club on this very issue as I speak. 
I conclude by saying that the ACT Party will be supporting this bill but like the Hon David Cunliffe we believe that so much more can be done and we look forward to convincing our National Party colleagues of that fact. Thank you very much. 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 There is no question that the investments that Aotearoa makes in small and medium sized enterprises have been increasing over recent years. Since 2006 the number of small and medium sized enterprises has increased by 2 percent while the number of people employed by those same enterprises has increased by a massive 18 percent since 2001. Indeed the economic landscape of this country is dominated by the impact of small to medium sized enterprises. Within this we know that as of 2007 the total value-added profit produced by Maori businesses grew to approximately 2 percent of New Zealand’s GDP compared with 1.2 percent in 1996. Building resilient businesses which have the internal fitness to stand up to the ongoing financial market instability and the heightened risk of economic vulnerability is therefore of importance to us all. 
Just how bleak the prospects look for some of our small to medium sized enterprises is seen in the recent quarterly survey of business opinion sponsored by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research. The survey was sufficient to shock the sector into action. Forty-four percent of companies reported a drop in activity throughout the December quarter—the worst result for close to 40 years. The effects are immediate. About a third of firms predict they will have to cut staff by the end of March 2009 compared with just 7 percent in the last quarter. The signs are all there for hard times ahead. 
So it was in that context that my colleague Dr Pita Sharples just 2 weeks ago called Maori business experts tribal entrepreneurs and whanau leaders together to consider ways to insulate and protect the Maori economy from the impact of economic recession. That esteemed group had just 2 hours to come up with possible solutions. It was a challenge that from all accounts they rose to. Out of that session of the Maori economic summit came a raft of suggestions including the removal of tax for small and medium sized businesses to keep cash flowing and a call for Maori to concentrate on skills training where there are gaps in the labour market. So here we are today considering a host of amendments to current and proposed tax laws to reduce business compliance costs for small and medium sized businesses. The package includes raising the reporting threshold on PAYE fringe benefit tax and GST and introducing simplified rules for deducting legal expenditure. Importantly the package being debated today will instigate changes to reduce the tax liability faced by small and medium sized businesses thus assisting with cash flow. 
This is a big day for the Maori Party. In our policy manifesto we made the commitment to incentivise small businesses to grow. We signalled that unnecessary compliance costs would be reduced. We noted that we would invest in strategic alliances across central and local government industry business and Maori communities. The particular priority of the Maori Party’s business policy is to support the development and innovation of small businesses including the minimisation of taxation and compliance costs. Today’s legislation sees many of these great ideas come into fruition. This bill is another illustration of the concept that what is good for Maori is good for the country as a whole. The assistance package brings into swing some 18 initiatives that will help small to middle sized enterprises weather whatever storm awaits. It is designed to take the pressure off the sector by protecting businesses from suffering when the cash flow is scarce by building capability to withstand shrinking markets and by focusing on tax cash flow and regulation. It is all about building confidence in the sector. 
In this sense the acclaim from Professor Massey director of Massey University’s New Zealand Centre for SME Research has gone down well. Professor Massey estimates that the sector will achieve efficiencies of up to $480 million which will be effective immediately in easing a situation where cash flow is tight while also preparing for the long term. We welcome this package today as an innovative and comprehensive approach that ties together many separate strands of opportunities to act as a buffer against the worsening fiscal position. 
A fortnight ago at the Maori economic summit the chief executive officer of the Stock Exchange Mark Weldon made the point that this is the time to look beyond conventional methods of economic stimulation. The 18 steps encompassing tax-related charges trade finance disputes tribunals and faster payments do exactly that. There are business-related tax deductions and compliance thresholds are raised the export credit scheme is expanded the scope of the disputes tribunal is expanded and business advice services are extended. There is also the prompt payment requirement. Another initiative mooted at the Maori economic summit was that small firms be able to defer their provisional tax payments for 3 years as a specific measure to help those firms retain staff. The package does not go as far as that but it does amend the provisional tax uplift rate with the argument that the threshold could be reduced or eliminated so reducing the magnitude of a taxpayer’s provisional tax payments. 
Finally I take this moment to acknowledge Nga Kanohi Marae o Wairarapa that yesterday launched the marae-based trade training programme. The programme invites nominees from 11 marae on to a 3-year programme funded by the Ministry of Social Development to provide young school-leavers with the skills to enter the trade industry. The programme is designed for rangatahi who may be at a loose end but who are committed towards making a constructive contribution to their communities. Alongside developing confidence in work readiness the programme will also nurture the trainees in upholding the mana of their marae. I wanted to celebrate their success in talking to this bill as I believe that initiatives such as trade training are another key component of what we can reasonably expect as a package to help our communities see out the recession. With the prospect of jobs dwindling the probability that many Maori young people will be disproportionately represented amongst the unemployed is high. We need to look again at our schools and our tertiary training providers to ensure that if students are having longer time in study or in school their experience is meaningful and will lead towards enhancing their employment prospects. We support this bill at its first reading and will welcome any more innovative proposals that emerge at the select committee consideration. Kia ora. 
CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
: 
 I rise in support of the Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill. I join every previous speaker from every party in the House who has now indicated support for this bill which is urgently required given the current economic situation around the globe and particularly the way in which that is affecting New Zealand businesses. I acknowledge the expediency with which all members are trying to get this bill through its first reading and I look forward to working with members if and when this bill arrives at the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I hope we will continue that expediency because it is urgently required that New Zealand businesses have some certainty and some clarity around the current situation and all things to do with taxation. 
 Many aspects of the international credit crunch cannot be avoided by whichever parties the New Zealand Government comprises but the New Zealand Government can do many things to help knock off the sharp edges of the current economic credit crunch recession or whatever one likes to call it. It is pretty tough out there and it is imperative that the Government is able to put these measures into place as soon as possible. 
There is a cost to this package of about $480 million but what has not been talked about is the benefit in time for small and medium sized enterprises in New Zealand. There is a benefit in time and gain in productivity for them 98 percent of them as they virtually halve the time they will need to spend on PAYE GST and fringe benefit tax in some instances. Those are simple productivity gains. 
I fully acknowledge that many measures in this bill originated with the Minister in the previous Government and many measures in this bill relating to small and medium sized businesses came from the Taxation (International Taxation Life Insurance and Remedial Matters) Bill. I acknowledge that across the House. Yes we have talked about how things should be bigger longer or wider but we have all acknowledged and earlier speakers have shown that passing this legislation is urgent. 
As my colleague the Minister of Finance the Hon Bill English noted earlier there are many more measures to come; this is but one. I am very grateful to the House that this “but one” crucial measure seems to have cross-party support and total member support so far in this House. I look forward to working with this bill in the Finance and Expenditure Committee. It will be a tight report back but the indications are that we will get there. 
STUART NASH (Labour) 
: 
 It is with pleasure that I stand to talk to this Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill. Like the rest of my colleagues I support and welcome the bill as I support and welcome anything that streamlines compliance costs and the time needed by small-business owners to meet their regulatory requirements and makes life easier for the 96 percent of New Zealand businesses that are classed as small to medium enterprises as long as those terms do not compromise either the integrity of the investing community or the transparency of the process required in a fully functioning economy. 
These businesses are the backbone of the New Zealand economy and employ over 60 percent of our workforce. They need these measures and this is a good entrée. But where is the meat and vege? As my colleagues have already alluded to what is proposed here is hardly earth-shattering. It is a start but it is hardly earth-shattering. As the Hon David Cunliffe said a lot of these measures were already outlined in Labour’s pre-election tax bill on how to deal with the then-looming economic crisis. It was a given that Labour would have implemented similar sorts of measures almost immediately if its members had won the Treasury benches. But we did not and the paradox is that businesses in New Zealand must be groaning at the response from the so-called “party of business”. They are groaning and saying “Oh no!”. After 9 years and an average of 15 to 18 percent growth year on year for many of the past 9 years—hardly business-unfriendly—here is a National Government that has promised nothing and it has delivered on that. In fact it has exceeded its promise of nothing and it has delivered next to nothing. 
Do not get me wrong. As mentioned I support this bill. It is just that it under-delivers on what the small and medium enterprise sector really needs to prime the economy and survive the largest recession since 1929. Let us not underestimate the seriousness of the current situation. This is dire and desperate and it requires strong measures. If the Nats’ economic crisis package is a rolling maul then I hope for the sake of New Zealand’s business community that we have not kicked off. If Mr Key is the referee then Mr English is the ballboy running around and desperately looking for a pump and a valve to inflate the ball which is now flat. All the players on the field are getting cold as they wait for the promised action and the spectators in the stand are growing grumpy as they tire of no action and why? Because in other fields across the globe strong captains have taken the ball and run. If this is a rolling maul then I ask Mr Key to blow the whistle as the maul has collapsed there is now a ruck and the players are hurting. Blow the whistle take charge and get this game under way. If the National Party is a rugby team and this is a rolling maul how about freeing the ball getting it out to the wing and starting to score some points? 
The sad thing is that this is not a game of rugby. While New Zealanders may understand a rugby analogy they know the rules have changed this time— 
Amy Adams 
: Red card! 
STUART NASH 
: —a red card for that member—and it demands some serious action. This situation is deadly serious and it demands a deadly serious and comprehensive plan. I say to Mr English that it demands a plan that will get us through. We need a light at the end of the tunnel because at the moment many businesses cannot see their way clear of this crisis and it will only get worse. 
I was talking to the chief executive officer of the Hawke’s Bay Chamber of Commerce last week and he said that for the first time businessmen and women are coming into his office in desperation and at their wits’ end as to how they will pay their bills. They cannot afford to go to their accountants to seek advice so they seek free advice from an organisation that has no funding for the provision of such a service. I say to Mr English that this is not a game but a very serious situation that demands a very serious response. The people of New Zealand and the small and medium enterprise sector are looking to the Prime Minister and his Minister of Finance for guidance and solutions. However so far the honourable members are not even committed to following the global players let alone leading them. I look across at the Government benches at “Prime Minister Obama”—I apologise that was a bit of a slip. It is an analogy because we never see the Prime Minister here. It is hard to tell the difference between Obama and Key; they are very similar in so many ways. 
I look across at Prime Minister Key and I actually feel sorry for the member. I do; I feel sorry for the Prime Minister because in a previous corporate life I am sure that the honourable member would not have tolerated such a limited and underwhelming response to such a serious issue. But now Mr Key is forced to tolerate it. He must be frustrated at the Minister of Finance’s response to this crisis. If Mr Key is listening I ask him to admit it—if only to the radio admit it. He can admit off the record that this is frustrating for a man who worked in such an environment. I feel for Mr Key because as John Armstrong said in his column the Prime Minister’s reputation is on the line and it is suffering. I tell Mr Key to take charge like in the old days and just make it happen himself. 
Mr Key has self-styled himself as a businessman and a saviour. I was sitting at a table with a couple of other blokes at a function where Mr Key spoke and they said “Thank God that the Nats have a Prime Minister who understands business.” They just did not understand politics. Mr Key may understand business or global currency trading but the question that these esteemed but somewhat misguided gentlemen must now be asking is: “Does his finance Minister understand business?”. It appears not. If Mr Key is Barack Obama does that turn the Hon Bill English into Henry Paulson or Tim Geithner? Wow! They are hardly in the same league and I think everyone here would agree with that. I wonder whether the journalists at  
The Economist 
 the  
New Zealand Herald 
 the  
Dominion Post 
 and the  
National Business Review 
 and the range of commentators writing in our papers have a greater knowledge of what is actually happening in New Zealand let alone around the world in terms of this global crisis than our current Minister of Finance. It is rather scary. 
I ask: where is the vision? Where is the plan? Where is the debate around the state of the regulatory environment to the extent that major structural changes may be needed to the way in which businesses operate in the future? I ask Mr English to please show us the plan. On behalf of businessmen and women right up and down this wonderful country I ask him to please show us how he will address the issues that are already beginning to impact upon the New Zealand economy. We already know that it is going to get worse. I keep reading about the depth and breadth of this recession. While we all hope that the commentators economists and experts are wrong if they are right then why is there secrecy from ordinary New Zealanders as to the response from the National Government and its Minister of Finance? Why the secrecy or is there just nothing to hide because there is nothing in the ideas cupboard? 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
STUART NASH 
: As I was saying what I am keen to see and what I think the people of New Zealand are keen to see and certainly what the small to medium business enterprise sector is keen to see is some sort of vision. My questions to Mr Key and Mr English are: where is the vision where is the plan and where is the debate around the state of the regulatory environment to the extent that major structural changes may be needed to the way in which businesses operate in the future? I ask Mr English to please show us the plan. That is my request to him. On behalf of businessmen and women up and down this wonderful country I ask him to please show us how he will address the issues that are already beginning to impact upon the New Zealand economy and which as we all know will only get worse. 
