Volume 707 Week 23 - Thursday 30 July 2015Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 707 Week 23 - Thursday 30 July 2015[Sitting date: 30 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5503. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Thursday 30 July 2015Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.VisitorsCommonwealth Parliamentary Association—Delegation Australia and Pacific BranchesMr SPEAKER: Honourable members I am sure that members would wish to welcome members of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Australia and Pacific branches who are present in the gallery including Speaker Dunne of the ACT Legislative Assembly and Speaker Tausi of Tuvalu. [Applause]Business StatementHon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General): on behalf of the Leader of the House: Next week the House is in a 1-week adjournment. When the House resumes on Tuesday 11 August the Government will look to continue the Committee stage of the New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill and the Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill. Wednesday is a members’ day.Points of OrderVoting—Proxy Votes and Presence of MembersCHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Last night in the House a vote was corrected after it became clear that a member for whom a proxy vote was being cast was not present within the parliamentary complex. In this particular case the result of the vote overall would not have been affected by that reduction but there have been instances—and there are regularly instances in this House at the moment—where in fact votes are carried by one person and one vote. There have been instances where members have requested a personal vote in those cases and it has been declined. I would like to seek a reassurance from you that where members have reason to doubt whether in fact all of the members for whom votes are being cast are present a personal vote can be called for and will be allowed by the presiding officers. It is very clear in this case that votes were cast for somebody who was not present.Mr SPEAKER: This is an important matter and I will look at it further. A personal vote can be called for and may be granted in very extraordinary occasions if a Speaker thought that it may make a material difference to a vote. What is important here is that we have a party vote system that is respected internationally and in fact envied by many other democracies. It works on the basis of the integrity of whips who cast that vote so it is absolutely essential that we trust the integrity of the whips as those votes are cast.I have been dealing with a particular member this morning to make sure that that person understands very clearly the rules as to absences from this House. The purpose of seeking leave from the Speaker if it is a smaller party is so that that person is granted leave legitimately and that that vote can therefore be cast in good faith by the whip. I will look further at the matter but it is absolutely crucial that we all respect the position that every whip is in in this House when they in good faith stand to cast a vote on behalf of their party or another party acknowledging that leave may have been approved by a legitimate process whether that be by a larger party and therefore controlled by a whip or by an individual member of Parliament in which case the leave is controlled by the Speaker.Ron Mark: Point of order—Mr SPEAKER: Is this a further point of order?Ron Mark: It is the same point of order—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. On this occasion because it is such an important issue I will hear from the member. I think I have made my position absolutely clear but I will hear the member.RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Thank you very much for your indulgence Mr Speaker. Being one such member who has on a number of occasions called for a personal vote in circumstances where the result of the vote cast was 60 to 61 and who has cited Standing Order 144 there is a developing perception that Standing Order 144 as it has been applied has effectively been negated and ruled out. I would like you to have a look at that because I do not believe that that was ever the intent of any Speaker. The second point is that having been a Government whip and a chief whip of my own party I would defend the whip who puts their vote because they cannot absolutely guarantee at that very instant that the information they have in front of them matches the reality. So I fully accept that the whip gave an honest vote on the day but unfortunately he was unaware of what was happening behind his back.Mr SPEAKER: I thank the member for his comment. With regard to Standing Order 144 the fact that the House may divide closely on a party vote is not in itself a reason to hold a personal vote. Close party votes may very well become a pattern throughout the life of a particular Parliament and this one may be an example of that where a Government holds a relatively small majority. In order for a personal vote to be held there is a need for an element of confusion about the party vote and in that particular case last night I am not sure that that confusion existed.Unparliamentary Language—Speaker’s RulingRON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Is this an absolutely fresh point of order?RON MARK: Yes.Mr SPEAKER: Then I will hear it.RON MARK: Before I start I am in a little bit of trepidation because—Mr SPEAKER: Can I just have the fresh point of order please.RON MARK: Last Thursday a statement was used in the House. It was ruled unparliamentary and the member was cautioned and sat down. Having gone back through Hansard I see that on 4 March 2014 the Hon David Parker in a supplementary question used the same phrase. The Hon Damien O’Connor—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I please have the point of order quickly.RON MARK: I would ask you to please look at the Hansard for those dates and at the use of the term “stuff-up” and come back and tell us whether—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not need anything further. It is my job to rule on those particular words and I will do so in the context in which they are used. If they in my opinion are creating disorder in this House then I may move to have them withdrawn and apologised for. But I am certainly not about to present to the House a list of words that I think are unparliamentary.MotionsHiroshima and Nagasaki—70th Anniversary of BombingHon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I seek the leave of the House to move without notice and without debate a motion relating to the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.Hon PHIL GOFF: I move That this House on the 70th anniversary of the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki calls on the nuclear weapon States to replace ongoing expenditure of more than $100 billion a year on their nuclear weapons arsenals with a programme to eliminate nuclear weapons in accord with their obligations under article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.Motion agreed to.Questions to MinistersTrans-Pacific Partnership—Pharmac1.Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister of Health: In light of his admission yesterday that health funding has not kept up with all inflationary pressures under this Government how will the health budget absorb the increased cost of purchasing medicines that the Prime Minister has said is likely to result from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Kia ora Mr Speaker. The member is being selective in her portrayal of health funding which under this Government has risen by $4.1 billion—actually an increase above inflation. The member is also getting ahead of herself on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As the Prime Minister said yesterday if there is any increase it is likely to be small and the Government will fund that. Over 7 years National has increased and managed the health budget whereas Labour blew the budget and left a deepening $150 million deficit.Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Mine was a straight question on notice and the last part of that answer—Mr SPEAKER: Order! No that particular answer was perfectly in line with the Standing—[Interruption] Order! I do not expect the Hon Annette King to interject when I am on my feet if she wishes to stay for the balance of question time. I am giving a ruling as to the satisfactory nature of that answer. In my mind it had a little bit of politics in it. This is a debating chamber.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You have given previous rulings in this House about—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the member please sit down. I just want to deal with something else. I will give the very last warning to the Hon Annette King. If she continues to interject through a point of order whether her colleague is on his feet or I am on my feet I will be asking her to leave the Chamber. I apologise to the member for interrupting.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You have given rulings on previous occasions about primary questions on notice when Government Ministers use their answers to them to take political flicks at the Opposition. You have previously said that was unacceptable. I can see why my colleague Annette King rose to take the point of order that she did because that answer did contain that at the end of the answer. In fact earlier in the answer it strayed close to it but the last part most definitely was out of order.Mr SPEAKER: I am sorry—I apologise to the member but I do not recall giving such a reason. I judge every question on its time and frequently a primary question will have a bit of political connotation in it. I then judge whether it is likely to create disorder. In this case I do not think that answer was unacceptable as I have already indicated. So in actual fact what we have here is a case of the member relitigating a point I have already ruled on.Hon Annette King: If funding for the increased costs of pharmaceuticals arising from the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal will not be “by raiding the … budget” as he claimed yesterday how much has Pharmac which has been providing technical advice to him said would be needed to cover the savings Pharmac normally achieves in Vote Health?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: The whole point is that the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement has not been signed yet. We do not know what is in it. That is a budgetary matter that would be dealt with in the next Budget should the agreement be signed.Hon Annette King: In light of that answer is he saying that he has had no advice or assumptions given on the impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership on Vote Health even though we know that Pharmac has been providing technical advice to the Ministry of Health or is he being kept in the dark?Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman—either of those two questions.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Refer to answer No. 2.Barbara Stewart: In light of what the Minister is saying now how does he reconcile that with what his Prime Minister said 1 month ago: “We won’t sign anything that undercuts Pharmac in a way that would have a dramatic impact.”?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: There is no contradiction there at all I am afraid.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table a letter received today from Pharmac received under an Official Information Act—is that all you need Mr Speaker? Thank you.Mr SPEAKER: That is all I need. I am putting the leave.Leave is sought to table a letter from Pharmac dated today. Is there any objection to that being tabled? There is none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Hon Annette King: Is he aware that Pharmac saved $1.4 billion this year alone on the purchase of pharmaceuticals for New Zealanders and how will these sorts of savings be affected if patents are increased for longer as indicated by him in the House yesterday?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I am very glad that Mrs King has brought up Pharmac’s performance because it has been excellent. In the last year it funded 20 new pharmaceuticals and 21 existing pharmaceuticals have been funded for new users over the same period. That is going to benefit 70000 extra New Zealanders over this coming year. So yes I am aware of its performance.Hon Annette King: What advice has he received on the impact on cancer and heart patients if they are required to wait longer before they can access generic medicines because of extensions made under the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal on high-cost patent medicines?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Mrs King is making a massive assumption. The Trans-Pacific Partnership has yet to be signed.Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I asked what advice—Mr SPEAKER: Yes I am going to invite the member to ask that question again.Hon Annette King: What advice has he received on the impact on cancer and heart patients if they are required to wait years longer before they can access generic medicines because of extensions made under the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal on high-cost patent medicines?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: There is absolutely nothing to indicate that that will happen.Hon Annette King: If the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal will not raid the health budget but Pharmac is unable to make the savings necessary for district health boards where will the Ministry of Health find $40 million over the next 4 years to fund home care for the disabled given the ministry also has to find $32 million of cuts in the same period?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: The first point is that there are no cuts to the health budget. We have actually increased it by $4 billion over the past 4 years. The second point is that Mrs King has made it clear that she is opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership but she might want to think that actually if we do end up with the Trans-Pacific Partnership we will have a far stronger economy and be able to afford much more in terms of health care. So that is really what she wants to consider: what is in New Zealand’s interest here.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table an Official Information Act document from Treasury—a report dated 22 April this year—that shows funding for disability support coming out of the Pharmac drug savings.Mr SPEAKER: I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table that particular Official Information Act document. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Dr Russel Norman: Has he received advice as to the impact on the health budget of any potential Trans-Pacific Partnership deal?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Officials cannot provide advice when they do not know what is in the deal.Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I hope it is not that the question has not been addressed but I will listen—Dr Russel Norman: It has not been addressed.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question had—[Interruption] Order! The question was definitely addressed.Trans-Pacific Partnership—Negotiations2.FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First) to the Minister of Trade: Does he agree with the headlines in the Nikkei Asian Review “Will TPP end with whimper like Doha Round?” and in Gareth Morgan’s column “Could the TPP become Key’s most embarrassing moment”?Hon TODD McCLAY (Acting Minister of Trade): No the Minister does not agree. Trade agreements help to open up markets for Kiwi exporters and exports drive the New Zealand economy and its growth. Helping our exporters means creating jobs for New Zealanders and we will not be successful by exporting to ourselves. Interestingly Trans-Pacific Partnership countries account for 45 percent of New Zealand’s total trade and five of New Zealand’s top 10 trading partners are included in this negotiation. The 12 participating economies account for $27 trillion—Mr SPEAKER: Order! This answer is definitely now too long. It was answered immediately when the Minister rose to his feet.Fletcher Tabuteau: How can it be that at the eleventh hour and 59th minute our agricultural trade envoy is saying: “The deal’s simply not at the stage where the industry could support it or even New Zealand could really accept this deal.”?Hon TODD McCLAY: That is because this is still a negotiation and it is not yet an agreement. Our negotiators are overseas and they are working hard to deliver the very best deal that they can on behalf of New Zealand and I would ask that member and his party to support those negotiators to support New Zealand farmers and to support all those who could benefit from a high-quality trade agreement that the Government is negotiating.Fletcher Tabuteau: Given the Prime Minister claims that he wants good outcomes for DairyNZ will the Prime Minister and the Minister of Trade resign if dairy does not get what it actually needs from this deal come its signing?Hon TODD McCLAY: If I had that member’s leader’s piece of paper that says “No” I could hold it up. The Government is negotiating the very best deal that it canon the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement on behalf of all New Zealanders. No agreement has been reached yet. That is why it is still a negotiation and Minister Groser is there negotiating as we speak.Fletcher Tabuteau: The Malaysian trade Minister has said today—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I just have the question please. What is the question?Fletcher Tabuteau: Can I not quote?Mr SPEAKER: No you can ask a supplementary question. I invite the member to ask a supplementary question.Fletcher Tabuteau: Excuse me—thank you Mr Speaker. Has the Minister of Trade read that the Malaysian trade Minister has said today that he will not sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership until the Malaysian Parliament has given him the permission to do so? Can the Minister of Trade give all New Zealanders the same democratic opportunity?Hon TODD McCLAY: No I have not seen those comments. I am not sure that we will be askingthe Malaysian Parliament on behalf of New Zealanders to cast judgment on this agreement for us but what I can give the member an assurance of is that should the Trans-Pacific Partnership be successfully concluded and overall be in broad agreement in the interests of New Zealand we will follow the same process as other agreements that have been through the department.Ron Mark: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Clearly that answer was trifling with the House and I would ask you—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seatimmediately. He will be leaving very early if he carries on with his trifling points of order.Ron Mark: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order but before—[Interruption] The member will resume his seat. Before I hear the point of order I want to be entirely fair with the member. If he is in any way relitigating a decision that I have just made the member will be leaving the Chamber.Economy—Reports3.TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received on the outlook for the New Zealand economy?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): In a speech delivered yesterday the Governor of the Reserve Bank said that the economy is growing at around 2.5 percent a year consistent with the solid moderate growth that this Government is looking for. He highlighted the factors supporting that growth including our record high labour force participation rate; our strong population growth as New Zealanders return from overseas and skilled migrants are attracted to New Zealand; ongoing investment activity including in construction; and continued strength in the services sector which makes up around 60 percent to 70 percent of GDP. He pointed out that the economy is also being supported by an exchange rate that is 25 percent down against the US dollar compared with this time last year and of course lower interest rates.Todd Barclay: How is the fall in the exchange rate and interest rates supporting sustained growth in the New Zealand economy?Hon BILL ENGLISH: These are adjustments that one would expect particularly given the way that the commodity cycle has worked for the dairy industry. Industries that were forced to become more efficient when the exchange rate was US88c are now likely to become more profitable with the exchange rate at 67c against the US dollar. Of course these businesses may get the benefits in time of lower interest rates. These changes will for instance benefit the technology sector. A report released today stated that technology exports have doubled over the past 6 years and are now worth more than $6 billion making them New Zealand’s third-largest export earner behind dairy and tourism. Of course we welcome these positive comments from the Labour Party members about the diversification of the economy which seems to have been going on under their very noses and we are pleased—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon BILL ENGLISH: —that they understand the importance of the technology industry.Todd Barclay: How is the Government supporting export sectors such as information and communications technology?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Information and communications technology is among the 350 pieces of concrete microeconomic policies laid out in the Government’s Business Growth Agenda. A key part of supporting exporters including information and communications technology is the significant efforts to secure free-trade agreements. The Government is also rolling out ultra-fast broadband building the Rural Broadband Initiative and establishing three information and communications technology graduate schools—in Auckland Wellington and Christchurch. So the Government’s unfolding vision of a growing and robust information and communications technology sector seems to be going pretty well.David Seymour: Does the Government have any plans to lower barriers to foreign direct investment?Hon BILL ENGLISH: New Zealand is in general open to foreign direct investment but of course in some areas there are quite significant barriers. The Overseas Investment Act applies a set of very complex tests to people who want to buy certain categories of land in New Zealand. The Government has no plans to change that piece of legislation.Todd Barclay: How does economic growth translate into more jobs and higher incomes for New Zealand families?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Economic growth of course is about companies investing another dollar and employing another person. The effect of that is that since late 2010 New Zealanders have created 194000 extra jobs and the latest forecasts anticipate about 150000 more jobs by 2019. Average annual wages have increased by $5700 in the past 4 years and are forecast to rise to about $63000 a year in 4 years’ time. That is an increase of a further $7000. So despite some concerns about dairy pricesat the moment the outlook for the economy for jobs and for incomes is for moderate sustainable growth.Grant Robertson: Has he seen any reports of anyone other than him saying that the economic slowdown is coming at “the right time in the electoral cycle”; and when will he apologise for that cynical and out-of-touch comment?Mr SPEAKER: Well there are actually two questions.Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have seen reports of that member saying it but of course the relationship between the economic cycle and the political cycle is important. Labour decided to think about thinking about work and then it went and thought about work and the result of its thought about work was that it has now decided to think about it further. The next election is coming far too quickly for Labour to work out what work is.Grant Robertson: Which of the following reports has given him such a rosy outlook on the economy: GDP growth being negative in the March quarter the worst quarter since December 2010; dairy prices having fallen by over 50 percent since March; commodity prices being down 20 percent in the year to June; economic pessimism outweighing optimism for the first time in 6 years; economic pessimism at its highest since the Canterbury earthquakes—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will need the question. [Interruption] Order! We now need the question.Grant Robertson: I asked the question but I hadn’t finished.Hon BILL ENGLISH: On any given day there are things about an economy or a world economy that are not going well and there are things that are going well. We are fortunate that because we have a resilient economy enough of the New Zealand economy is going pretty well particularly the manufacturing sector—since Labour said it was in crisis. But as the Reserve Bank Governor said yesterday we are currently growing at about 2.5 percent and that is consistent with an outlook of sustainable moderate growth.Housing Market—Property Speculation4.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister for Building and Housing: Does he stand by his statement that non-resident foreign buyers in the Auckland housing market are a non-event; if so on what empirical data does he base that?Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): My full statement was: “We know from the IRD data that the number of non-resident taxpayers with income or losses from rental properties has not changed in 5 years and is a non-event.” The actual number is 25000 as compared with the 1.75 million homes in New Zealand or about 2 percent. This number also includes a large number of New Zealand citizens and residents who live offshore but own a home in New Zealand. I do not share the member’s view that people with Chinese-sounding names are the root cause of our housing problem.Phil Twyford: What are the advantages to New Zealanders if any of allowing non-resident foreigners to trade our houses for capital—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am going to invite the member to ask that question again. There was a lot of interjection here. I did not hear the tail end of the question.Phil Twyford: What are the advantages to New Zealanders if any of allowing non-resident foreigners to trade our houses for capital gain?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The consistent advice that I have had from the Productivity Commission Treasury and my own ministry is that overseas buyers are not having a significant effect on house prices. I also note that in Sydney they have had greater house price inflation than in Auckland despite controls of the sort that the member proposes. I do not think a policy of allowing foreign property speculation from Australia but banning it from China as Labour proposes is a principled policy. I think it is something a lot less.Phil Twyford: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was a very straight question—Mr SPEAKER: The question was about the advantages. I will invite Phil Twyford to ask the question again so that it is absolutely clear to the Minister.Phil Twyford: What are the advantages to New Zealanders if any of allowing non-resident foreigners to trade our houses for capital gain?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I was in Auckland last night and actually met with a number of overseas interests that are buying and building a significant number of new homes for Auckland and given the supply challenge that we have actually that investment helps us to address those supply issues.Alfred Ngaro: E te Mana i te Whakawā. What reports has the Minister seen on the claim that the Auckland housing problem is the fault of people with Chinese-sounding names?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I have seen many reports disputing that people with Chinese-sounding names are to blame for housing affordability and the 30-year decline in homeownership. The Race Relations Commissioner called it shameful scapegoating. The Listener said it was demonising one ethnic group on highly questionable data and said that it was different only in scale from that which occurred in Nazi Germany. [Interruption] That is what the Listener said.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just bring the answer to a conclusion.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: We also saw Labour Party members resigning as a consequence. We saw others who were very disappointed that Andrew Little has become the Pauline Hanson of New Zealand politics.Phil Twyford: Why will he not back the vast majority of New Zealanders including the majority of National Party voters who want a ban on foreign buyers or is he right and they are all wrong?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The member himself does not support a ban on all foreign buyers. He has said that he actually supports Australians being able to speculate on the New Zealand market which shows how shallow and opportunist the policy of members opposite is.Phil Twyford: Does he take responsibility after 7 years in Government for the fact that banks approved three times as many mortgages for investors as they did for first-home buyers?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: What that data showed was that 33 percent of new mortgages were granted to people who were investing in property. That is not surprising given that 35 percent of homes in New Zealand are rented. What I do take responsibility for is doubling—doubling—the rate of house builds. I draw attention to the pipeline report yesterday that shows that with this Government’s policies 80000 new homes are to be built in Auckland over the next 6 years. That is where this Government sees the solution lying.Phil Twyford: Is he concerned that a couple who according to the New Zealand Herald are listed on the electoral roll as students amassed Auckland property worth $26 million and gave $370000 to the National Party?Mr SPEAKER: Order! That last part of that question makes it entirely out of order. [Interruption] Order! I am inviting the member—I was quite happy to rule the question right out but the Minister obviously wants to answer the first part. [Interruption] Then the question is out of order. [Interruption] Order! I have a point of order.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. On what basis is that question ruled out of order under the Standing Orders?Mr SPEAKER: I would have—[Interruption] Order! I am happy to explain. The Minister for Building and Housing is not responsible for any donations to a political party.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I just want to be clear with the member. If this is a fresh point of order I am happy to hear it.Chris Hipkins: It is a fresh point of order. It may be something that you want to consider and come back to the House on. Members often ask Ministers questions with reference to matters that they are not directly responsible for but that have a relevance on their responsibility. A donation to a party although the Minister may not be responsible for it can actually have relevance to the Minister’s portfolio.Mr SPEAKER: The member is now skating on very thin ice.Chris Hipkins: I’m not.Mr SPEAKER: Well I assure the member he is. We are relitigating a point. Political donations occur—we all know they do—but a Minister of the Crown is not responsible for political donations to a political party. [Interruption] Order! I am on my feet. There are many Speakers’ rulings confirming that.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: A further point of order? Again I just want to be clear because I have got to treat everybody in this House absolutely fairly. Is it a fresh point of order?Hon David Parker: It is. I accept your ruling. I accept your ruling and I would ask that the same level of sitting down of Ministers is applied when the Ministers refer to things that they have no responsibility for which is Labour Party policy. It is the same rule.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will do my best to do so when I see—[Interruption] Order! I have a very good mind to be asking Kris Faafoi to leave the Chamber on that basis; a very good mind indeed. [Interruption] Order! In answer to the point raised by the Hon David Parker I attempt to do my best. I may fail—miss—on the odd occasion but I will certainly do my best. When a Minister blatantly brings in an Opposition’s political policies I will do my best to shut that down. I call question No. 5 Paul Foster-Bell—[Interruption] Order! Again I have had to put up with another interjection from the Hon Annette King. I have given one warning. Because of the seniority of the member I will give a final warning. If it happens again in this question time the member will be leaving the Chamber.Student Loans—Overseas-based Borrowers5.PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National) to the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment: What progress is the Government making in ensuring overseas-based New Zealanders repay their student loans?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koe e te Whare. Earlier today I announced that overseas-based Kiwis with student loans have collectively repaid more than $200 million in additional repayments towards their outstanding balances through the Overseas-based Borrowers Initiative. In the year to June a total of $185 million was collected from overseas-based borrowers which includes $79 million directly as a result of this programme. Reaching $200 million in additional repayments is a good milestone for the programme. This is all money we would not have collected if we had continued on the old way of ignoring student debt owed by people overseas.Paul Foster-Bell: Ko tētahi atu pātai: why is it important for borrowers to repay their loans quickly?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It is important that student loan borrowers meet their obligations to New Zealand taxpayers who have supported their tertiary study so that we can provide the same support for the next generation of students. Just because a borrower has gone overseas it does not mean that their loan goes away while they are not here. It is also important for the borrowers themselves whether they are based in New Zealand or offshore to get their loans paid off more quickly. Prior to the Government starting this initiative as firstly a pilot programme in late 2010 overseas-based debt was in the too-hard basket. We still have a long way further to go to get overseas-based borrowers fully repaying what they should but reaching $200 million in additional repayments is significant progress.Paul Foster-Bell: Pātai ano: what other measures has the Government introduced to ensure borrowers repay their loans more quickly?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: This feels like a linguistic arms race now.Grant Robertson: You’re losing.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: As part of the overseas-based borrowers initiative—I am waving the white flag—we have brought in fixed repayment obligations and higher repayment thresholds for overseas-based borrowers. We have introduced border arrest systems for the most non-compliant overseas-based borrowers with high levels of default on student loan repayments. We have extended the student loan and allowance stand-down period for permanent residents and Australian citizens from 2 to 3 years and we have put in place an ongoing information-sharing agreement between our Inland Revenue Department and the Department of Internal Affairs to collect contact details from passport applications. These and other measures have made the student loan scheme more affordable avoiding a blowout in costs while keeping student loans interest-free.Trans-Pacific Partnership—Release of Information6.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Green) to the Minister of Trade: Has the New Zealand Government provided to other governments involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations any documents regarding New Zealand’s position on specific issues in the negotiations; if so have those documents been made publicly available to New Zealanders?Hon TODD McCLAY (Acting Minister of Trade): Kia ora Mr Speaker. As part of the negotiation process negotiators necessarily provide documents to other participants in a negotiation in order to assist the negotiating strategies to obtain the best outcomes for New Zealand. All Trans-Pacific Partnership members have agreed to keep negotiating texts confidential. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been open about the issues under negotiation and has actively engaged stakeholders. Hundreds of groups and individuals have been involved in consultation.Dr Russel Norman: So is the Minister saying that the New Zealand Government has provided position papers to the other Governments involved in the negotiations on New Zealand’s negotiating position in the Trans-Pacific Partnership?Hon TODD McCLAY: The New Zealand Government has been negotiating with 11 other countries. We do so so that we can deliver the best outcome of this negotiation for New Zealand.Dr Russel Norman: Why is it that the Government will reveal its negotiating position to the other parties in the negotiation through these documents but it will not make those negotiating documents available to the people of New Zealand?Hon TODD McCLAY: In our desire to deliver the very best agreement possible for New Zealanders it is necessary for us to negotiate with our partners.Dr Russel Norman: How could it undermine the negotiating position of the New Zealand Government to tell the people of New Zealand what is in these documents that has already been shared with the other negotiating partners?Hon TODD McCLAY: Disclosure to other countries of all of our negotiating positions and including New Zealand’s bottom lines which is the information the member is asking us to deliver and the sensitive and likely negotiating positions and strategies New Zealand is applying is likely to undermine our negotiating position. Part of the reason our negotiators are in Hawaii at the moment and we do not have an agreement is that actually there are issues that remain outstanding to be negotiated in New Zealand’s interest.Dr Russel Norman: Putting aside the issue of New Zealand’s bottom lines how can it undermine the New Zealand Government position in the negotiations to release to the New Zealand public the papers that the New Zealand Government has already given to the other Governments that are party to the negotiations—the other Governments already know what is in these papers?Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question has been asked.Hon TODD McCLAY: What is becoming more apparent is that member’s desire to undermine New Zealand’s—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Simply answer the question.Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I take offence at that comment. I ask him to withdraw and apologise.Mr SPEAKER: No I am not going to ask the member to withdraw. I have stopped him from answering that. He is not to continue in that vein. I do not think it was something that was necessary. It was creating disorder. It was hardly an offensive remark but I ask now the Minister to complete an answer to the question.Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I hope we are not getting to the position of relitigating decisions.Tracey Martin: I am going to ask you please whether you can clarify. My understanding was that under the Standing Orders it was if a member—a member—took offence. Have we now changed so that you decide—Mr SPEAKER: Order! No nothing has changed but I am happy to bring the member up to date. It is a matter of whether it is an offence to the House not whether it is an offence to an individual member. On occasions there are times when members have said they were offended; in fact I think there was a case yesterday when I did consider whether as in this case the member should have taken offence. It is a matter of offence to the House not to an individual member. Would the Hon Todd McClay—Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Order! No—would the member resume his seat. We have spent enough time on this. If the member raises a fresh point of order I am happy to hear it—Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I just want to be fair to the member. He will resume his seat. But if in any way we are continuing to relitigate a point that I have made it will require me to be even-handed as I was in the action I took on Tuesday.Dr Russel Norman: The question is in determining offence to the House basically what the Minister is saying is that anyone who disagrees with the Government’s position is undermining the New Zealand Government’s position. Most of us on this side of the House—Mr SPEAKER: The member now is in very grave danger of not being here to hear the answer. I have explained that I am not interested in relitigating the point. I have explained to Tracey Martin that I need to decide whether the words stated were offensive enough that they could lead to offence. On occasions I do; on this occasion I did not. Would the Hon Todd McClay complete his answer.Hon TODD McCLAY: No the Government values the views of New Zealanders which is why there have been two full consultations under the Trans-Pacific Partnership during the negotiation. What I would say to that member is that people who want us to make public these documents actually do not want to see the text; they just want to derail the agreement. The agreement if concluded will deliver benefit to the New Zealand economy.Dr Russel Norman: Is the actual reason the Government will not release the documents that it has already shown to all the other Governments involved in the negotiation—the actual reason they will not release them to the public of New Zealand—because the people of New Zealand will not agree with the negotiating position that this Government has taken? That is why they are kept secret.Hon TODD McCLAY: The answer to that question is no. The other answer is nobody has taken that member’s flag.Workplace Health and Safety—Reforms7.CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Does he stand by his statement “It’s important to strike the right balance between safe workplaces for workers and unnecessary red tape on businesses and I’m confident we have landed in the right space.”?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Yes I am confident that the Health and Safety Reform Bill as amended is sensible workable and will make a real difference to improve New Zealand’s unacceptable safety record. It will contribute to the Government’s commitment of achieving its goal of at least a 25 percent reduction in workplace death and injury by 2020.Clayton Mitchell: What assurances can the Minister give to small and medium sized businesses that WorkSafe New Zealand inspectors will not become revenue collectors at the expense of small to medium sized enterprises?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The overwhelming number of offences for which a fine is levied are levied by the courts not WorkSafe New Zealand at all. I simply reject the notion that WorkSafe New Zealand has that as its raison d’être.Clayton Mitchell: Why has the Minister ignored the personal responsibility of staff to look after their personal protection equipment or “PPE” leaving small to medium sized businesses to carry the financial cost of damage or loss of this equipment by employees; and will he amend clause 28 of the new Health and Safety Reform Bill to rectify this?Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Michael Woodhouse—either of those two supplementary questions.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The answer to the second part of the question is no because although a person conducting a business or undertaking—PCBU—will be required to provide personal protection equipment nothing prevents them under other employment law or civil jurisdiction from claiming the cost of damage particularly when it is done in a grossly negligent way.Clayton Mitchell: Will the Government help small business by funding the health and safety representative training for small to medium sized businesses as they face the ever-increasing and crippling workplace compliance costs?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The Government already invests heavily in health and safety training and education. There is a contribution by the workplace—the person conducting a business or operation—as it is the primary beneficiary and I think that we have got that balance right.Iain Lees-Galloway: Will farming be one of the high-risk industries that will be required to have health and safety representatives even if the business has fewer than 20 employees?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The decision on which industries constitute high or low risk has not yet been made but I intend to bring guidance to the House in advance of the Committee of the whole House.Marama Fox: Ā tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā he pātai Reo Māori tēnei. Mō aua mahinga “whakawhara” arā e pērā ana ki ngā mahi ono rākau he nui kē ngā kaimahi Māori kei roto he aha ō mahi kia mōhio paitia ai he māngai hei tautoko i ngā kaimahi katoa?[Thank you Mr Speaker. This is a question in Māori. What industries if any does the Minister consider to be “high risk” and what does he intend to do if anything about ensuring those risk industries that particularly impact on all Māori workers such as forestry will continue to have health and safety representatives?]Clayton Mitchell: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I did not get that whole question. Could I ask that the question be repeated so that I can get my earpiece in?Mr SPEAKER: Was the member unable to hear the translation?Clayton Mitchell: No I did not get a translation of the question—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am here to assist the House. On this occasion I am going to ask Marama Fox to repeat the question for the benefit of the translator so that all members can hear it.Marama Fox: Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā he pai tēnā he hōnore. E te Minita mō aua mahinga “whakawhara” arā e pērā ana ki ngā mahi ono rākau he nui kē ngā kaimahi Māori kei roto he aha ō mahi kia mōhio paitia ai he māngai hei tautoko i ngā kaimahi katoa?[Thank you Mr Speaker. That is fine and it is indeed an honour. What industries if any does he consider to be “high risk” and what does he intend to do if anything about ensuring those risk industries that particularly impact on all Māori workers such as forestry will continue to have health and safety representatives?]Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I do not want to get ahead of the advice that officials will give as to which industries will fall into which box but contrary to some of the scaremongering that has been going on from the Opposition loggers and forestry workers for example will certainly be considered high risk under any definition. It would not be helpful for me to start speculating more broadly on what those industries might be before I get the advice from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment but I will continue to work with the Māori Party behind the scenes as we have done and I appreciate their support.Trades Academies—Education Review Office Report8.Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Education: What reports has she received on trades academies?Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Today the Education Review Office has released a report that shows that trades academies are delivering overwhelmingly positive outcomes for students. The report shows the impact trades academies are having on energising and focusing students on the importance of learning and achievement. Trades academies introduced in 2011 are designed to increase retention rates raise National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 achievement rates and smooth the transition from school to further education training and work. We currently have more than 5000 students engaged in trades academies across the country.Hon Judith Collins: How are trades academies delivering for young New Zealanders?Hon HEKIA PARATA: It is young New Zealanders themselves who are reporting that trades academies work for them. The Education Review Office report has numerous positive comments from students including: “You know I’m really good at something after all” and: “Just came here for a day off school realised it is opening doors now and it’s worth it” and from teachers: “Overall I think the Trades Academy is wonderful—seen too many successes for me not to be happy. It’s about the kids.” This is why this Government announced in the Budget that we would fund an additional 300 places for trades academies each year for the next 4 years.Child Protection—Risk Predictor Model9.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) to the Minister for Social Development: How much money has her Government spent developing and testing the ‘predictive risk model’ that was announced in 2012 to identify children at risk of harm and abuse and in what year will it be rolled out?Hon NICKY WAGNER (Minister of Customs) on behalf of theMinister for Social Development: Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. The Government’s 2012 White Paper for Vulnerable Children identified predictive modelling as a potential tool to identify children most at risk of abuse and neglect. As a result the Government has asked agencies to look at the feasibilities and the ethics of predictive modelling to identify children at risk of harm. I am advised that the cost of this work since the release of the 2012 white paper has been $342394 and this includes all feasibility studies ethics reports and the work of the Ministry of Social Development that has been contracted externally. As a result of this work a proposal was put forward with options to test predictive modelling. The Minister declined to proceed with the observational study but the work undertaken so far will be used to advance the study using historical data and it will start later this year.Jacinda Ardern: Was Paula Bennett as her predecessor briefed on the planned trials of the risk predictor model and was it her who gave officials the green light?Hon NICKY WAGNER: Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. I am afraid I do not have that information with me here today but the Minister will be very happy to answer that question if you put it in writing.Jacinda Ardern: Who could have told officials to go ahead if it was not Paula Bennett when it clearly was not her given that her notes show that she asked officials to “stop phase 2 planning immediately and talk to me!”—with the exclamation mark?Hon NICKY WAGNER: Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Well the Government is absolutely committed and makes a strong effort and investment towards improving the lives of vulnerable children. We are doing everything we can to make sure that we can put that work forward—for example the Children’s Action Plan with 30 initiatives; the Vulnerable Children Act; the four Children’s Teams; stronger child protection with memorandums of understanding; tougher sentences for crimes against children; and extra payments for grandparents.Jacinda Ardern: Does she agree with Paula Bennett’s pursuing the risk predictor model when an Official Information Act inquiry shows in contrast that she rejected trialling it and handwrote on the policy papers: “Not on my watch. These are children not lab rats.”