I keep reading about the depth and breadth of this recession. Whilst we all hope that the commentators the economists and the experts are wrong or only half right if they are right why the secrecy from ordinary New Zealanders as to the response from the National Government and its Minister of Finance? Why the secrecy or is there just nothing to hide because there is nothing in the ideas cupboard? Is it that like Old Mother Hubbard there is really nothing in the cupboard? It is worrying for all of us. It will be a long 2½ years for ordinary and extraordinary New Zealanders because this recession will bite it will be deep it will be long and it will be hard. The people of New Zealand will look to Mr English and Mr Key to come up with solutions and so far we have seen no solutions. 
Yes this bill is a start and we do support it but it is not enough. As the Hon Mr Cunliffe said it parrots Labour’s initiatives before the full extent of this crisis was understood but it is not even close to far enough to addressing the concerns and the hardships of small and medium enterprises. Thank you. 
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 The speaker before me Stuart Nash tried to make out that there was no vision or plan for taking this nation forward. That is completely wrong. There is a clear plan to take this nation forward and it began the day after this Government was elected to the House. Within a few short weeks we were in this Parliament introducing tax law—our tax breaks—and rolling those tax breaks through. Within a few more weeks we are back here introducing a range of other new initiatives. Tomorrow we will have a rollout of our infrastructure plan. Today we have introduced this bill relating to small to medium enterprises. It contains no fewer than 14 initiatives which is a pretty clear number of initiatives. 
I have risen in support of this Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill but before I get into that I welcome Mr Nash to the House. I acknowledge that he is from Napier and I wish him well in his parliamentary career which I am sure will be a good one. Mr Nash and I both went to a fine school—Napier Boys’ High School—and I want to start my speech tonight by referring to another old boy of Napier Boys’ High School and that is a gentleman by the name of Rod Drury who owns a company here in Wellington called Xero. 
Xero is a medium-sized software development business and Rod has summed up the feelings of many small-business owners I have spoken to in the last few days. He disagrees with what Mr Nash is saying. He believes there is a clear vision in the initiatives that are being rolled out as we speak. He said in a press release: “It’s fantastic to see the New Zealand Government putting words into action”—which means rolling out initiatives rolling out a plan—“with a number of initiatives included in the Taxation Bill being introduced this month and coming into effect on 1 April.” That is pretty clear to me. Rod Drury goes on to say: “These initiatives will improve cash flow as well as reduce compliance costs and effort for many small businesses.” That is exactly what we are hearing up and down the country. 
Last night I spoke to the Ahuriri rotary club. The message I received from the many small-business owners present was that the package of small-business initiatives was definitely a step in the right direction. No doubt many of those men and women are facing tough times right now. As I have said previously tonight they know that there is no silver bullet. There is not one fix that will turn this economy around. As John Key said it will be a rolling maul—a positive rolling maul that will go forward as we roll out a range of initiatives. These rotary club members were pleased to see a Government that has some real empathy with the problems they face and is actually getting on with the job of addressing the issues before us. 
The Hawke’s Bay economy is an export-driven economy. Over the last 20 years we have diversified our export markets to China South Korea Vietnam Thailand and Indonesia. When we read figures such as those used by Rod Oram in Sunday’s newspaper we see that many of our key trading partners have projected economic growth worse than our own and we know that it will be a tough ride for the next few years. 
Businesses like Apollo Pac Ltd Crasborns and Bostocks in Hawke’s Bay between themselves and the growers they support employ hundreds if not thousands of workers in the Hawke’s Bay region. They know it will be tough; they know it will be hard. These men and women are already looking at their profit and loss statements and their balance sheets and they are going through them line by line to see how they can make a difference to their business how they can reduce costs in their business and how they can be in a position to get through this recession. 
Those businesses will be there because they know they will get through this recession and they want to be in the best position to come out with strong growth and they are looking for a Government that will be doing the same. That is what we are doing with this rolling maul of initiatives. I am proud to stand here today in support of this Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill and the initiatives it implements. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 The previous speaker Chris Tremain talked about the great National rolling maul. I refer him to a learned business person called Brian Gaynor. Whether one is on this side of the Chamber or in Government I think most people would say that Brian Gaynor is an eminent business person and commentator. He said this in the  
Weekend Herald 
 of 7 February when comparing the National Government’s effort—the so-called package that will save us from a deepening recession and an international economic crisis referred to by the previous speaker as a rolling maul—with what our trans-Tasman neighbours are doing: “… our transtasman neighbours are planning to take the direct and aggressive route to the try line while we have a slow moving maul with little idea who is carrying the ball and which way the maul will move next.” I think that is probably a damn good quote that sums this up. 
If we compare what we are doing here in New Zealand with our Government—and I am not talking just about the dollar for dollar head to head quantum I am talking about the aggressive action that say the Americans are taking—I point out that it is very interesting that Mr Key today as he did in the election campaign likened himself to President Barack Obama. It was very interesting. Barack Obama was elected about the same time as Mr Key—within days—and as President-elect before he had any constitutional power to do anything he had announced planned and began jawboning lobbying and gathering support for his aggressive economic package and its second phase before he even had his hands on the constitutional levers to do anything. Then when he was elected he was in the process of punching it through. He did not wait because unlike Mr Key the rest of the world knows that the economic crisis coming towards us—the likes of which no one in any country can predict the outcome of and probably the depth of which we have never seen in our lifetime—is like a tsunami. We have a couple of hours warning that it is on its way. We have a choice. We either start to prepare sandbag and do what we are supposed to do or like Mr Key and this Government we wait until the wave rolls in and we measure the height of the water and we hope that it will not be over our necks. We can make a big international comparison between what we are doing and what we are not doing in New Zealand and what they are doing in the United States. As I say before Barack Obama could do anything constitutionally he had planned lobbied brought up his list of infrastructure projects costed them and got the show on the road so that when he was sworn in 3 months later he was able to move. Mr Key of course was elected at the same time and 3 months later he was on the beach. 
Let us look at Australia. Let us not talk mark to mark dollar figures but let us see what the Australians have done. They have been aggressive. They are running the ball up as Mr Gaynor says to get the country across the line. He makes a very interesting observation: “Australian initiatives are mainly directed at low-income individuals and families because they are far more likely to spend additional income. By contrast the National Government’s revised tax cuts are more beneficial to the well-off who have a greater propensity to save rather than spend.” So I do not quite know how we get fiscal stimulus if we fund those who can afford it and their greatest motivation in life is to put it in the bank and save it because they can actually afford to do so. We can compare Kevin Rudd’s package which is aggressive and running the ball up over the try line to the sort of rolling maul of this Government where he funds the bottom end and this crowd funds the top end and there is no strategy there. 
Let us look at Gordon Brown’s second package—identified projects which I think they call “shovel-ready projects” all ready to go with money going through the system. And what do we have here in New Zealand? National says there is vision. I quote again from one of its own people Bill English who said in the press 
on 6 February—and if this sums up vision I do not know what does—when he was talking about the Australian and US Federal Governments’ packages: “We hope it works because anything that helps Australia’s economy helps us.” I agree with that. The report goes on to say: “Mr English said the best outcome New Zealand could hope for was stimulus not only in Australia but also in the United States and China. ‘These three countries are all on the go.’ ” He was right and he is right. They are all on the go with aggressive stimulus packages fiscally responsible stimulus packages and his strategy is “Let’s hope they get it right because the old tsunami in a positive way might wash over Australia wash over the UK wash over the US and maybe touch us in some sort of positive way. The stimulus might flow through New Zealand and help us. Let us just hope it works.” That is the depth of the National Party vision and I quote from the Minister of Finance himself. 
So what have we got tonight? We have a tax bill and others have outlined many similarities to— 
Nathan Guy 
: You are supporting it! 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Yes indeed and we will support it but the challenge for that member and his ilk is to put some strategy around this great vision which only the National Party knows about—no one else knows about it. And 3 months down the track we have a great unveiling in the next day or so whatever it is of the great infrastructure plan which will form some sort of centrepiece and we know of course that the great infrastructure plan like many of the things they have done in this bill and others is simply a regurgitation of what we did in Government. 
The first point is home insulation. Do members remember that? We had $1 billion put up for home insulation. What was the first thing that the new Government did? It killed that. Now we hear I think it was in response to the Green co-leader’s question Mr Key saying that we would be quite happy when they announce their infrastructure package because there will be a bit of green stuff in there. They say that they will do a bit of stuff on home insulation. National members are not the authors of original thought on this. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Or anything else. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: My colleague is right. Compare us mark to mark. 
Mr English likes to say that we cannot compete; dollar for dollar what they are doing in Australia we cannot do here. That maybe the case but in Australia in the UK and in the US they have a plan. In Australia in the UK and in the US they have a strategy that is written down. It is public it is working money is injecting into the economy and jobs are being saved. Some people sadly will still end up on the scrap heap but those countries are determined to minimise the economic damage that this international crisis will do. 
But here Mr Key waits as the tsunami comes toward him to test the level of the water. What did Mr Key do when he got back after Christmas during the great 100 days? Apart from a nice holiday in the sun and we are all entitled to that there was the great announcement as Ms King said when he rushed back to face criticism from the media about the fact that the Government was doing nothing that—and I could not believe it when I read it in the paper—a summit of five Ministers would meet urgently and with Gerry it might have been six and a half who knows but five whole Ministers would meet on a Monday. It raises the question as I said to Simon Power about what they call a Cabinet committee and what they call a whole Cabinet meeting. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: A million man march. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: That might be a huge seismic political event as Cabinet meets on a Monday. Give us a break. I say to the Government that the people are not silly. It is a five-Minister summit—with the Minister of Labour suddenly dropped off the list and that Minister is supposed to be responsible for generating employment. And then we have a Maori employment hui—an interesting concept. Then we have an employment summit. 
This all adds up to a lot of talk about what we should maybe do when other countries are implementing their economic plan as we speak and as they have done for months and months and months. I would have thought that the new Government would go to a summit to say to business people: “This is what we were elected to do. This is our plan that we have been formulating for years months minutes or whatever and we want your endorsement of the plan we want your buy-in and we want your support.” But oh no this employment summit apparently will come up with new ideas; it will ask people what the Government should do; it is chaired by Mark Weldon head of the New Zealand Exchange—an interesting person to chair it—rather than the Minister of Labour the Minister of Finance and the Minister for Economic Development saying: “Here is our bold vision here is our strategy here is where we want you to walk with us.” No it will be: “Can you give us an idea a strategy or something because we are bereft of them.” I say finally to those members that if they leave New Zealand in the lurch they will put us deeper into recession because of their inaction. 
AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) 
: 
 I am delighted to rise to speak in support of the Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill because this bill contains provisions that are what good law should be. By the agreement of this entire House which is voting in support of the bill they are necessary and they will help. This bill is about getting behind the very people who will pull our economy through these difficult times. Small and medium sized businesses are the heart of the engine room. We have to—and we will—do everything we can to assist them work with them incentivise them and encourage them and this bill is the first part of that. 
If one summarised this bill in a couple of words one would say that it is about cash flow and it is about compliance. I have been both a business owner and an employer and I have advised many many businesses. If one talks to businesses they will say that the things that help them relate to cash flow and compliance particularly when times are tough. Cash flow now is not only being hurt by the hard economic times but is being doubly squeezed by the credit crunch with banks more and more reluctant to lend. Even good strong businesses need help with cash flow. If we look at just one provision—the getting rid of the 5 percent uplift in provisional tax—we see that it will put another quarter of a billion dollars back into business accounts where it needs to be. That alone will have the significant effect of helping businesses manage their cash flow—and that is just one measure. 
When we talk about compliance let us remember that it is not just about compliance cost; it is also about compliance time. So many businesses spend a huge amount of unproductive time working through Government red tape and bureaucracy. This bill—and I commend the Minister of Revenue for the bill—goes a significant way towards reducing some of that compliance time and money. 
I will mention a couple of the provisions that in that regard really are highlights for me. They are ones that perhaps have not been talked about so much but are the ones that as a business owner I thought would be a real help to these businesses. They are about GST particularly the increase in the threshold at which tax payable must be accounted for on an invoice basis rather than a payments basis. This may not jump out at people who have not run businesses but I can tell them that if they have a small business and they hit that threshold and suddenly have to account for GST on money they do not even have it hurts and it is hard. By moving that threshold from $1.3 million to $2 million a significant number of businesses will not have to deal with that extra cash-flow hurdle. That will make a big difference and by itself will make businesses viable that might not otherwise have been viable. When we add that into the increase in the number of businesses that will now be able to file on a 6-monthly basis and the number of extra businesses that can choose whether they wish to register for GST we see that we will start to make real inroads into compliance costs on small business. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Has the National Party paid its GST yet? 
AMY ADAMS 
: Labour members can huff and puff all they like but these things will help and will keep businesses viable that would not have been viable under Labour’s rule. That is the long and the short of it. 
I am happy to support this bill because it will buffer a lot of businesses from the worst of this recession. It will make that difference. It is not a silver bullet; we have never said it is a silver bullet nor have we ever said that it is the full extent of what we will do. But it will make a big difference. It will keep businesses alive that would not have been alive under Labour’s rules—let us remember that. I am proud to support this bill because the National Government is doing what it said it would do: getting in behind the engine room of this economy. We are telling business that we are on their side. For once businesses are hearing from the Government that it is here to make their lives easier. This bill is a good start in that direction and I am pleased to support it. Thank you. 
Bill read a first time. 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue) 
: 
 I move  
That the Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill be referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee 
that the committee report finally to the House on or before 23 March 2009 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 187 and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 78 
New Zealand National 58; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 44 
New Zealand Labour 43; Progressive 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
Gangs and Organised Crime Bill 
First Reading 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill be referred to the Law and Order Committee for consideration and for the committee to report back to allow enactment this year. 
In August 2007 I announced that if National became the next Government it would make gang membership an aggravating factor in sentencing strengthen the law that makes it an offence to be a member of a criminal organisation make it easier for the police to intercept gang communications and strengthen the ability of the police to remove and storm gang fortifications. The then Labour Government then revealed that it had developed a similar bill which dealt with only the first two of those measures. That bill took another 11 months to be introduced in the House. The delay followed in our view an even longer hiatus in the previous Government’s policy to combat gangs that started in 2005 and was broken only it seemed by the drive-by shooting of a Wanganui toddler in May 2007. The lesson is that no Government can afford to get complacent when it comes to gangs. 
The Gangs and Organised Crime Bill which I have brought before the House tonight fulfils the promise National made in 2007 and its first reading today fulfils the Government’s commitment to introduce the bill in its first 100 days. The bill amends section 98A of the Crimes Act 1961 to increase the penalty for participation in an organised criminal group from a maximum of up to 5 years’ imprisonment to a maximum of up to 10 years’ imprisonment. The average prison sentence for this offence between 2004 and 2007 was 2 years. That does not adequately reflect the culpability of those gang leaders who organised serious criminal activity such as methamphetamine manufacturing and distribution without directly offending themselves. 
The other side to this issue is the rate of successful convictions for participation in a criminal organisation under section 98A which has historically been very low. From 2004 to 2007 there were 339 prosecutions but only 19 convictions—a total of 5 percent. There are a number of reasons for this in fairness the first of which is the complexity of this provision. The second reason is the high evidential burden placed on the prosecution to prove the offence. The bill currently in its first reading before the House draws on case law to clarify the evidential requirements under that section which should ease the burden placed on the Crown to prove that an accused participates in an organised criminal group. It is intended to result in more successful prosecutions for participation in an organised criminal group without criminalising mere association—an extremely difficult thing to legislate for. 
 The bill also requires the sentencing judge to take into account any offending that is committed due to involvement with such a group as a specific aggravating factor at sentencing. Combined with a doubling of the penalty under section 98A of the Crimes Act and changes to the legal threshold this amendment to the Sentencing Act should increase the penalties handed down to gangs. 
However this bill is not limited to the punishment of gang members. It also provides the police with tools to apprehend those who commit organised crime. The bill expands in two ways the ability of the police to undertake surveillance of gang communications. The first is by providing specific authority for the police to apply for an interception warrant to investigate the offence of participation in an organised criminal group. That in turn will disrupt organised criminal groups by capturing those who organise or facilitate illegal activity. 
Secondly the bill lowers the general threshold for those offences that can be used as the basis for interception warrants from those attracting at least 10 years in prison to those attracting 7 years in prison or more. This means that the police will be able to obtain interception warrants for a wider range of offences—such as car conversion for example—and it sends a message to gangs that the net on their criminal activities is widening. This should enhance the prospects of successful prosecutions under section 98A of the Crimes Act. 
The bill also provides that a removal order may be sought from a District Court in order to remove intimidating structures such as gang forts. For years fortified gang premises have concealed potential offending. The law currently allows the police or territorial authorities to seek court authorisation to remove these structures under the Local Government Act if they are connected to criminal activity or are intended to cause injury. The previous Government rejected law changes that would make it easier for the police to destroy gang fortifications arguing that the current law “appears sufficiently broad” yet it could not say how many gang forts had been stormed and strangely in 2007 the law was removed as a key operational practice from the police statement of intent. 
This Government argues that gang forts are not only a threat to public safety because they potentially cloak illegal activity but also their very presence is threatening and makes a neighbourhood feel less safe. The Gangs and Organised Crime Bill will therefore give additional powers to have these structures removed if they are intimidating in nature. 
Gang activity is insidious and therefore it requires a comprehensive integrated response. The Gangs and Organised Crime Bill is but part of that response by its providing more effective investigative powers and strengthening penalties. Although this bill is one of the first actions of this Government it will not be our final action on gangs. I am determined that if we have the honour of serving the people for as long as the previous administration did we will not wait until 10 days before the election to announce our sole law and order policy—which was in the previous administration’s case to establish a commission of inquiry on gangs. I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 Let me say from the outset that on this side of the House we share many of the Minister of Justice’s views in respect of the insidious nature of gangs. They are repugnant their activities are repugnant and the negative impact they put upon families young people and innocent members of our community needs to be dealt with. 
That being said we will support the referral of the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill to the Law and Order Committee and give it close scrutiny. I have to say though as an aside that there is an opportunity during a first reading debate which we are now engaged in to actually debate a bill. That is predicated on the fact that all members of Parliament in Government and in Opposition have access to the legislation so that they can read chew over discuss and analyse it and then make a constructive contribution on it to this House. 
Phil Goff and others on this side of the House have said that as an Opposition in respect of this bill we will be constructive where things work and are appropriate because it does a number of positive things. But I say to the Minister through you Mr Assistant Speaker that to drop a bill on the Table—and I think this is the fourth or fifth bill since this Government has been elected—an hour or less before a debate gives no one the opportunity to actually analyse it. I suspect that maybe the National Party members have had a chance to look at this bill—and Mr Borrows might be able to confirm or deny this—but no one else in the House has. 
Hon Simon Power 
: That’s not true. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: The Minister says that is not true. Mr Borrows might be able to confirm that. The best we have been able to get after a couple of phone conversations in the last 24 hours is for the Minister to produce a weighty document of one page and about three lines. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: That was for Gerry. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Quite possibly. No it is not in big print. A summary of one page and three lines has been distributed to members of the Opposition and it is exceptionally vague. 
The summary talks about how in this gangs legislation there will be additional powers as the Minister has illustrated to have gang fortifications removed if they are intimidating in nature but the summary the Minister delivered to us this morning does not even define what intimidating means. I have read it. I had a quick look at it as soon as it came out as have my colleagues. 
I ask the Minister through you Mr Assistant Speaker if this is such a big issue within the community—and it is—and if this is such flagship legislation for the Government why on earth he did not do what is normal: put it on the Table for 3 days and allow all members of Parliament to actually have a number of statutory days as they are entitled to to read and analyse the bill so that we could make a contribution on it. He says his own caucus has not even seen the legislation. I am sure Mr Borrows has a particular view about that. He will not articulate it tonight I am sure. 
The question is why the Minister dropped the bill on the Table with an hour’s notice unless he himself is not convinced that it will work unless there is something hidden in it that we do not know about—but that will be unveiled at the select committee; he can take my word for that—or unless it is a case of a rushed “tweak a bit here tweak a bit there” draft of a political pamphlet to try to convince the people that the Government is getting tough on crime as it did with the Bail Act when actually there is not a lot to this bill. The select committee will examine all those issues. 
I say to the Minister that he is making a habit of doing this. He has two other bills on the Table tonight—the DNA bill and the $50 an offence bill—that members of Parliament have been given no time to scrutinise. I think 60 minutes is what we have had. And we have to ask why that is if these are such critical issues to the community—and they are. Maybe the Government does not want the scrutiny but the public will get the chance to scrutinise the bill. We are assured of that because Opposition members will— 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: It’s going to a select committee. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I am sorry I could not hear the interjection from “Paris Hilton” over there but he did interject on me. We on this side of the House will ensure that the public get the right to have input on this bill. 
The Minister talked about Labour’s record in Government. Well I will give the Minister a few statistics. In 2007 police made 6134 arrests of persons with identified gang connections and brought over 26000 charges against them. That was in 2007. 
The Minister said there are a number of complex issues in this bill. For instance he said there is complexity in many of the provisions. He said quite rightly that legislating for association is exceptionally difficult. Yet he will not give anybody any time within this House in this first reading to actually scrutinise it. One wonders whether he was drafting in the dead of night last night to try to cobble the bill together. This is not the way to make decent law. For urgency to be called on the first reading of a bill that is being sent to a select committee is quite remarkable and strange. 
I will give the Minister another couple of items on the last Government’s record in power. It was the Labour Government of course that was increasing prison sentence lengths for those belonging to criminal gangs and was improving police surveillance powers over those gangs through the Organised Crime (Penalties and Sentencing) Bill which was awaiting its second reading. It was when Labour was in power that the police announced that the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand would receive 35 more staffing positions bringing it up to a total of 58. During the last parliamentary term 1250 additional police staff were added. The police now have 234 dedicated staff in organised crime units made up of 40 squads around New Zealand. The Minister might deride and try to put the boot in to the last Government’s record—I suppose that is his job as he sees it—but the increase in resources and staffing on the ground with 40 squads to deal with organised crime has had a real and practical effect. It is at the coalface not in this Chamber where one actually fights crime. 
In Government we introduced the Search and Surveillance Powers Bill to allow for more explicit powers for enforcement agencies to search computers and seize electronic data and streamlined examination orders for law enforcement agencies. We know that gangs are not what they were 20 or 30 years ago. In some cases the baseball bats have been replaced by computers cellphones and text messaging P and other drugs and the use of young people to traffic those drugs and substances. Through organised crime and money-laundering there are now more sophisticated ways to attempt to mask and dispose of those funds. 
I say to the Minister that we will be constructive in respect of this bill but he is getting a reputation. I invite him or one of his colleagues to give us an explanation. Somebody may correct me but I do not think there has been a Government or a Minister that has dropped more bills in the House with zero notice to members of Parliament—including now he tells us his own caucus. There have been three bills tonight and there were two before Christmas—that makes five. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: His nickname used to be “Due Process”. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Yes well he is a lawyer. I believe that he probably agrees with due process but I would be very interested to know— 
Sandra Goudie 
: We’ve got to catch up on 9 years—9 years of nothing. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Ms Goudie is chair of the Law and Order Committee which this bill will proceed to. I would be very interested to get an explanation. I say to Mr Power that I think the House is owed an explanation as to why these bills have been dropped on all members of Parliament with zero notice. If he wants an Opposition to be constructive then he has to play the game and be fair and he has to allow for due process in this House. 
I conclude by saying that I agree that gangs as with all organised crime are a scourge on our society. I agree that if we can toughen up and use new measures then we should implement those as long as they work and are practical. Before Christmas my leader Annette King—the deputy leader—and I had interaction with the South Australian Government and we have been looking very carefully at its gang legislation. The Attorney-General of South Australia has worked for 3 years with the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General—which is the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s group—in formulating that anti-gang legislation. It appears from initial reports and from having talked to the Premier as recently as last week that it is working and working well. So we are looking at innovative ideas that have been developed very recently across the Tasman. 
I think even Mike Rann the Premier of South Australia and his Attorney-General whom I know well gave the Opposition in their Parliament the courtesy and respect of due process to examine that legislation which indeed is quite controversial in Australia. It deals very heavily with anti-association issues in that non-association orders can be put upon individuals who are in deemed organisations. 
We will support this bill but I say to the Minister that it would be nice and it would be appropriate to give members an explanation—and I am sure the community listening would also like an explanation—as to why these bills have been dropped on the Table with no notice. 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I appreciate the opportunity to take a call in support of the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill. It is interesting to hear the member who has just resumed his seat Clayton Cosgrove talk about this legislation’s being “dropped” upon the House. He has a very short memory if he can not think back to the emissions trading scheme legislation—that hallmark legislation from the last Parliament—and the 750 amendments that were dropped on the Finance and Expenditure Committee 2 days before the bill was due back before the House. One thousand amendments were dropped on the Committee of the whole House and by that night the bill was law. That was not due process and that was not giving people time to consider legislation before it was debated in the House so that comment was pretty rich coming from him. 
I want to focus the mind of the House on a couple of other things. One of them is that next Friday on 20 February is the sentencing of the offenders convicted of the murder of Jhia Te Tua. Next Friday the murderers of Jhia Te Tua will be sentenced in the court just across the road here—the High Court in Wellington. The legacy of that tragedy—and thank goodness there is one—is that it dragged the Labour Government kicking and screaming into a position where it was prepared to deal with gangs. In 2004 the police national gang strategy lapsed and was not replaced until the horrific death of Jhia Te Tua. 
Out of that tragedy came legislation that we debated in the House last year that made a number of proposals. Some of them are replicated within the bill now before the House. So the House has actually previously debated this issue. We were on opposite sides of the House but we were generally in accord. We debated for instance the prospect of amending section 98A of the Crimes Act and how that would affect surveillance on gangs. We covered some of the points and we indicated to the House the National Party’s position; this legislation was on its way when we became the Government. 
This legislation is crucial to allowing the police to move and take proactive steps in respect of combating gangs as is the legislative change proposed to the Sentencing Act. If a person commits a crime as a gang member no matter what it is that person will get more of a penalty than if that person commits it as “Joe Citizen”. We need some real disincentives for people belonging to gangs as well as offending as part of gangs. 