?Hon NICKY WAGNER: Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. The Minister obviously does not want to support the observation group. But the Minister is supporting predictive modelling because there is merit in identifying the future use of abuse. I do not think this undermines the value of the model and we will be trialling it using historical data.Jacinda Ardern: Who did then agree to the observational trials as part of the risk predictive model?Hon NICKY WAGNER: Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. I am afraid I do not have that information but you could put that in writing to the Minister.Border Control SmartGate System—Efficiency10.MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney) to the Minister of Customs: How will the Government’s investment in next generation SmartGates increase security and ensure passengers are processed faster and more efficiently at the border?Hon NICKY WAGNER (Minister of Customs): Last week I was pleased to announce—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I am going to invite the Minister to start again. I could not hear a word of it.Hon NICKY WAGNER: Last week I was pleased to announce that the Government is investing in an additional 29 new-generation SmartGates which will double the number of SmartGates at New Zealand’s airports. SmartGate has processed over 13 million passengers so far. It is saving time and is freeing-up our customs officers to keep our borders safe.David Seymour: Will the new SmartGates apply Bayesian analysis to visitors’ names to try to figure out their ethnicity?Hon NICKY WAGNER: No. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am quite keen to hear the answer.Hon NICKY WAGNER: No. From what I believe Bayesian analysis particularly when applied to Chinese-sounding names is statistically invalid politically impotent and morally bankrupt. We would never use this type of shoddy and dodgy analysis in our high-quality—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have heard enough.Mark Mitchell: How are the next-generation SmartGates an upgrade of the existing gates?Hon NICKY WAGNER: I was privileged to trial the new SmartGates last week. The new gates are a faster one-step process that scans your passport and performs a biometric scan at the same time. It eliminates the kiosks and the printing of tickets and it will reduce queuing. It is a great thing for New Zealand.Partnership Schools—Policy and Outcomes11.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) to the Minister of Education: Has she taken any papers to Cabinet proposing changes for charter schools; if so is this an admission that the charter school model is not working?Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education):Tēnā anō koe e te Mana Whakawā otirā tēnā anō koe.[Thank you once again Mr Speaker and to you indeed as well.]No but I have been taking papers on partnership schools to Cabinet since 2012. Many of these have sought to refine the partnership school model in some aspects. These papers have regularly been made available to the public on the ministry’s website. In regard to reviewing and evaluating the partnership school model this is a process that we continuously undertake across the whole education portfolio. I will always work hard to ensure that Kiwi kids are receiving the best possible educational outcomes. If improvements can be made in any aspect of education I will seek to make them.Catherine Delahunty: Are policy changes being proposed because charter schools or partnership schools have already developed problems with student safety educational success cultural responsiveness asset retention and competency of management?Hon HEKIA PARATA: We are constantly refining policy including the partnership policy because we are intent on improving areas where we think there are weaknesses or flaws. We do that in all parts of the education system.Catherine Delahunty: Is the Minister still intending to go ahead with the two new partnership schools announced in Budget 2015 given the widespread failures with educational success asset retention cultural responsiveness and competency of management?Hon HEKIA PARATA: I reject the member’s characterisation of the schools. We have definitely had one school that has had problems. The other eight have not. Yes we have provisioned in the Budget for two further schools.Catherine Delahunty: Could not the same money have been spent on supporting the students within existing local public schools thus avoiding experimenting on kids?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Partnership schools are another option available to parents who freely choose where they send their kids. Many of the young people who are in the partnership schools are ones where the other options have failed them.Trans-Pacific Partnership—Foreign Ownership of New Zealand Properties12.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) to the Minister of Trade: Why did he say to journalists asking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement “we need adults to do this—not breathless children to run off at the mouth” and why does he think we should trust the Government to protect New Zealand’s interests when the Prime Minister has already admitted on TV that the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement may trade away New Zealand’s right to ban the sale of our homes to foreigners?Hon TODD McCLAY (Acting Minister of Trade): The member needs to be careful not to take the Minister’s comments in isolation or out of context. Equally that is not actually what the Prime Minister said. The Government is working to get the best deal that it can for New Zealand.Hon David Parker: What written advice has the Minister received from the Minister for Building and Housing or that Minister’s officials about the effect of foreign buyers on Auckland house prices?Hon TODD McCLAY: I am not aware of all of the advice that the Minister has received from all other Ministers in their portfolio areas but what I can say is that again as far as the Trans-Pacific Partnership is concerned it has not yet been agreed. It is still in negotiation and the outcome of that agreement should it be reached will depend on the circumstances around the policy the member is suggesting.Hon David Parker: Given that National does not know how big the effect of foreign buyers is on house prices how can he look New Zealanders in the eye and say that he is correct to trade away New Zealand’s right to ban foreign buyers?Hon TODD McCLAY: Because the Minister is not going to single out one group of New Zealanders who have unusual sounding names to the members opposite and stigmatise them as far as housing policy is concerned.Hon David Parker: Why does that Minister imply that it is racist to talk about foreign buyers from China but never makes the same accusations when we talk about foreign buyers from the USA under the Trans-Pacific Partnership?Hon TODD McCLAY: That is not what I said. What I said was that it was some of the worst policy development I have seen in the history of this Parliament from Mr Twyford and his cronies.Hon David Parker: Does he believe that New Zealand should be able to control whether overseas buyers should be allowed to buy New Zealand homes?Hon TODD McCLAY: That is not actually policy that falls within the Minister’s competence.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Given that it is absolutely central to the negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership as we have heard about for months in this House how can the Minister deny that he has got responsibility for whether he protects that?Mr SPEAKER: Order! I think in view of where the supplementary questions have gone and where the answers have been given on that basis I am going to invite the member to ask that question again.Hon David Parker: Does he believe that New Zealand should be able to control whether overseas buyers are allowed to buy New Zealand homes?Hon TODD McCLAY: That is not actually an area that falls within the competence of trade. The Government has a number of tools available to it around policy that can have an effect upon housing policy.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Order! If the member is now going to say that the question has not been addressed—we have now tried it twice. If that does not address the question it may not be to the satisfaction of—is it a fresh point of order?Hon David Parker: No my point of order is that he denied responsibility for answering the question saying it was outside his ministerial responsibility. Given that he is negotiating that very issue how can he deny responsibility?Mr SPEAKER: The question has been addressed obviously not to the satisfaction of the member. The way forward is further supplementary questions.Hon David Parker: Why does he call his critics ideologues tell journalists that they are breathless children and expect New Zealanders in the dark to trust him when he has already shown that he is the ideologue by selling out New Zealanders and giving up the right to ban the sale of overseas houses to foreigners?Hon TODD McCLAY: The member needs to be careful not to take the Minister’s comments out of context or to put meaning in them he did not intend. In as far as the Minister’s involvement with the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations is concerned his ideology is to deliver the very best agreement that he can for New Zealand.Point of Order—Conduct of SpeakerRON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I need to draw to your attention that there is information now airing in the media that you yourself Mr Speaker swore at the leader of my party under your breath and it was caught by the microphone. Given the inconsistency with which we have been treated over here do you not think that you should withdraw and apologise?Mr SPEAKER: I absolutely assure the member that I never did such a thing.Health and Safety Reform BillSecond ReadingHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): I move That the Health and Safety Reform Bill be now read a second time. This bill represents the biggest reform in health and safety in more than 20 years. It is central to the Government’s ongoing commitment to improving New Zealander’s health and safety at work. It provides a balanced framework for health and safety in the workplace that better reflects modern working arrangements. It amends other Acts to ensure New Zealand has a consistent and robust health and safety regulatory system. It drives better health and safety outcomes which will benefit business efficiency and productivity.I want to thank the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for its hard work and consideration of the bill. Indeed I need to thank two select committees as consideration of the bill spanned the 2014 general election. The current chair Jonathan Young wisely sought to rehear submissions to ensure that his committee was well versed in the issues. I thank him for his calm and effective leadership and I thank all parliamentary colleagues who worked on the bill. Thanks go also to those who submitted on the bill. The select committee has recommended that the bill proceed with a number of amendments which I fully support.Since assuming responsibility for health and safety reform I have read and listened to many experts on health and safety both here and in other jurisdictions with which we compare ourselves and which have much better safety records than New Zealand. Their message is consistent and unequivocal: in order to reduce death and injury in the workplace we must focus on the industries and activities with the highest risk. The changes recommended by the committee do just that and I want to briefly outline those changes. But first I should restate to the House an important reason for the changes apart from the obvious need to improve health and safety.Workplaces and even the nature of work have changed. A generation ago when the Health and Safety in Employment Act was passed workplaces generally had a single employer employing all staff. Now in construction health care forestry and so on there are multiple organisations all working together or in close proximity. Under the bill those entities known as persons conducting a business or undertaking or PCBUs must do what is reasonably practicable to keep their workers and others affected by their work safe and healthy. In practice duties can overlap but this does not mean or require duplication of effort.Having to work together to meet health and safety duties is not new but the bill makes it clear that persons conducting a business or undertaking must cooperate in such situations. Attention is focused on what each person conducting a business or undertaking is able to influence and control ensuring they take action that is reasonable and proportionate to the risks. Persons conducting a business or undertaking are best placed to have wide-reaching influence on achieving collaborative efforts towards and in health and safety throughout and between businesses. Collaborative approaches will not only act to improve health and safety but will have high potential to drive improvements in productivity.Separate from the duties of the person conducting a business or undertaking the bill also introduces a duty on officers. Officers must exercise due diligence by taking reasonable steps to ensure their person conducting a business or undertaking