The third piece of legislation that will be amended is the Local Government Act. The amendments will make it easier for the police to storm fortifications and rip them down. Sunlight is a fantastic disinfectant as is the ability to look inside those gang headquarters to see and listen to what they are up to. Police will be able to prosecute gang members for those offences and get more severe penalties when they are eventually convicted. That ability is paramount in the mind of this Government and I am pleased and proud to be part of this bill. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 As my colleague the Hon Clayton Cosgrove has said Labour will be supporting the bill’s referral to the select committee. We are all very pleased that it is going to a select committee because of course the bills we looked at before Christmas were not given the opportunity for the public scrutiny they ought to have been given. I do not know why the Government somehow seems to think that it is OK to introduce measures because they have been perhaps scrutinised in a different environment and under a different set of circumstances or when they have not been subject to the degree of scrutiny one would expect of bills with significant changes to the law. I do not think it is a very good practice to do that but this bill is going to a select committee. 
My colleague makes a very good point which is that when a bill is introduced under urgency it does not sit on the Table for the 3 days it normally would. Therefore there is not the opportunity for the scrutiny and the discussion we all like to have in order to understand the particular features of a particular measure. I do not think that that is unreasonable—and the member on the other side of the House might laugh—but what goes around comes around I guess. I do not want to enter into a debate as to who did what when how and why because of course we will always find examples where different Governments have taken a particular approach. But I am saying that when we change the criminal law— 
Sandra Goudie 
: Or not do anything for 9 years. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Well actually we did not introduce a lot of laws under urgency. For us to do that was on a very rare occasion indeed. Most of the laws we introduced over those 9 years—and this will definitely stand some scrutiny and checking by the Bills Office—lay on the Table for the 3 statutory days. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: And went to a select committee. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: And they went to a select committee. This bill is going to a select committee but I do not think that anyone should completely underestimate the lack of opportunity for an Opposition to properly scrutinise the content of the legislation. I honestly believe that it is nice to see the pre-Christmas desire to get things passed through all stages somehow now taking a back seat but I wonder whether Mr Key is actually regretting his “100 days of action” promise because those who are interested in the process of Government are very concerned at what are smoke-and-mirror measures so that action is seen to be done rather than actually being done. 
Gangs have been a problem that successive Governments have had to confront ever since I have been here. I have been a member of Parliament since 1990 and I remember in that first term in office the huge debates that were held with Jim Bolger as the Prime Minister of New Zealand and Mike Moore as the Leader of the Opposition constantly battling over the issue of the then Government’s response to gangs. So I do not think anyone should pretend that this is a brand new issue that suddenly somehow needs to be addressed immediately after the holding of an election. 
But I think that the Government has failed to recognise that many gangs have fundamentally changed the way they operate. The underlying criminality of course behind their activities has not changed at all but a lot more gang members are wearing suits today than in the 1990s. They do not all hide behind intimidating gang-like structures but I can tell members that where they do live is equally impenetrable. Any law to rip down gang structures does not actually give us access to the property as Chester Borrows somehow seems to think. What it does do is deal with the outer vision of the problem without dealing with the underlying problem. It does not matter whether they are hidden behind intimidating gang-like structures or whether they are hidden from public view because their activities are essentially underground and they want to stay out of view. 
The amount of money involved in the trade in P far exceeds anything these gangs were ever able to extract from marijuana—way more. Why do members think gang members are suddenly wearing suits and driving around in cars instead of on the traditional Harley Davidsons? It is essentially because they are not out there causing the kinds of public mayhem they may have been involved in in the past—some of the gangs are but many are not—and the reason they are not out there causing those kinds of public mayhem is that they do not want the close police scrutiny that that obviously causes. The reason they do not want that is that it is far more lucrative for them to be involved in those underground nefarious activities than it is to be exposed to the kind of scrutiny the police would bring to bear. Gangs want their customers to be able to come and go as they please and they want to stay out of the public eye. 
That is one of the reasons why the previous Government said it would establish a commission of inquiry into organised gangs. It was not to be the starting point of the Government’s policy on organised crime. Rather it was necessary to wrap up the work we had already done by bringing in the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand. We had introduced new search and surveillance measures. We had anti - money laundering provisions in front of the House and further strengthening of the proceeds of crime legislation not to mention the Organised Crime (Penalties and Sentencing) Bill which is on the Order Paper awaiting its second reading. 
 I ask the Minister why he does not progress that bill now—immediately. We are introducing a new bill when we have a bill already on the Order Paper that could proceed through all of its stages. It has been to a select committee. That level of scrutiny has been done. It is a bill that we could see immediate action on but we see a Government really wanting to be seen to be doing things rather than actually doing things. So I do not really buy the argument that this bill is the immediate priority when we have bills already in front of the House. 
There is another bill that the Minister I know has been supportive of which is the Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill. That is something that could be progressed to a select committee. But I was surprised and shocked—stunned really—to find that it was not in the list of bills that we were going to deal with in this urgency motion because it feels to me that if we are looking at the whole issue of crime then we must see that alcohol lies at the heart of many of the challenges that are faced in our communities. 
In terms of the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill which we are discussing at the moment as I have said—and as I think the Minister himself has accepted—many of the policies were in place with bills that the previous Government put in place. But it is really of concern to me that we have legislation brought to the House when we have not had time to give it the consideration it deserves. Yes the bill will go to a select committee and yes it will then be subject to the kind of scrutiny we want but I am slightly concerned that the Government seems to be addressing what the bill looks like from the outside. The bill almost feels like window dressing to me and it does not really tackle the depth of the problems we face with gangs. That is why I thought a commission of inquiry was such a positive suggestion by the previous Government because it really would have enabled the depth of scrutiny that simply is not available when we look just at the very narrow parameters of a bill that has been introduced into Parliament. So I encourage the Government in the context of this bill to reconsider its position on the previous Government’s announcement of a commission of inquiry. I do not personally think it would do any harm to have a commission of inquiry into organised criminal gangs in the context of proceeding with this legislation. 
Sandra Goudie 
: All hui no doey. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: The member Sandra Goudie chips in and I think proves the ignorance of the argument which is that there is a complete lack of understanding of the nature of the changes that have occurred in criminal activity. I think that the Labour Government finally really came on board with that with the establishment of the Organised and Financial Crime Agency and by understanding that the establishment of the Serious Fraud Office really took away those police officers who were able at a very high level to investigate organised crime into the sphere of financial crime. There has been a real disservice done by this incoming Government in not pursuing that particular policy of the previous Government because I think it was on the right track—a real beef-up of the resources of the police in this area and a focus on what is now the serious financial and organised crime associated with gangs who have pulled themselves apart from the old gang culture that I think we would all recognise but that now is very much a more insidious and pervasive part of our society. So I ask the Government to consider that in the context of this legislation. 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I am pleased to stand and speak on the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill and to support my most excellent colleagues the Hon Simon Power and Chester Borrows. I am totally supportive of our Government’s policy on gangs which includes tougher penalties for membership of a criminal gang expanding police surveillance powers in respect of gang communications and providing greater powers to remove gang fortifications. 
As chairperson of the Law and Order Committee I am delighted to hear that the Opposition is supporting the bill and is supportive of the content of the bill. We are looking forward to sharing those members’ expertise and knowledge in this respect and to progressing this bill to its final conclusion: to become very worthy legislation totally supporting the police and the very important work they do. 
In providing the police with these extra powers we can see them being able to take a greater stance against gangs. An example is their success in terms of their surveillance of the Killer Bees. The police have practically decimated that gang. I look forward to seeing this legislation being implemented so that they can do the same with the remaining gangs in this country. I look forward to the bill having the Opposition’s support in that regard. 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 First of all I will address the matter of urgency and I know that other members have done that this evening. The Gangs and Organised Crime Bill has not been made available to members of Parliament in such time that there can be any serious consideration of its provisions. In addition it has not been made available to the public. The Green Party believes that this is an abuse of the parliamentary process and cannot be justified under any circumstances especially given that we have heard that the Government members have had access to the legislation. It has been available to others in this House but not to Opposition members. That shows the lack of transparency that this Government is prepared to engage in. 
It also shows a high level of mistrust of the public. The public are entitled to inspect the legislation that its legislators are to debate and they expect us to make some serious consideration of its provisions. But for as long as the National Government refuses to make the legislation available even to the public the public themselves are shut out from being able to understand the issues in the legislation and to make a contribution through their local representatives. It is a disgrace for a Government to have such a lack of transparency to the public let alone to the parliamentary process. 
Gang violence is extremely serious in this country as it is everywhere. The community deserves to be protected. The community deserves to be safe in their homes and in their communities. There have been some terrible recent cases—for example the man stabbed by a prospect while trying to protect a woman from violence and the young man stabbed because of the colour of his kura T-shirt. There are other cases that are very well known and there are many other cases that Parliament and perhaps even the police do not know about—terrible acts of violence and crime that affect communities. 
One of the concerns the Green Party has about this is that it is the working class communities that suffer the most from gang violence. It is not the wealthy who suffer but the working class—those who are already vulnerable and who are already on low incomes and have few resources to deal with the impact of this crime on them. These are the communities that have the least protection from the State especially when it comes to economic and structural violence committed by the State. They also have to suffer from this violence committed by members of their own community sometimes even their own families. 
The Green Party will welcome any provisions that address the underlying causes of gang attraction for young people: poverty under-education and disempowerment. We welcome any provision that reduces violence committed by gangs. We welcome any provision that will enable the rehabilitation of gang members who are currently in prison in order to reduce the recidivism rate. We support any provisions that will support the families of gang members—the children and partners of gang members—to break out of the violence and poverty cycles into which they have been trapped by structural social and personal circumstances. 
So what does this legislation do? Well let us have a look at a couple of the provisions. Of the two most significant provisions in the legislation—as far as we can tell given the very short time we have had to look at it—one is about making interception warrants more readily available to the police. They are reducing the sentence provisions so that with crimes for which there could be a sentence of 7 or more years the police would be able to get an interception warrant if there is a suspicion that those crimes are being committed by an organised criminal group. 
It is very difficult without any evidence and without any time to assess the extent to which this will make an appreciable difference to the powers of the police to access interception warrants. We simply do not know. It depends on the crimes that are involved. We simply have not had time to investigate that properly. There is very little useful information in the Government’s own papers. Those papers are very much policy papers. They are not really legislative papers. So we simply do not know. We will maintain an open mind about that when the bill goes to the select committee which is a good thing and will look at the usefulness or effectiveness of those provisions. 
The other issue of serious concern and which could be effective but about which we will have a discussion is increasing the term of imprisonment from 5 years to 10 years for those participating in an organised criminal group. First of all that raises a question around groups or political organisations that are considered by the police to be criminal because they are subversive or legitimate critics of political thought. We have had that problem before with the Tuhoe raids. A whole community was raided identified as a terrible criminal community but with absolutely no justification. Photos of children and families were splattered across the newspapers and people were seriously damaged by the impact of that disgusting and disgraceful behaviour by the police. 
Now we are giving the courts even more powers in terms of sentencing for members of those communities. Do we want the police to have that power? There is a big question about that. They have abused it in the past; why would they not abuse it again if they find a community they do not like? 
In addition this provision will increase the prison muster. There will be increased costs on the taxpayer and there simply has not been any proper cost-effectiveness analysis of the impact of increasing the prison muster versus other kinds of sentencing opportunities or rehabilitation that will reduce recidivism and be more cost-effective. That would be a very useful piece of work to be done—particularly by say the Auditor-General who is very good at doing that kind of work as we all know. But there is no evidence that it is cost-effective to increase the prison muster. Worst of all simply increasing the length of a sentence will only increase recidivism. All of the research and evidence in New Zealand show that the longer that people are in prison the more likely they will commit crime when they come out and that the crime escalates. If people go in for a long time on a fairly minor charge they are more likely to come out and commit a much higher-level crime particularly crimes around violence. 
If that is the case if we have proof of that why would the Government want to increase sentences and simply increase the chance of recidivism and increase the likelihood that those persons will reoffend and that their reoffending will be more serious? It makes no sense. It is detrimental to community safety simply to impose longer sentences without other interventions at the same time. None of those matters is set out in this legislation. 
If the causes of crime are not addressed we will continue to have major crime issues in this country and particularly around gangs because of the community connection and the power and respect that often those people engender in their communities. Poverty is the single-biggest driver that leads young people to gangs and in gangs young people can see the working class older men with power and with respect. In gangs the young are provided with a comparatively safe environment in which to develop some levels of skills. They might be very antisocial skills but none the less they are respected and there is comparative safety. 
In gangs young people can advance. They can obtain some wealth. They can obtain some respect but they do not get it from anywhere else in our community. There have been numerous examples of young people having had no other alternative but to find that respect and security in the gangs. There was a very good example when last year Alan Johnson from Manurewa described a league club in Manurewa that could not get enough money to keep its buildings in good enough repair to be able to support the young people who were involved in that club. They had 1000 members they had annual fees of $20 and they still had families who could not participate because it was too expensive. Those families had to choose between one child or the other being able to play league. Because those children got no support from elsewhere they had no other accessible participation that they could be involved with that would give them the kind of respect and dignity they were looking for. Where are they going to go? 
Politicians will make political meals out of the tragedies of gang violence but will do nothing to demonstrate the real leadership that our communities need in order to avoid those kinds of gang problems in the future. We need real leadership. We need to protect our communities. We need cost-effective rehabilitation programmes to be supported. A number currently exist in our jails—for example Kia Marama Sycamore Tree and faith-based units. We need to eliminate the poverty that blights those communities and drives them into gangs as being the only option for them. We need warm dry houses at least for them to be able to live in. We need high-quality truly free education for their children to participate in. We need affordable public transport so they can get to work get to school get to their community engagements. We need secure employment but that was demolished by National in December of last year. We need secure employment that provides a living wage for families so they can care for themselves and each other without having to resort to crime to find sufficient income. 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 I am happy to rise in support of the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill and I begin by saying I am happy to agree with two speakers on the Labour side. Ms Dalziel quite correctly said that the gang problem has morphed over recent years from men in stinking denims with tattoos on their faces and elsewhere into men in suits. That is true. They have moved more towards the Capone mob than they ever were before. I am happy to agree with Mr Cosgrove who described gangs as a scourge on our society because that is what they are. 
The reason I was attracted to ACT is very simple. Its founding principle is that the first role of the State is the protection of its citizens—to protect its citizens and not to protect criminals. Sadly that is where my agreement with the other side of the House ends. I believe that the concept of the protection of citizens rather than criminals was foreign to the previous Government. It let violent offenders out of prison after serving just one third of their sentence which William Bell who had 102 previous convictions roam around and kill Mary Hobson and three others. 
I am very pleased that the new Government’s first 100 days has included emphasis on legislation to deal with these problems. I respectfully disagree with my colleagues on the National benches who say that association laws are very difficult. I recall an exchange of correspondence between myself and that greatly respected éminence grise from the Labour Party Sir Geoffrey Palmer more than 20 years ago when he loftily informed me that we could not make laws to outlaw gangs because no Western society had done so. I informed him—he did not bother to reply—that West Germany as it then was had successfully outlawed Fascist parties and that the Irish Republic had successfully outlawed the IRA. Neither of them was repressive totalitarian regimes. 
It is possible to pass non-association laws. If we talk to older policemen we will hear that they used to go to the flying-jug hotel in every town—I think it was in Cambridge Terrace here in Wellington—pick out the guys who were subject to non-association orders and lock them up. But then we started to say that no we could not do that because it was against people’s human rights. When we talk to retired policemen they tell us that. 
We support this bill as a good start. It is kind of ironic for me as I stand here that locals in my pub up in Kaukapakapa who are mostly Labour voters would say that this bill does not go anywhere near far enough and that we should have an “Extermination of Gangs Bill”. Those people are Labour voters but crucially they have mixed with those guys. They know what they are like. They know that the Mongrel Mob is not another kind of whanau. They know that what Metiria Turei was saying is simply nonsense. 
Gangs are criminal organisations whose focus is making money. As Ms Dalziel has said they are making a hell of a lot of money from P and they are also making money from dope dealing and from stealing cars breaking them up and selling them. They are making money from raping paua beds and selling paua to whomever. Sadly with Asian gangs coming in they are making money from contract killings extortion and protection. 
 Gangs are not whanau. They are not a rough version of the Lions club as silly left-wing commentators used to say. We can differentiate in law between the Lions club and Black Power the Hell’s Angels or the Headhunters just as the West Germans did and just as the Irish did. Sadly my friends at the Kaukapakapa pub are wrong. An “Extermination of Gangs Bill” is not that simple—we all know that—and this bill is a demonstration of the complexity of the problem. It needs to be attacked on a number of fronts and this bill talks about that especially about interception warrants. 
Ms Dalziel is absolutely right: the stupid fools who parade around barking like dogs and waving their blue scarves or whatever they are—red is the colour of the other bunch of clowns is it not—are probably too stupid to need interception warrants to be caught. But the P dealers the Headhunters and the Hell’s Angels—she is quite right—all keep quiet. They have nice houses in Herne Bay they smile at their neighbours and they help old ladies across the road. At Christmas time they have a nice run and collect teddy bears. But they are the really sinister ones. That is why we need these kinds of provisions to get into them find out what they are doing get the evidence and lock them up for a very long time. None of these gangs are motorcycle clubs. As Ms Dalziel says they have moved on a bit. But some of those old ones still exist. 
I do not know how many members of the House have been in gang pads but I have. A lot of gang members will say “We’re not a gang; we’re a club. See—MC bro MC: motorcycle club.” But that is nonsense. It is absolute nonsense. Another thing on the patch is “1%”. That is there because they claim proudly to be outlaws. That “1%” comes from a motorcycle association in California in the 1940s when the whole gang thing and culture first started. That organisation came out and said that fewer than 1 percent of motorcycle riders were outlaws and law-breakers. So the gangs adopted the figure proudly and said: “One percent—you see we’re outlaws.” That is what they are and outlaws deliberately put themselves outside the law. They say: “We don’t give a stuff about your laws.” or they say it in language a bit more fruity than that. 
We should respond by saying that they are outside the law and are not entitled to the same rights as you are Mr Assistant Speaker or as I am or as the members on the other side of the House are. They have fewer rights because of their behaviour—they are outlaws—and this bill is a good start. Those gangs are no more—even the motorcycle gangs the prominent gangs. They used to be the Capone mob in stinking denims but now the smart ones have moved on. They have given away the denims and they have bought the pinstriped suits— 
Hon Members 
: Ha ha! 
DAVID GARRETT 
: I notice that my leader the leader of our gang has entered the House but I cannot reveal our initiation rites here! 
But Ms Dalziel is correct: it is the ones in suits we have to fear and it is those gangs that this bill is targeting with interception warrants. The bill is a good start and we are proud and pleased to support it. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Tena koe. Kia ora tatau e te Whare. I te tau kua hipa i puta i a matou o te Pati Maori he inoi ki te Whare kia tika ra ano te whakahua i nga ingoa Maori me nga kupu Maori i roto i tenei Whare. Ae he mema hou te mema e korerohia ake nei kare au i pirangi ki te whawhati i tana korero engari ko taku he inoi ano ra ki te Whare kia tika ra ano te whakahua i nga kupu Maori kia tika kia Maori mai. Kaore au i te pirangi ki te whawhati i te korero a tenei kao engari i te timatanga o te tau me whakaputa enei korero kia matua mohio mai te katoa. 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
Greetings. Greetings to us the House. We the Maori Party made a plea to the House last year for Maori names and words to be pronounced correctly when used in the House. Yes the member referred to here is new and while I did not wish to interrupt his address it is timely to make that plea once again at this point that the House make an effort to ensure that Maori words are pronounced correctly and made to sound like Maori.  
I do not wish to interrupt this one’s address no indeed but it is the beginning of the year and these statements should be made to ensure that everyone is aware of the matter 
.] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The member’s point of order is well made and I am sure all members will acknowledge it. I think that it is a general reminder to members that we should pay our respects not only to the English language but certainly to the Maori language as well and all do our best to pronounce the words as best we can. Kia ora. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I a tatau e korero nei i te take nei anei au e noho i te awangawanga i te rangirua. E penei ana te korero i te mea kaore e kore i nga marama kua hipa kua rongo tatau katoa o tenei Whare i te ngau o-mate. No reira me penei rawa te korero haere koutou haere koutou haere koutou moe mai. Apiti hono tatai hono koutou ki a koutou apiti hono tatai hono tatau e hui nei i tenei ra nga mema o te Whare Paremata tena koutou tena koutou kia ora tatau. 
I mihia te hunga mate e Mr Assistant Speaker na runga i te mea i nga hararei kua hipa i natatanei i te wiki kua hipa ake i rongo te hapori o Murupara i te matenga o tetahi o wa ratau tamaiti. Ko Jordan Herewini tona ingoa. Tekau ma ono tona pakeke. I kohurutia e te mema o te kenge kia mate. Whanakohia te waka a tetahi o te kenge taraiwa tika tonu atu ki tera tamaiti ka hinga ka mate. Tekau ma ono noa iho ona tau. Ko wai te hunga i kohuru i a ia? He kenge. He Maori i patu i te Maori. No reira nei au e noho nei i te riri ki tera tangata i kohuru i tera tamaiti. Anei au e noho i te whakama na te Maori ano te Maori i patu. Anei ano au e noho i te pouri na runga i te pouri o te ngakau ki nga tamariki o tona kura tona whanau te tumuaki nga kaiako o tona kura. 
Anei au e noho i te rangirua ae ranei me tautoko i tenei pire kaore ranei. Ki te Minita he pai tonu te aronga o te pire nei. Ae kia hangai tonu ana ki te hunga e mahi nei i nga hara o roto i te ao. Kai te whakaae atu au ki tera. Engari anei au e whakaaro ake nei ka ngaki tera i te mate o Jordan? Kaore pea kaore pea. I mohio au ki tenei tamaiti a Jordan. Ko taku riri ki tera tangata nana tena i mahi. Engari e hangai tonu tenei pire ki tera? Te ahua nei kao. Kaore i eke ki tera taumata. 
Kua hoha te ao Maori ki nga mahi a etahi o nga kenge. Ae kua hoha kua riri ki nga kenge mo te mahi kohuru mo te mahi whanako mo te mahi hokohoko tarutaru. Ko nga korero o te mema i tu mai i mua i a au ae e tautoko ake. Engari koia nei te rongoa? E kore pea. Ahakoa ko te ngakau kei te ki ae me tautoko. Ko te hinengaro kai te ki taihoa. Taihoa ake nei. Ata wananga i te take nei. Ehara i te mea he take ngawari noa iho. He tamariki to wetahi o nga mema o nga kenge. He kuia tonu to wetahi o nga kenge. He koroua tonu he wahine tonu ta wetahi. No reira kai te korero tatau mo te tangata mo te tangata. Kai te korero tatau mo te whakapapa o te tangata kaua ko te whakapapa o te kuri. Ko te whakapapa o te tangata penei i a koe a koe a koe a koe a koe tatau he tangata. 
E ki ana i roto i te ao Maori: “He aha te mea nui o te ao? Maku e ki atu he tangata.” No reira kai roto i nga korero o te ao Maori. No reira tenei take he take nui whakaharahara he take nui. Me korero ki te take ka tika. 
Na ara ano nga awangawanga. Ko te ingoa o tenei pire kai te ki “Kenge me nga” kaore au i te mohio pehea te whakamaori i enei korero engari  
“ 
organised crime 
”.  
Tera korero. Ko te mate ke penei i taku korero ki te Minita i te rangi nei. Ko tenei kupu o te “kenge” e ai ki ta te titiro o Aotearoa hangai tonu ana ki nga kenge Maori. Ki ta te titiro o Aotearoa hangai tonu ana tana titiro ki te kenge Maori. Anei matau e wananga nei ara noa atu nga momo kenge. Ukuia tera ingoa. Ukuia tera ingoa kia kore tenei pire e rere tika tonu atu ki te ahuatanga o nga Maori. 
Katahi. Ka rua. Kua rongo au i nga korero a Metiria Turei ko tana ki mai mo te ahuatanga ki a Tuhoe. Nui atu roa atu i te kotahi tau te pirihimana e matakitaki atu ana e te pirihi. Pai mai kino mai koina te ahuatanga o te mahi. He aha te putanga mai? Katoa o te wharua o Ruatoki i rongo nei i te ngau o te pirihimana ahakoa ehara no ratou tetahi paku he. Anei matau e patai nei i te patai ka pehea te hunga e korerohia ake nei i roto i nga kenge? Ka pera ano hoki ratou? Ae ranei kaore ranei. A tera korero tera. Ko tetahi pea o nga tikanga e ai ki ta wetahi tetahi o nga tikanga o te kenge he utu te korero. He utu. Ka patua tetahi ana patua ano ra tetahi atu. Anei tatau e mahi nei i tera mahi ki a ratau. Ko taua ahua ano ra. Ko te utu. Kare e whakaaro ake mo te ngawari kia puta mau ratau ki te whai ao ki te ao marama kao. Tikina te ki mahia te mahi whiua ki te whare herehere. Tera korero tera. 
No reira kei te whakaae atu au ae he take nui te kenge. Ko taku e ki nei kei roto i o tatau ringaringa pea te rongoa. He aha te he o te titiro ki tetahi huarahi ke atu? Kaua ko te utu engari tera pea ki etahi huarahi e whai haeretia nei e te hapori o Murupara. I naponei i hui a Ngati Manawa ki runga i tetahi o wa ratou marae ki Murupara. I reira i korerohia te take nei. I puta te korero karangahia he hui o nga kenge katoa o Murupara kia hui tahi kia korero tahi a kua puawai tera moemoea. Apopo ka tu te hui mo nga kenge o Murupara. Apopo. Ko ta ratau ko te kimi rongoa i roto i a ratou ano. E kore nga pirihimana e tae atu. Kore nga mema paremata e tae atu. Kua waiho ake ma te hapori ano te hapori e korero. Kua waiho ake ma Ngati Manawa a Ngati Manawa e korero. Kua waiho ake ma Ngati Whare a Ngati Whare e korero. Ma nga kenge tera e whakatika. No reira kai te whakaae atu au ki tera. 