complies with their duties and obligations. Unlike the current law officers cannot be made liable for the failure of their person conducting a business or undertaking. Rather officers are liable only where they fail to perform their own due diligence duties. Who an officer is under the bill was considered to be ambiguous. The definition focused not on the person’s role in the organisation but on whether they made substantive decisions about the business. Although those holding specific positions such as company director will always be considered an officer the committee has made changes to make it clear that officers will be only those who have a very senior governance role that allows them to exercise significant influence over the management of the business. This is appropriate. It is those senior leaders who have the real ability to influence the health and safety direction of an organisation and to ensure that the person conducting a business or undertaking proactively manages and addresses health and safety in how they operate their business. I intend to propose a further change to clarify that the extent of an officer’s duty will take into account the nature of their role and the nature of their responsibilities in the business. This will mean that the officer’s role in and degree of influence over the business will be taken into account in what they are expected to do.Submitters considered that the bill’s failure to recognise any distinction between the work of regular volunteers and casual volunteers failed to reflect the reality of volunteering in New Zealand. The committee agreed which is why it has proposed that the coverage of volunteers remains the same as it is under current law. As under current law where any volunteer is undertaking certain voluntary work activities they will not be treated as workers under the bill. This includes participating in fund-raising activities or assisting with sport or recreation for schools or clubs. Community purpose volunteer associations that do not employ anyone will continue to be excluded as persons conducting a business or undertaking under the bill. This ensures that volunteering will not be affected and it recognises the significant contribution volunteers make to our communities.Following the recommendations of the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety worker engagement and participation is strengthened under the bill. All persons conducting a business or undertaking must engage with workers on health and safety matters that affect them and must have ongoing practices that allow workers to effectively participate in improving health and safety. That has not changed as a consequence of the committee’s recommendations and I am disappointed that some commentators have misrepresented the changes as having done that with the unnecessary anxiety that this has created.The changes to worker participation balance the needs of workers and businesses. The bill will allow for innovative and flexible practices while simplifying compliance for small businesses in low-risk sectors where more formal approaches may not necessarily result in better health and safety outcomes. To this end the committee has recommended that low-risk businesses or undertakings that have fewer than 20 workers will not be required to have formal health and safety representatives or to have a committee when requested. However let me be clear: all persons conducting a business or undertaking including small businesses will still have a requirement for worker engagement and participation.Small businesses in high-risk sectors will have to have formal health and safety reps if requested. A worker will have the ability to challenge whether the existing practices are effective. Where health and safety representatives are to be elected changes have also been made to simplify some procedural requirements such as determining the group of workers the representative is to be elected by and represent. Current participation systems will be recognised under the new law. Existing health and safety reps will have to undertake additional training to be able to exercise their new powers to issue provisional improvement notices or direct that unsafe work is to cease.Changes have also been recommended by the committee to address concerns that a workplace could be considered a workplace for all time even after work is finished or where the person conducting a business or undertaking does not have active control. The committee agreed that such an interpretation could have a considerable impact on the obligations of persons conducting a business or undertaking who manage or control such workplaces and it has changed the definition of “workplace” to address this. Similarly changes have been made to make it clear that persons conducting a business or undertaking who manage or control workplaces will not owe this duty to those who are in the workplace for unlawful purposes.The duty of persons conducting a business or undertaking who manage or control workplaces has also been amended to recognise the practical dynamics of this duty when it applies to farming situations. In such circumstances it has been made clear that the duty of persons conducting a business or undertaking who manage or control workplaces will extend to the buildings and structures in the surrounding areas. The farm workplace for these purposes will not include other parts of the farm when work is not being carried out there. This provides farmers with greater clarity about their obligations. Many farmers generously provide access to and through their land for recreational activities. This change will provide assurance to everyone to ensure for example that cycleways walking tracks and beach access through farmland is not negatively affected by unclear legislation.I also intend to propose a further change to provide certainty that the family home on a farm is excluded from the duty to manage or control the workplace. The changes recommended by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee reflect a balanced and careful approach to health and safety. They clarify the scope and application of the bill’s obligations while ensuring that the appropriate level of responsibility for work health and safety is held by everyone. I commend this bill to the House.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Before I address the substance of the Health and Safety Reform Bill I would like to acknowledge in particular the families of the victims of the Pike River tragedy and in fact the families of all workers killed and injured at work particularly in the past few years as these changes to health and safety law in New Zealand have been considered. I would particularly like to acknowledge Deborah McMillan Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse who are in the gallery today and who have been vocal advocates for real reform and real change. This is personal for them. It is personal for them not just because they have lost loved ones in tragic events at work but also because for Anna and Sonya in particular the Government and the Prime Minister went to them and promised real change and real reform. That was his solemn promise to them as to the way that the Government and the nation would remember the tragic loss that befell their families. They are here today to tell Parliament that they are dissatisfied with the way that this legislation has come back from the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.It is with absolute regret that the Labour Party and other Opposition parties have had to withdraw their support for this bill. When it was introduced we were enthusiastic about this legislation being a progressive and bold step forward for health and safety in New Zealand. We need it. Sure the Pike River tragedy created the political impetus for change but if we had stepped back and looked objectively at New Zealand’s appalling rate of death and injury in the workplace with or without the Pike River disaster it was time for change. Change was long overdue. We had to stop falling for the misguided ideology of deregulation which was the overwhelming driver of the appalling health and safety record and which was in fact the thing that led to the Pike River disaster.The bill as it was introduced was based on solid international evidence. It was based on Australian law that has been in place and has been working well for 10 years. It was based on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy and it was based on the Government’s own independent task force on health and safety. It was good law it was evidence based and it drew on international best practice that we know and that has been demonstrated to make for safer workplaces. The changes that have been made at the select committee are based on misinformation and myth-making that the Government allowed to carry on out in the public.Phil Twyford: Encouraged.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Certain members of the Government actually encouraged the myth-making. It was pleasing when the Minister finally came to the select committee for the estimates hearing and admitted that many of the stories out there about this bill and about the way health and safety laws are implemented are pure myth and pure fantasy. But it was too late. By that stage too many people in business had become fearful of what this legislation would do. The members opposite have caved in to that blatant and rampant fearmongering. Instead of dealing with it instead of telling the truth and instead of working with businesses to make them feel more secure about what this law would do they have weakened it to the point that there is almost no point in passing this legislation any more.The changes that have been made are a direct response to some of the most strident attacks on this legislation that were made at the select committee and those came from the handful of fringe employers who do not value health and safety and who come from industries with some of the worst health and safety records. They came from the farming industry they came from the meat works industry and they came from the fishing industry. They all came along—those industries that kill or maim their workers far more than any other industry in the country—and they told us that we did not need to make these changes. The Government listened to them not to the workers and not to the mainstream employers who came and told us that this legislation was necessary that it was based on good evidence and that they had participated in the drafting of it and were pleased to see it coming before the House. No they are not the ones whom National listened to. National listened to the ratbags—the ones who do not care for their workers. In fact it came through clearly in the submissions that some of them have a very very low opinion of their workers. Some of them came along and told us that by having health and safety representatives their workforce would actively undermine the industry that they work in and would seek to destroy the businesses that they work for. Those are the people whom the National Government listened to on this legislation.What gives us most concern on this side of the House are the attacks on health and safety representatives. It is clear from international evidence that worker participation in health and safety matters is one of the most important factors in reducing death and injury in the workplace and the system that works the best is having elected health and safety representatives who are elected by their workmates who represent their workmates who receive training and who have the knowledge to ensure that the workforce has an ongoing relationship with the employer and has an ongoing say in the health and safety of that workplace. That is what works and that is what has been most stridently attacked by the changes put in place by the National Government MPs on the select committee.We have heard from the Government about its exclusion of small businesses from having health and safety reps—notwithstanding the fact that small businesses have a worse record of killing or maiming their workers than large businesses. Notwithstanding that we have heard from the Government that high-risk small businesses will still have to have health and safety reps. What the Minister cannot tell us is what a high-risk business will be and what a low-risk businesswill be. It is a bit like the Trans-Pacific Partnership where the Government is saying “Trust us. We’ll get this right.” Well the families of the Pike River 29 trusted the Government to get this legislation right. The families of the Pike River 29 trusted the Government members to listen to the recommendations of the royal commission and to implement them and the Government has failed to live up to the trust expected of them. So how can they expect us to trust them to get this right?Will farming be considered a high-risk business? Agriculture kills or maims more workers than any other industry in this country. Year after year after year it kills as many people as those who died in the Pike River disaster. It is our most dangerous industry and yet the Minister could not tell us in question time today whether or not farming will be considered as a high-risk industry. Well if that is not going to be considered as a high-risk industry how can we trust him to say that of any of the other high-risk industries: forestry fishing meat working? How can we trust this Government to actually get that regulation right and to ensure that people working in high-risk industries have the protections and the support that they need in order to improve that appalling record of deaths and injuries that we have in our workplaces?It is not just the exclusion of small businesses; the fact that employers can now structure their workplace to limit the influence of health and safety reps is another reason why we are opposing this legislation. What is most insidious is a last-minute change introduced by the National MPs in order to allow an employer to refer a health and safety representative to WorkSafe and to ask WorkSafe to remove that health and safety representative. That might not sound so bad on the surface of it but if WorkSafe actually says “No actually we think that health and safety representative is doing their job just fine.” then the employer can then take that decision to the District Court. We know what some of our worst employers are going to do—the ones that really hate workers having a say in their workplace; the ones that came to the select committee and told us that they hate workers having a say in their workplace. They will refer those health and safety representatives to WorkSafe and when WorkSafe says no—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member but his time has expired. Please take your seat.