He aha te tikanga o tera hui? Kia haere i raro i te korowai o te mana orite ara ko te  
“ 
equal mana 
” 
. Orite te katoa o te hunga ka tae atu ki te hui. Engari kotahi anake te aronga o tera hui ko te anga whakamua kia kore a patu a whanako a tukino tane ki te wahine tane ki te tamaiti tane ki te tane e whakatinatinahia i roto i tera hapori o Murupara. 
No reira hei kupu whakamutunga ko te hunga ka mahi i wa ratau mahi nanakia e te mangai mena ka he i raro i te ture tukuna ki te whare herehere mena koina te huarahi. Engari e kore tenei pire e whakatinana i te wawata waiho ake ma te hapori ano te hapori e whakatika. 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker. As we debate this matter I sit here troubled and concerned. I speak in this manner because without a doubt all of us of this House have experienced the death of a loved one in the months past. Allow me then to pay a tribute to them by saying: depart farewell journey on rest there. You the dead to the dead and we the living to the living—that is we the members of Parliament gathered here today greetings to you greetings to you and greetings to us.  
I paid a tribute to the departed Mr Assistant Speaker because in the very recent holiday period just past—a week ago in fact—Murupara suffered the death of a young one of their community. Jordan Herewini was his name. He was 16 years of age and murdered by a gang member. A gang member’s vehicle was stolen and driven on purpose towards that youngster who was felled and killed. He was only 16. Who murdered him? It was a gang member. Maori slew Maori. So here I am furious at the person who murdered that child—ashamed that a Maori killed another Maori. I feel as well for the pupils of his school his family and the principal and teachers of his school.  
Here I am in a state of confusion about whether to support this bill or not to support it. To the Minister I say that the emphasis of this bill is quite good. Yes the focus is on the ones responsible for the crimes in the world. I agree with that. But I really wonder to myself whether that will avenge Jordan’s death. I do not think so—no not at all. I knew this lad Jordan. My anger towards that person for that foul act knows no bounds. But is this bill really relevant to that situation? No it hardly seems to be. It is not quite up at that level.  
Maoridom is fed up with what some gangs get up to—yes hacked off with acts of murder theft and selling cannabis. Yes I support what the member who spoke before me said. I agree with it. But is this the solution? Perhaps it is not. Even though the heart is saying “Yes support it.” the mind is saying “Wait up. Hang on a moment.” Let us debate this issue carefully. It is not a clear-cut matter. Some gang members have children of their own. Some have their own elderly women and menfolk. Some have a wife. Therefore we are talking about people. We are talking about a person’s genealogy not about a dog’s one—the genealogy of a person like each and every one of us as people.  
The question in Maoridom is this: “What is the greatest thing in the world? I say unto you it is mankind.” So it is there in the aphorisms of the Maori world. This then is a huge issue. It is a great one a valuable one and important. It has to be discussed and quite rightly so.  
There are other concerns too. The title of this bill states “Gangs and”—I do not know how to translate the rest of it but leave it at “Organised Crime”. That is that one. The problem really is like what I raised with the Minister today. According to the New Zealand view this word “gang” relates directly to Maori gangs. Here we are debating but there are many types of gangs. That name should be deleted. It should be removed so that this bill does not refer directly to Maori circumstances.  
That is the first thing. Second I heard what Metiria Turei said in respect of the situation concerning Tuhoe. For more than a year—a very long time in fact—they were subjected to police surveillance. Good or bad that was the situation. What was the outcome? The entire Ruatoki valley suffered the consequences of police presence even though they could not be faulted not by one bit. Here we are posing the question: what about the ones referred to in gangs? Will they be dealt with in the same way? Yes or no? That is that matter. According to some perhaps an eye for an eye is a gang custom—revenge. When a life is taken it is paid for by the life of someone else. And here we are doing exactly that to them—taking revenge. No thought is being given to make it easy for them to emerge into the world of enlightenment the world of light—none. Fetch the key do what has to be done toss them in prison! That is it.  
I agree gangs are a big issue. I advocate that the remedy perhaps is in our hands. What is wrong with looking for another way instead—not an eye for an eye but perhaps some avenues like those being followed up by the community of Murupara? Just last night Ngati Manawa met on one of their marae. There they discussed this matter. The statement was released that a meeting of all Murupara be convened for them to meet and talk together collectively. So a dream bloomed. Tomorrow there will be a meeting of the Murupara gangs—yes tomorrow. Their objective is to look for remedies within themselves. The police will not be there neither will politicians. It will be left totally for Ngati Manawa to deal with Ngati Manawa and Ngati Whare itself. The gangs will put it right. I agree with that totally.  
And what is the purpose of that meeting? It is to be conducted under the mantle of “equal autonomy”. Equality will be upon all who attend the meeting. But that meeting has one focus only and that is to move forward so that the male element that hits steals and molests women children and other men ceases to manifest itself in that community of Murupara.  
In conclusion those who conduct themselves in a reckless manner and err against the law should be sent to prison if that is the way. But if this bill does not realise the hope leave it for the community to deal with its own 
.]  
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 I observe the irony of the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill being rushed through the House when the member responsible for it has indicated that it is to go to a select committee for the full period of 6 months. One might wonder why we had to wait until just before the House came together tonight to get a copy of the bill. One would think that he is trying to impress somebody; I do not know who. 
If I could sum up this bill in one sentence it would be that the National Government has wildly raised expectations on the issue of dealing with violent crime in New Zealand. The Labour-Progressive Opposition will support this bill but it is not the silver bullet that National has promised it will be. It will not significantly reduce violent crime in New Zealand as National has promised. It will not make a huge dent in crime as National has promised most New Zealanders. The previous Government was already promoting this kind of legislation and would have passed something similar to this bill but we would not have pretended—as National has—that this was a major part of what we needed to do. 
I have no trouble in declaring that the major factors involved in crime should be on the wrong end of tough law. Gangs are a cause of crime so we should be tough with them. We should be tough on all the causes of crime as well. But there is one factor linked to crime that this Government does not mention in this bill and does not talk about. One factor is linked to 60 percent of all the people who are arrested for criminal acts. Can Government members tell us what that factor is or even say the word that is common to the majority of all crime in New Zealand? It is not gangs and it is not methamphetamine or P. Both of those are serious threats that need to be dealt with of course. But if a party is serious about them then logically it should be much more serious about a much more common cause of crime. What is that common factor? It is alcohol abuse and 60 percent of all those arrested in New Zealand are under the influence of alcohol at the time when the offence for which they have been arrested was committed—60 percent. No other factor comes even close to that. Because the Government will not even mention that alcohol is involved in the committing of most crime it will not do anything about 60 percent of those who are offending. 
If this bill is passed before the National members have dealt with the low-hanging fruit before the biggest factor in crime is dealt with then they are not serious about crime. They are joking. They have raised expectations which will ultimately disappoint people and those members will be held up to ridicule. The National members made a big issue out of crime when they were in Opposition. I am not going to quickly forget their pledges to seriously reduce the rate of violent crime. I remember John Banks coming in as the Minister of Police and saying he would end all violent crime within 3 weeks of the Aramoana massacre; we did not hear much more from John as the Minister of Police after that. The National Party promised that if elected a National Government would put an immediate end to the kind of violent crime that terrorised shopkeepers in South Auckland. I ask members to remember those shopkeepers and the Indian community being terrorised by attacks in those neighbourhoods. How much neighbourhood crime is linked to the sudden proliferation of liquor outlets there? How much is linked to the low drinking age which lets teenagers buy as much alcohol as they want in nearly every corner of those suburbs? This bill will not tackle that. Alcohol abuse is not even mentioned in it. 
The National Party made promises such as the one about significantly reducing violent crime. Having raised expectations this Government is now accountable if it does not deliver on them. The Government should not necessarily be culpable for all violent crime of course but the National Party has made it that way. It promised the New Zealand public that it would make a difference. Here is item No. 4 in National’s blueprint for change from August last year: “National knows New Zealanders are sick of worrying about the surging levels of violent crime in this country. We are not going to put up with it. So National will launch a full-frontal attack on gangs and the ‘P’ trade they support.” OK so National is passing the law that it said it would pass. I say “Good on its members for doing that.” but now the acid is on Simon Power and John Key. This is National’s full-frontal assault on gangs and the P trade and if it does not deal effectively to the surging levels of crime that National knows New Zealanders are sick of then National will be held accountable for that failure. 
Mr Key said over and over again on stages and in TV debates that the major problem is the gangs because the gangs make P and P is the major cause of crime. He said that when his party took office it would pass this bill and violent crime would be significantly reduced. It is remotely possible that he may be right. I hope the bill really does make a huge difference—who would not? That is why I and the Opposition are voting for this bill. We absolutely want any bill of this kind to be successful but I am not actually naive enough to make the promise Mr Key and his National candidates made up and down the country that they would significantly reduce violent crime. Mr Key said in his speech on 29 January last year “Violent youth crime is at an all-time high. Robbery is up. Grievous assaults are up. Aggravated robbery is up. Youth criminals are graduating from petty crime to more serious crime; unexploded time-bombs on a fast-track to Paremoremo.” Will this bill make a major difference to that? I tell members not to hold their breath. Mr Key wildly over-promised and now National is under-delivering. 
I ask Government members here in the Chamber whether violent crime will be significantly reduced as from the date of the passing of this bill. Will that be virtually the end of it being in the headlines? I suggest that the answer is an unequivocal no. Are those members confident that they have fixed crime? Do they still want to tell New Zealanders that they will significantly reduce violent crime as they promised on the hustings? I wish this bill could have that effect; I do not believe it will. Every violent crime from now on will show the failure of this key promise of National’s members that they could stamp out violent crime by targeting gangs. They have raised expectations far beyond what they can deliver on never mentioning in the bill the key drug abuse that causes and is associated with the overwhelming majority of crime in New Zealand. Alcohol abuse is not mentioned. Are those members really serious? It seems to me that they have raised expectations far beyond what they can deliver on and thus they have failed and will fail the communities that they promised to protect. 
Hon Dr RICHARD WORTH (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I am very pleased to support the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill in the House today. The National Government is not afraid to walk the talk and get tough on crime. What a curious speech we have just heard! Is the compelling proposition in the mind of the Hon Jim Anderton that we should outlaw alcohol? Is that where that argument might take him? New Zealanders deserve to feel safe in their homes and in their communities. I would say we listened for too long as the Labour administration talked the talk over gang violence. Its failure to walk the talk has allowed the P trade to flourish in New Zealand. 
The police have told us that the abuse of drugs is a factor in a substantial proportion of offending. The effects of course spread across many dimensions of our society with social economic and technological consequences. Those social costs include family breakdown relationship problems and neglect of children. The personal costs include methamphetamine-related psychosis psychological disorders and general cognitive damage. The cost to society has been cited by some in the alcohol and drug sector as a lost generation of P users whose dependence on and heavy use of methamphetamine has made them socially dysfunctional. That of course has led to many other problems that society is left to deal with. 
The rise in methamphetamine and associated offending presents a significant challenge for the police with the discovery of more clandestine laboratories each year and offenders committing crimes to feed their addiction. In 2007 just under 75 percent of clandestine drug laboratories were identified by the police as being linked to recognised criminal gangs. I guess there are those who naively believe that New Zealand gangs will eventually self-destruct through their exposure to methamphetamine and P or that senior members may actively discourage their own offspring from following in their footsteps but the reality is that for every gang member who leaves there are many disenfranchised and alienated youths ready to take up the colours. 
Our police officers deserve to have effective tools to fight this scourge on our society. As we saw only too clearly last year undercover police work is dangerous. These legislative changes will expand police surveillance powers in respect of gang communications. The changes will also introduce tougher penalties for membership of a criminal gang and provide greater powers to remove gang fortifications. Amending the Sentencing Act will ensure that it will be considered an aggravating factor when an offender has committed an offence wholly or partly because of his or her participation in an organised criminal group. An amendment to the Local Government Act 2002 will enable a District Court to order the removal of gang fortifications. 
Unlike what the previous speaker has said these are practical specific and measurable initiatives designed to achieve results and National is happy to be measured on that basis. New Zealanders deserve to feel safe in their homes and communities and our Government is wasting no time to walk the talk and look after them. 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker Roy. The issue of the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill elicits all sorts of responses from the Maori community. We have heard one response from the Maori Party although I must say that I am unsure whether the party will back this bill or stand aside from it. Hiding behind the Maori language and providing unwanted cultural remedies to a multigenerational problem of criminalities will not at the end of the day cut the mustard. It is disappointing that this bill has been brought forward in such an ad hoc and almost furtive manner and that it will sit in a select committee for 6 months. It is part of a cynical attempt to hoodwink both Pakeha and Maori—all segments of the community—into thinking that fantastic things are happening as the hot air balloon goes around the political globe in 100 days. Air is disappearing as they speak. 
Let us just go back to my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell with a very simple question. Does he stand in the Maori community as an unremitting unrelenting foe against gangs or is he an apologist? Any group that organises its young people and its women through menace and fear to continue criminality will never ever be saved through tikanga Maori singing “Kumbaya” or any other soft approach. These people see softness as an invitation to continue their menace. When these people hear that they are not welcome on the marae any more they giggle. They will go wherever they like and do whatever they like until they meet ringa kaha—the hard solid fist of law and order. That is why I am happy to see this bill go to a select committee. 
However it damages the reputation of this House that the bill arrives in a fashion that is surrounded by furtiveness. Gang culture thrives partly through the profit motive. If people cross the gangs they mark them. They mark them because they are a threat to their established order which is based No. 1 on scaring the wits out of the community; and No. 2 on recruiting through showing that down Easy Street lies easy money and easy fame but also hardship for the victims of those who perpetrate the crimes on Easy Street. That is why we should have no tolerance of them. We should not normalise them. We should not use kinship or culture as a basis for explaining their ills. If they want to behave like criminals they should be stripped of the Maori cloak and treated as the most dangerous menacing form of criminals which exist to kill maim rob and be villains. Somehow or another we are told that at the end of the day that will not solve the problem. Why? It is not because of 100 years of colonisation—which is the reason parroted by the various speakers from the Maori Party—but because in our communities people exist who are so disconnected from the institution of work and regular education that simply locking them up has proven to create a new recruitment ground à la Ngawha prison. The Department of Corrections has a great deal of explaining to do and I look forward to the Minister of Corrections coming back to the House to explain why a successful drug ring is operating from one of our main prisons. 
That is the dilemma for those of us from the Maori community: to take a hard line but also to realise that the problem will continue to exist. I say to the Maori Party and to our colleagues here that the problem has to be smashed on both the supply side and the demand side. This bill should go to a select committee. It should be the subject of great submissions. It should build on the fact that it is largely a plagiarism of what Labour was going to do anyway. It actually filches all sorts of very sensible ideas that have been subject to great community consultation and that will allow the Minister Simon Power to build on those foundation blocks. 
Of course the big test that the new Minister of Education has to face is what interventions there are for teenagers and the kids of gangs to ensure that a better pathway is made available to them so that they choose not to follow their parents and grandparents into that gang culture. They will follow them for as long as they are menaced and threatened and for as long as we allow them to live in this false detached world. As long as we the community fear them or are unwilling to have them face the full consequences of their fearmongering and their menace they will continue to take us for a ride. Let us consider a bit of the Old Testament. “Utua te kino ki te kino. Mehemea he pai to whakaaro maku koe e awhiawhi.” 
[ 
A villainous deed must be repaid in kind. If your intention is favourable I will embrace you 
.]  
If one does a villainous deed then one will meet the full force of the law. If however one wants to redeem oneself anei te ringa—here lies the hand to help one on the way. 
So I say yes to education but also to an iron fist reminding people that they cannot use the cloak of Maoridom to conceal criminality and to continue gang culture which is a blight as much on Maoridom as it is on the rest of the community. Kia ora tatou katoa. 
SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill which will provide a greater range of tools to combat and punish gangs in the future. I say that anything along the road towards a tougher response to gangs has to be commended. I agree with the Hon Shane Jones who said that this bill provides the hard solid fist on law and order that is required. I say with respect as a young new inexperienced member that his speech had some touches of brilliance and it clearly marks him out as a leader of his party in the future. 
I will briefly make a couple of points on specific matters in this bill. I have some familiarity with section 98A of the Crimes Act having been involved in prosecutions based on it on a number of occasions. One such occasion involved the prosecution of a multiple number of accused persons in a trial in the Bay of Plenty. It was a case involving a shoot-out between several members of two rival gangs who were charged with offences under section 98A. None of those gang members were convicted. It was clear to me at that time that the provision was too hard to get convictions under—too complex too hard to prove and not worth pursuing—and I suspect this has been the experience of many a prosecutor in this nation. This bill goes towards addressing that issue and I welcome that. The amendment to section 9 of the Sentencing Act in relation to aggravating factors that makes being a gang member an aggravating factor at sentencing is also all to the good. 
I agree with the Hon Shane Jones that gangs peddle misery. We need to have the hard solid fist of law and order here and I believe that this bill will make very positive steps indeed towards doing that. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 108 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; ACT New Zealand 5; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 14 
Green Party 9; Maori Party 5. 
Bill read a first time. 
Bill referred to the Law and Order Committee. 
Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee for consideration. 
It may not be all that apparent from its title but this bill is about expanding the collection and use of DNA samples to assist the police in solving more crime. In November 2007 National announced that it would bolster the tool kit of the police by requiring DNA samples to be taken from all those arrested for offences that are punishable by imprisonment. The first reading of this bill today fulfils the Government’s commitment to introduce such legislation in its first 100 days. 
Currently DNA samples can be taken only with a suspect’s consent or by compulsion where people are suspected or convicted of an offence punishable by more than 7 years imprisonment or otherwise specified as a “relevant offence”. It precludes DNA samples taken from those suspected of a wide range of significant offences that do not meet the threshold. Where consent is not forthcoming before conviction the current law requires police officers to go through the process of applying to the High Court for leave to take a DNA sample. This bill amends the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act 1995 to allow police to collect DNA from a person whom they intend to charge with an offence and to match that person’s DNA profile against DNA samples from other unsolved crime scenes. 
The implementation of this legislation will follow a two-stage approach. The first stage will provide police with the ability to obtain and test the DNA profile of every person charged with a relevant offence. The current list of relevant offences is made up of serious offences where DNA trace evidence is often involved or crimes that demonstrate a propensity for more serious offending. The bill expands this list to include other relevant offences such as aggravated assault peeping committing an indecent act in a public place unlawful possession of a firearm cruelty to a child and male assaults on females. The second stage will enable this new process to apply to all individuals charged with an imprisonable offence by 2011. I advise the House that our first preference was to proceed to full implementation as soon as possible. However the staged approach outlined in the bill will allow the Institute of Environmental Science and Research to adjust to the increased workload resulting from the new regime and for police to develop guidelines and train their staff. 
The staged approach also recognises that there have been significant changes to New Zealand’s fiscal situation since the original policy was announced and it provides an opportunity to gather more robust information about full implementation. Finally the staged approach recognises that the expansion and the use of DNA sampling and matching raises issues that are worthy of public debate. The Government’s position is that a DNA sample simply constitutes the modern fingerprint. Forensic crime scene investigation has progressed to the point that small amounts of trace evidence can now produce a usable DNA profile. The current DNA databank of 90000 profiles was the second to be established in the world and New Zealand scientists have been at the forefront of advances in extracting DNA profiles from crime scene trace evidence. The question to this House is whether we are making the best use of this technology and these skills to help the police to solve more crime. The current list of relevant offences for which DNA samples can be taken represents only 13.6 percent of those individuals convicted of criminal offending. There are still over 8000 unidentified DNA profiles from crime scenes in the databank that relate to unsolved crimes including sexual assaults aggravated robberies homicides arson and drug offences. 
The measures proposed in this bill will substantially increase the size of the DNA profile databank which in turn will help to match offenders to unsolved crime scenes. It is estimated that the first stage of implementation will result in an additional 218 convictions from 2010 to 2011 while full implementation will result in approximately 445 convictions. Having said that there will be some who oppose the expansion of the DNA scheme because they see it as an encroachment on human rights and no doubt members will not have failed to notice the report from the Attorney-General pursuant to section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 which accompanies this bill. 
I do not propose to rehearse the opposing arguments here as I genuinely encourage the select committee to engage the public in this debate. However I would like to address some common misconceptions about the way in which DNA profiles are used. The profile currently used by the Institute of Environmental Science and Research for identification contains only a very small portion of the individual’s total DNA profile and can be deciphered by only a small group of specialist scientists. Even then the most that can be deduced is the sex of an individual. As such the risks of inappropriate disclosure of an individual’s confidential genetic information are very low. Unlike the recently criticised United Kingdom DNA scheme samples in New Zealand—not the profiles but the samples—will be destroyed as soon as practicable and DNA profiles will not be retained unless the person is convicted. So if charges are dropped or innocence is found the DNA profiles will be destroyed. Furthermore the bill contains very specific provisions regarding the use storage and retention of DNA profiles. Any misuse of the DNA sample or profile would therefore be subject to the full extent of relevant law and civil rights protections. Finally the police will develop operational guidelines to avoid any arbitrary or unreasonable application of the proposed power. 
I take this opportunity to acknowledge the concerns that have been raised by the Maori Party that provisions in this bill may be used in the Maori Party’s view to unfairly target Maori. I am advised that the police will be required to report on the use of DNA sampling on an annual basis to ensure that the use of this discretion is transparent. 
This bill is a proactive approach to DNA rather than the current system of collection post-conviction for a relatively small group of offences but it provokes strong opinions. The priority of this Government in the justice portfolio is public safety and this bill contributes to that goal by giving the police the tools to resolve more crime and of course as the recent television portrayal of the David Dougherty case shows DNA sampling can provide resolution by exonerating the innocent. I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 Let me say from the outset that Labour will support with reservations the referral of the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill to the select committee. I say that for a number of reasons which I will get to in a moment but I also note the point we made during the debate on the last bill that here we are in the dead of night quite literally rushing this bill through a first reading with no opportunity for members to read this legislation at length analyse it and debate it. Before Mr Hide raises his hackles—we will get to his role in this in a moment—I say that it will go to the select committee for the full 6 months. The point has already been made with the gangs legislation that this is about window dressing. On about day 84 I think of the 100 days Mr Power and Mr Key can get up and say that they have these bills on the road; they are happening. That is all it is about. 
I will raise a couple of things in respect of this bill. Mr Power said that one of the key questions before us is whether we are using DNA technology to its best effect. He admitted that he does not know; the technology changes day to day and month to month. But it is interesting to look at the assessments that are made. Labour agrees that it is essential to use DNA technology. We are not opposed to extending the use of DNA technology. I have to say that as the record will show Labour passed the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Act 2003 which made many extensions in respect of DNA sampling. This is where Mr Hide I am sure being the bastion of regulation busting will again take an interest in this bill. This bill has been so rushed that not only did it fail the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vetting—and I accept Mr Power’s comment that there are a lot of complex issues on both sides of that argument—but also if one looks at this bill’s regulatory impact statement which I am sure Mr Hide knows backwards because as the regulatory buster he will have scrutinised this legislation— 
Hon Simon Power 
: Open and transparent. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: —Mr Power says it is open and transparent—it says this under the adequacy statement. I will quote from this section: “Treasury’s Regulatory Impact Analysis Team (RIAT) has not had sufficient time to assess whether or not the regulatory impact analysis (RIA) for this proposal is adequate.” [ 
Interruption 
] My colleague said that Mr Power should be ashamed. Well as we read on I suspect he will shrink lower and lower under the desk. I go on to quote from the adequacy statement: “However we”—that is Treasury—“have briefly reviewed the [regulatory impact statement] and consider that this is inadequate on the following grounds:”. Before I get to those I say that I am reliably informed by my colleague Lianne Dalziel the previous Minister of Commerce who takes great interest in these regulatory impact statements that this is a prizewinner. This is an absolute prizewinner for how badly put together legislation can be. It is absolutely the prizewinner for us. Here is what Treasury said about it and I will go back a bit: “However we have briefly reviewed the [regulatory impact statement] and consider that this is inadequate on the following grounds: a lack of clarity around the nature of the problems with the current DNA testing regime along with evidence (anecdotal or empirical) to support these;”— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Not even anecdotal evidence! 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: We are not into news clippings now like we were with the bail bill. The Minister does not even have news clippings to substantiate his claims around DNA testing. There is no empirical evidence no anecdotal evidence. Mr Hide of course with his new hairstyle and all will have scrutinised this legislation being the regulatory buster. Then Treasury goes on to state that the regulatory impact statement is inadequate on the second ground: “limited analysis of the impacts of the options. The analysis of costs is partial”. Mr Power said that once put aside these DNA tests—which I am told cost around $200 a pop—will be disposed of. I ask him whether he or another speaker will tell the House what the cost of this is because Mr Power campaigned on having no bureaucracy on cutting bureaucracy on cutting costs on cutting red tape cutting the administration and on cutting the waste. None of those questions as Treasury has pointed out are addressed in this. 
 So there is limited analysis of the impact of the options. The analysis of cost is partial. For example only aggregate first-year costs are estimated and capital costs are excluded. There is no estimate—this is a cracker—of risks such as those associated with implementation or of how these will be mitigated. Not only does the Government not know what the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill will cost not only does it have no empirical or even anecdotal evidence or news clippings or perhaps printed matter on some other piece of paper but the Government does not know what it costs it does not know what the risks are and it does not really know whether it will have any impact at all in respect of implementation. 