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Firstly I would like to thank the members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for the work that they have participated in in the formation of this second edition of the bill. Can I also thank the officials who assisted us. Can I also acknowledge the women—Sonya Rockhouse Anna Osborne and Deborah McMillan—who are here at Parliament this afternoon to hear this very important bill be debated.In the explanatory note in the first draft of the bill before it even went to the select committee it said that the main purpose “is to provide a balanced framework to secure the health and safety of workers and workplaces.” From my understanding it was never designed to be a one-size-fits-all. The balanced framework is not just about employer and employee responsibilities; it is about having an appropriately flexible regime where it is not the imposition of one single system of doing things in companies that have already very effective health and safety practices. The balanced framework is about a safety regime that is proportionate to the level of risk in the workplace driven by a principles-based system that establishes that all persons conducting a business or undertaking have a primary duty of care to their workers. As part of that primary duty of care the persons conducting a business or undertaking put in place worker engagement and participation practices that enable the workers to be part of building the health and safety framework to ensure that their workplace is safe.What has come through the select committee hearings and come through quite obviously is that a significant change is needed in the health and safety culture in the workplace in New Zealand. Our thinking must change. Laws are very important but laws in themselves are not enough. We need leadership we need commitment and we need comprehensive participation right through the workforce from the top down and the bottom up. Because of the tragedies of the past in the development of this bill health and safety dominates in a far stronger way our thinking today and so it should. The momentum for change has started a number of years ago and we are already seeing improvements in workplace health and safety even before the bill becomes law. That is the power of culture change.Over the past 5 years from 2010 to 2014 inclusive on average about one person a week has lost their life in the workplace. We know of course about the tragedy of Pike River. We acknowledge that. We also acknowledge that in 2013 the forestry sector lost 10 lives and the agricultural sector lost more than twice that. Because of that we are seeing those two industries apply real change to their practices. Forestry’s workplace fatalities have fallen from an average of six a year down to a single life lost in these last 2 years and every single life lost is tragic. Again I acknowledge those who have lost a loved one. Our goal must be zero lives lost. Agriculture which has seen the highest loss of life of all sectors has seen a 33 percent reduction in workplace fatalities so far this year and a lot more is yet to be done.This improvement tells me that health and safety is truly on the agenda of New Zealand. There is a wide acceptance that our past practices were unacceptable. Secondly it shows that the ability to drive down serious harm and death in the workplace is possible when an industry sector puts its mind to it. This has happened before the bill has become law.The third thing I take from these recent statistics is that this law reform has the potential to drive those changes in thinking and practice even deeper into the workplace than what is currently happening which will enable us to make even greater improvements in workplace health and safety.I want to talk about what has emerged to be a controversial issue and that is worker engagement and health and safety representation. The Green Party’s view is that this bill provides less opportunity for worker engagement than the provisions of the laws that this bill seeks to reform. I say that is incorrect. The Health and Safety Reform Bill actually strengthens existing requirements for worker engagement and participation and stronger worker participation underlines the expectation in the bill that everyone in the workplace is responsible for workplace health and safety and that workers are empowered to intervene when they see an unsafe situation.The current law says that if you have more than 30 employees you must develop a participation scheme. We have removed that threshold. Under the changes all persons conducting a business or undertaking—whether they are small or large low risk or high risk—are still required to engage with their workers on matters of health and safety that affect them. They also have to have worker participation practices that give their workers reasonable opportunities to participate effectively in improving work health and safety. Every person conducting a business or undertaking every employer or organisation that employs someone has a primary duty of care to engage with their employees. If the persons conducting a business or undertaking and the workers have agreed procedures for that engagement the engagement must be in accordance with those procedures. This bill is quite explicit in what worker participation looks like.I want to speak on worker representation. Opposition members of the committee have nailed their flag to the mast of worker representation. I suspect as the previous speaker said that their support of the bill hinged on this issue. At the select committee an amendment was proposed by the Opposition members. We were told that this amendment was highly significant for their ongoing support of the bill. I regret that they do not support this bill. I believe that the intent and also the outcome of this bill will be a massive improvement in health and safety in New Zealand.Clause 62 which they proposed to change is on the nature of engagement. It says: “If the workers are represented by a health and safety representative the engagement must involve that representative.” The proposed amendment was to remove the words “health and safety” so it would read: “If the workers are represented by a representative the engagement must involve that representative.” So this was throwing it very broadly—that there would be a whole raft of representatives involved in the engagement process between the person conducting a business or undertaking and the workers. We were told to think very carefully about that before we rejected the proposal. We did think very clearly about it.I had heard criticism that this bill was a stalking horse for unions in the workplace. But to be truthful in the select committee process I had not seen massive amounts of evidence of this; I saw what I expected to see. But this proposed amendment that was going to suggest that if a worker was represented by a union obviously then the union representative would have to be—Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance. I think the chair of the select committee is straying into select committee business that has not been reported back to the House. I seek your guidance on whether he is actually breaching privilege in that regard.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member has been given some latitude because the previous speaker made strong accusations around matters that were dealt with in the select committee and had been left out and made accusations as to why that should happen.JONATHAN YOUNG: Speaking to the point of order the amendment is on the website available to the public.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: That has been ruled on.JONATHAN YOUNG: Thank you. What I want to say in this regard is that the proposed amendment would have opened up an issue where if the worker was represented by a union then the union representative would have to be present at the engagement between the person conducting a business or undertaking and the worker.The point I wish to make is that I voted against that proposal because I fundamentally believe that across-the-board engagement directly with workers will achieve a more integrated and comprehensive culture change than relying on a past paradigm of a union representative being the intermediary for workers. The biggest thing this bill does in terms of worker participation—the biggest thing this bill does—is connect the workers directly with the owners and managers and create a top-down and bottom-up discussion and decision-making process about health and safety.I am not denigrating the work of unions in health and safety but the New Zealand workplace is changing. Health and safety is not the prerogative of just the unions; it is now the prerogative of the persons conducting a business or undertaking and the people they employ. This is the culture change we need where everybody owns the issue the problem and the solution. We are moving away from the few who are thinking about things to the many who are thinking about these things. I think that is the reason we have found the right balance. I commend this bill to the House.SUE MORONEY (Labour): Not that long ago just over a year ago I stood in this House and I implored this House to never ever forget the lessons that were learnt from the Pike River mine as we had previously forgotten the lessons that we learnt from Cave Creek just some decades earlier. I implored the House to never ever forget the lesson that we learnt from both of those instances—that deregulation kills. Deregulation does not work in terms of the health and safety of working people. I thought then that maybe I was giving a warning to the House that we might forget those lessons in a decade or so. I did not expect to be standing in this House just over a year later telling that Government it has already forgotten those lessons. I did not expect to be standing up this quickly and telling that Government to get its amnesia in order. It has already forgotten those lessons. The bill that it has brought back to this House demonstrates that. Less than 12 months after I implored this House to never forget that it has already done it and the Government members are grinning about it. Well I am sorry but I find that reprehensible actually.We have some of the families in this Chamber today who have been deeply affected by previous Governments forgetting about how deregulation kills people. We have some of the families of the victims here listening to this debate today and I want to pay my respects to the wāhine toa—the strong women—Deborah Sonya and Anna who are here because they are fighting for other families. They are fighting for other families to never ever have to experience what they have had to experience and that is the experience of seeing a loved one off to work in the morning—the thing that they do every day the thing that they should do every day and come back from safely—and having them never return.Make no mistake that is what we are here to debate. That is what we are charged with preventing from ever happening to any family. Yet we have a Government that has gone out of its way to ignore the findings of the royal commission to ignore the findings and recommendations of its own independent task force and to ignore the international evidence that tells us that one of the best