Then we get to the last point and I quote Treasury that the regulatory impact statement “does not report on the outcome of consultation”—yeah I bet it does not because the Government has no evidence and it did not consult anybody not even the regulatory buster Mr Hide haircut and all—“and how any issues raised have been addressed. Therefore the [regulatory impact statement] does not contain the relevant information or level of analysis required for a proposal of this magnitude.” In other words this should be a blank piece of paper because nobody really knows what it means least of all the Minister. No costs no evidence no anecdotal evidence no nothing no consultation. If the Minister had gone out and talked to some of the stakeholders maybe even the agencies even the police perhaps he may have got some evidence. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: He talked to Mrs Goudie about it. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I am reliably informed that the anecdotal evidence such as it is has been provided by one Sandra Goudie. Again it points to the classic member down the back here Mr Hide being asleep at the wheel—the man who was going to cut red tape regulation everything. He was going to do it. “Send your problems to Mr Hide” he said on  
Holmes 
 “Send them to me: I will fix them I will cut the cost.” He was too lazy too inept and too silly to even read the bill. I wonder whether he will stand up tonight and say “I have read it and I agree. We don’t know how much it is going to cost. We don’t know how it’s going to work. We don’t have any evidence. We don’t know how it’s going to be implemented—we know nothing about it.” 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: There might be a miracle. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: It might be a miracle. He might be able to claim that he has earned some of his salary. I think we are up to five bills now that the great regulatory buster Mr Hide has let slip through with failed regulatory impact statements. He might want to intervene. I ask whether Mr Hide has read the regulatory impact statement whether he knows how much it will cost and whether he was consulted. He has his glasses on; there is hope. 
I say to Mr Power in all seriousness that Labour agrees that we should use technology to combat crime. We acted on that when we extended DNA sampling when we were in Government. I think Mr Power has made history tonight. In my experience—and I have been here only 9 years but others also tell me—that this is the worst condemnation of a bill. A key central agency Treasury has said that this is inadequate that it is rushed— 
Hon Simon Power 
: Flimflam. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: —no worse than flimflam—and that it is based on no empirical or even anecdotal evidence. At least with the bail legislation before Christmas the Minister managed to dredge out a couple of mouldy moth-eaten flea-bitten press clippings to say “this is my evidence for doing it” even though we know the bail legislation changed nothing. 
We will vote for this bill to be referred to the Law and Order Committee and I will really enjoy getting the Treasury people in and teasing out of them their exact views on this legislation. I will really enjoy Mr Hide’s submission because of course the regulatory buster will want to relay his great knowledge on how he will cut out waste and red tape yet he lets this one slip slide and grease through the keeper because he has not even read it. No evidence— 
Hon Member 
: It’s stunning. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: It is a stunning admission by Treasury that there is no anecdotal evidence to back up the claims in this bill. It is absolutely stunning. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: He should resign. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I do not know. Maybe the Minister was so secretive about this legislation that he took himself hostage and he did not feel it was appropriate that he read the bill before it came in the House either. Maybe Simon Power thought he had better not release his legislation to himself so he could read it let alone any of his colleagues. Maybe that is what he did. Mr Power stands condemned for not doing his job and for bringing inadequate legislation. This is simply about going to the people on day 16 or whatever it is and saying “We have had 100 days and haven’t I been a smart politician I’ve introduced this legislation.” It is substandard. 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 Well that was pretty much what we have come to expect from the member who has just resumed his seat. He cannot attack ideas and he cannot attack the fact that the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill is good legislation that will go a long way down the track towards saving potential victims. All he can do is try to slap around the fact that it slipped past him. If he has been through a campaign such as the one we have been through and did not catch on to the fact that a National Government would introduce exactly this legislation we need to ask who was not doing his job. The member was not doing his job. He was not representing the people of his electorate and he certainly was not doing his job of representing Labour Party constituents. 
There is another important factor to note: the Attorney-General has studied this legislation and provided a report under section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. What is required of the Attorney-General in a case like this is to do the job and to look at the bill and its implications in terms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. We can stack that up against the record of the former Attorneys-General under the Labour Government. I ask what happened then. Did Margaret Wilson when she was the Attorney-General do that sort of scrutiny of the foreshore and seabed legislation? No she did not. What about Michael Cullen; did he perform that sort of scrutiny of the Electoral Finance Bill? No he did not. What is required of the Attorney-General in preparing a report such as this is to be objective and aloof and if there is one thing I can say about my little cousin Mr Finlayson it is that he is objective and aloof. Some would say he is objectionable but I would leap to his defence and I am sure his other cousin who is sitting opposite would agree totally with me. 
I would like Clayton Cosgrove to have a wee think about this. How many people who break into homes in the middle of the night and rape like the “Parnell Panther” did did not start off their offending with low-level crime? How many did not start off by kicking around the streets kicking over rubbish bins smashing windows and doing rats-and-mice burglaries? Now when those offenders are locked up for those sorts of offences they will have a DNA sample taken from them. It will be converted into a profile and that will be held on record. The rest of New Zealand applauds that. They say: “Good job too!”. 
Previously when the police took a rapist along to the doctor and those samples were taken the rapist’s hair was combed to retrieve hair follicles. The police stood next to that rapist while the doctor held his penis in his or her hands and shoved a Q-tip the size of a power pole down the end of the old fella to get a bit of penile secretion. That is intrusive. But we are talking now about a DNA sample that is collected by a Q-tip going inside the cheek and taking a swab which is then put into a plastic bag. That is as intrusive a measure as this piece of legislation provides for and if anyone objects to that he or she does not understand the situation and is not prepared to listen to an explanation of it. The fact is that DNA sampling is far less intrusive than having 10 big police officers roll the fingers of an unwilling person who has been arrested in order to take his or her fingerprints. DNA testing is no more than a modern-day fingerprint and the profile can be destroyed as soon as the charges are withdrawn or the defendant is found to be not guilty. I do not understand the objection that member has to this legislation apart from the fact that he never had the courage to raise it in the House in his term in Government. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Sit down. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Sit down. We are getting into the habit of taking swipes at each other through points of order. I have made this clear before. When any member raises a point of order it must be terse and to the point and it is not to be used to score points. Now if the member has a serious point of order he should make it tersely. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I do and it is simply—[ 
Interruption 
] Can I finish? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Well I do not know. You have already contradicted me which is out of order. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I agreed with you. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: I am on my feet. You told a member to sit down but it is not your job to rule the House. Make your point of order tersely. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: It is totally out of order to question a member’s courage. I am sure that you as a senior officer of the House realise that. Had I been allowed to conclude more than two words that would have been the terse point of order that I made. I would invite you to rule on it. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: The member is correct and the member who was speaking must withdraw. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Have you finished your speech? 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: Yes I have. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I will traverse the elements of the regulatory impact statement which was so eloquently referred to by my colleague the Hon Clayton Cosgrove. But I begin with reference to the fact that we have the report of the Attorney-General on whether the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill complies with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I think it is important that the House gives consideration to it. I am very disappointed that the Minister of Justice did nothing other than make reference to its existence. 
This is the first time for a very long time that the Attorney-General has reported— 
Hon Simon Power 
: Look at the stats of the last Government. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I would be very interested to look at the statistics. If the Minister had referred to this in his speech then— 
Hon Simon Power 
: I did. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: The member did nothing but refer to it. He did not say on how many occasions we have put up with being asked to proceed down a pathway that will see us contravening a pretty fundamental piece of law in this country and that is the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. This process allows us as a Parliament to vote in favour of legislative changes that take us outside the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. That is what the process is designed to do. I think it is important that every member of Parliament knows that in voting in favour of this bill we are voting in favour of law changes that fundamentally breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Everyone needs to know that. I think it is important that people have a discussion about it. 
The Labour Opposition is committed to this bill going to a select committee so we will not vote against its first reading. We think that this bill could actually be improved to the point that it would no longer breach the provisions of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. When the select committee considers the bill it should consider the Attorney-General’s report with specific reference to this finding: “With the exception of the United Kingdom decisions which have now been effectively reversed by the [European Court of Human Rights] there appears to be a consensus in jurisdictions which provide for a right against search and seizure that DNA sampling regimes must be subject to strict substantive and procedural safeguards; … DNA databanks appear to operate successfully in the many comparable jurisdictions which apply such substantive and procedural safeguards.” The Attorney-General could find no basis on which to conclude that New Zealand differs from either of these positions to such a degree that these safeguards are unnecessary. 
That is a very worthy report but it cannot just end there. It cannot just be brushed off in Parliament as having been prepared and tabled. We need to debate the seriousness of actually making such a change to the law that breaches our obligations under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I hope that members of other parties take a call on this particular issue because I think it is pretty fundamental and it is important that the select committee deals with it in detail. That is the particularly serious matter that I want to draw the House’s attention to. 
The less serious issue—although it is actually equivalently serious in a different way—is the regulatory impact statement. I know that we have all laughed as the detailed reporting of Treasury has been read out but there are two aspects of the adequacy statement in the regulatory impact statement that I want to draw to the House’s attention. I want the select committee to look at these as well. The Ministry of Justice thought the adequacy criteria were met in the case of this bill. The Ministry of Justice—the ministry responsible for the drafting instructions for this bill—said the regulatory impact statement was adequate. Treasury’s regulatory impact analysis team said the complete opposite. The positions are not able to be rationalised at all. There is no point at which one could find any similarity between the two positions. So I think that requires some serious consideration. 
It is very interesting that the Government somehow seems to think that if it makes a statement of objective—namely “The measures proposed will substantially increase the size of the DNA profile databank. This increased databank will aid criminal investigations by both linking offenders on the databank to previously unsolved crime scenes and potentially to future crime scenes.”—then “DNA’s role in solving more crimes and prosecuting more offenders will in turn contribute to increasing public safety … ”. There is nothing in any of the information that has been provided for the development of the regulatory impact statement or indeed for the Government’s consideration of this very bill—no evidence—to back up that claim at all. 
Treasury goes so far as to say that not only is there no empirical evidence but also there is not even any anecdotal evidence. I do not even describe anecdote as evidence. In fact I think it is an oxymoron to say “anecdotal evidence” because it either is evidence or is not. Anecdote is not evidence; it is simply anecdote. There is not even that to support this regime being implemented. 
Before we go down the track of introducing such a major change which breaches the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act an in-depth cost-benefit analysis should be undertaken. But it is really hard to do a cost-benefit analysis when one does not know what the nature of the problem is. The first thing Treasury said was that there was “a lack of clarity around the nature of the problems with the current regime”. So if one cannot define the current problem how can one define the benefit of a change to the current policy? 
The second thing is that as part of a cost-benefit analysis one also needs to have the cost. Guess what? The Government has provided estimates of the aggregate first-year costs and capital costs are excluded. Why is that? It is because the Government has no idea what the cost will actually be. Guess what? Police guidelines will be drawn up around the use of the discretion and the Government does not know how many people will be required to provide samples in that regard. 
All I am saying is that when members of the select committee receive this bill they will require a heck of a lot more than a simple statement from the Ministry of Justice that this regulatory impact statement meets the adequacy criteria whereas Treasury’s regulatory impact analysis team which is obviously able to provide far more in-depth analysis than the Ministry of Justice—which may in fact be self-interested in this regard—states that there really is not the information to back this up. 
What really bothers me about this legislation is the question of what it is really designed to do. I think we find the answer further on in the explanatory note which essentially states that this is part of the Government’s commitment to the 100 days of action. Therefore this bill is being introduced in order to meet the Government’s objective of being seen to be doing things. Here we go: “… to implement the Government’s 100 Day Actions mean that at this stage only indicative costings can be provided for full implementation of the proposals.” So the Government is doing this only to be seen to be doing something rather than doing in-depth analysis. 
I make one final point. The original legislation was based on having a propensity link. That is the whole point of having convictions that are relevant convictions. That is the whole point. We will find that a rapist has a history of burglary offences which is why burglary is one of the relevant offences. Once the Government turns this into a free-for-all for all convictions that potentially could carry a prison sentence of any length it will flood the system with a lot of irrelevant data which will not produce anything of any merit. It might have a one in a thousand hit or a one in ten thousand hit but the Government does not know what that will be or what cost there will be to the real policing techniques that are needed on the ground because DNA evidence does not always provide the answer that people would seek it to achieve. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This is the first day back at Parliament and I think MPs are just getting into the swing of things. There is a very early start— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: What is your point of order? 
KEITH LOCKE 
: I seek leave for the House to rise just a minute early rather starting into my speech. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Leave is sought for the House to rise at this point. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? Yes there is. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I agree with the last speaker that the report of the Attorney-General Chris Finlayson is a very strong critique of the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill. It states that the bill is inconsistent with the right against reasonable search and seizure as affirmed in section 21 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The Minister also refers to the intrusive nature of DNA samples quoting from the European Court of Human Rights: “Unlike a fingerprint it is capable of revealing the most intimate details of a person’s biological make up. … The taking and retention of a DNA sample is not a trivial matter and absent a compelling public interest would inherently constitute a grave intrusion on the subject’s right to personal and informational privacy.” I will be interested to hear the Maori Party’s contribution on this bill because I think the forcible extraction of blood from a person who is not even charged with an offence will be seen as offensive by many in the community. From what I understand about tikanga to many Maori it is offensive and we should not support it. 
The controls in the system are very weak. As the Attorney-General says they are weaker than in any country but the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come for me to leave the Chair. 
Debate interrupted. 
Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)