protections one of the best ways to ensure that workers come home safely from their everyday working lives is to make sure that workers have a voice in health and safety—to make sure that they are represented in that by having the right to elect one of their own to be the voice of health and safety.I just do not get what is so controversial and so hard about that. What is so hard about that? But that Government that National Government quivered in its boots when it heard some of the employers with the worst track records in this country in health and safety come to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and argue how onerous it would be for small business to have elected health and safety representatives if workers ask for it. I want people who are listening to this debate to understand exactly what is so onerous because we are not talking about employers having to employ anyone additional. There is no additional cost involved in this exercise. This is a person whom they already employ in their business who is simply going to be on the request of their workmates elected to be the person who speaks on behalf of those other workers because they have asked to have an elected representative.That does not impose any cost on business. It should not be something that good employers find at all alarming. In fact I have lost count of the employers who have come up to me in the course of the last 10 days who are embarrassed by this approach that has been taken by this Government. They are embarrassed that that has been taken in their good name because the vast majority of employers do not support the watering down of the recommendations that came from the royal commission. They do not support that. And employers large numbers of employers feel that their names have been sullied in this exercise because of what that Government has done.I want to acknowledge and support the speech of my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway earlier. We did have large employers with very bad health and safety track records come before the committee and tell the committee that workers were going to run rampant and that they were going to use the ability to elect a health and safety representative for some other agenda for some other secret unnamed agenda.I have read a very good book about the tragedy at the Pike River mine and I know that some of those same arguments—some of those very same arguments—were used in that environment. They were some of the same arguments that Jonathan Young just used: “Don’t talk to the union. Don’t have a representative. Come and talk directly with us.” That was the same culture that existed in the Pike River mine. It is exactly the same culture that existed there. And here is the National Government picking up that rhetoric and running with it and using that as an excuse to water down what is internationally accepted as being best practice when it comes to protecting workers in dangerous workplaces.Today we had watched the debacle in question time of the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety—Hon Ruth Dyson: Hapless Minister.SUE MORONEY: —the hapless Minister—being unable to answer the question about what high-risk industries would be required to have these health and safety representatives in place. Knowing the answer to that question the definitive answer to that question is incredibly important when we are debating this bill. I said before that some of the main proponents of this idea that workers cannot possibly have one of their own represent them in health and safety in small business were in fact large businesses. I confidently predict that if this bill goes through in its current form here is what is going to happen next: those large employers with very bad reputations and absolutely no respect for their workers or their lives will start to restructure their businesses so that they fit within the category of having fewer than 20 employees. We have seen it before. I can confidently predict it because we have seen it before. When it comes to legislation that has been in front of this House that has been designed to protect vulnerable workers in contracting-out situations and there have been similar provisions we have seen the ratbag employers use those provisions to restructure their businesses so that they can escape giving their workers the best protection possible.I apologise to the House if I sound a little angry; I am angry. I am absolutely furious about this. One of the things I did immediately before I came to this House as an MP was I trained health and safety representatives in their workplaces. So I have heard firsthand the stories of the devastation when it goes wrong. I have heard about the sorts of things that happen in workplaces the sorts of subtle and not-so-subtle pressures put on workers to go and do unsafe things in their workplace in the interests of increasing the profits of those companies. Make no mistake about it when we are debating this bill we are in the business of ensuring that people come before profits and that requires a backbone. It requires strong regulation. It requires understanding the dynamics at work in the workplace and how workers are vulnerable to having that pressure placed on them.This Government is failing those families. The Government is failing the 290 families who have lost loved ones since the Pike River mine disaster. It is failing every worker who walks out the door and goes to work in a workplace with fewer than 20 employees—and by the way that is a significant majority of workers in this country. We are opposed to this bill and I am proud of that.ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise in support of this very important piece of legislation the Health and Safety Reform Bill. Today I wear a dark armband for two reasons: in remembrance and acknowledgment of the passing of my partner Robyn’s father John Calvert Noble-Campbell yesterday afternoon and the passing of all those who have died at work.The Labour Party is not the only party that remembers those who have died at work. It is not the only party that is concerned about the health and safety of people at work whether it is deaths or long-term injuries. Labour is not the only party that is aware of the cost of these deaths and long-term injuries in the family in the community and across the country. We acknowledge that there are too many workplace deaths in New Zealand and that is why this bill is before the House today.I would like to acknowledge the general cooperation from the Opposition members on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and I would also like to acknowledge at this stage Mr Damien O’Connor who brought to the House in recent months his member’s bill which related to the health and safety of specifically coalminers. It is very important that we all contribute to the health and safety of workers because we all want the same thing: we all want our workers to be safe at work.“She’ll be right.” is not good enough. It is not right at all. “Sweet as. That’s fine. I don’t care too much about this or that.”—the attitude in New Zealand when it comes to health and safety is not up to scratch and as a result we have deaths and long-term injuries in our workplaces. So it is the attitude that must change. The legislation alone will not change the behaviour in our workplace.We will all remember not long ago when seatbelts were brought in as being compulsory. I remember at least sliding around the backseat of the car despite the fact that seatbelts were compulsory—sliding around the backseat of the car or even the front bench of the Holden Kingswood as mum and dad turned the corner. It took many years for attitudes to change despite legislation being in place at the time. “It will never happen to me. It’s never going to happen to anyone I know. She’ll be right.” is not good enough.There are several myths regarding this legislation that I would like to clear up. Most people talk about the need for common sense. They ask why we cannot have common sense in this legislation. Why can we not have fewer rules and regulations in this legislation? Why can we not have the individual taking some responsibility for himself or herself in this legislation? Well the legislation does all of those things. The framework is actually very simple. It is based on common sense. It demands reasonable practicable behaviour from all those involved whether you are at the top of the pile as a director of a company or whether you are the lowest-paid worker in the business. You are required to apply common sense and reasonable and practicable behaviour because we are all responsible for the health and safety of ourselves and the health and safety of our work colleagues.All we need to do is consider health and safety as we do our financial results in the case of a business owner. That is all we require. There is a lot in this bill that is going to please a lot of people once they get their head around it. It is not difficult to understand. For the farmers—the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety has explained the issue around farmers giving access to their land to recreational users. That is a myth that has been busted. Volunteer groups are concerned and have been concerned. The Minister has busted that myth.My point is that the bill is common sense. It will assist in changing the attitudes of New Zealanders towards health and safety in the workplace. I commend this bill to the House.Debate interrupted.Points of OrderTabling of Documents—Question No. 1 to Minister 29 JulyRON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek the leave of the House to table a transcript just put together by the New Zealand First office of a comment made on 29 July 2015 during question time at question No. 1 where the Speaker of this House said: “Ah shut up Winston.”The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No. If that is the case that information will be public knowledge now because it will be in Hansard and it is in the public domain. So I am not going to accept that application for leave. I am calling the next speaker.Ron Mark: Point of order—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Well if you are going to relitigate what I have already ruled on Mr Mark it is a serious matter. A new point of order?RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Yes a new point of order. This transcript is not in the public domain. I have just brought it to the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): If that statement was made in the House it is in Hansard and it is in the public domain.Health and Safety Reform BillSecond ReadingDebate resumed.KEVIN HAGUE (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. There is a whakataukītanga kōrero that probably appears most frequently in speeches in this House and from Ministers outside this House: He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata he tangata he tangata.[What is the most important thing in the world? It is people it is people it is people.]I wonder whether instead of saying “he tangata” three times we should be saying it 29 times as a reminder of the 29 lives lost in the Pike River disaster. We were reminded by the memorial out at the Cenotaph yesterday evening of those lives lost which in a sense was the genesis of this bill. I have lost count of the times since the Pike River disaster that I have heard members of Parliament and Ministers say that we owe it to the memory of those men who were lost and to their families to ensure that that kind of disaster can never recur. Perhaps we should be saying “he tangata” 291 times reflecting the 291 people who have perished in their workplaces since the Pike River disaster. These lives are precious. There is nothing more important—no more important responsibility of Government—than to protect our citizens. This is a responsibility that this Government is currently failing and proposes to fail further.Over the decades it has been a familiar refrain from employers that they know best and the way to ensure health and safety in the workplace is to leave it to them because they will be able to tailor a regime that suits their particular workplace and their particular workers. There are good employers and there are bad employers. The job of legislation—the job of Government—is to set a minimum standard and a minimum requirement so that even bad employers cannot get away with less.In the 1990s the Government of the day agreed with what the employers had asked for—to leave it to them—and it deregulated despite the clarity of the message at the time in response to that: that deregulation of health and safety would lead to unnecessary deaths in the workplace. I have pointed out in the House several times in relation to the Pike River disaster and the various pieces of legislation that we have considered subsequently that standard economic theory says that firms will seek to minimise their costs by any means that are available to them legally. That includes cutting corners on health and safety if they are able to do so. At Pike River and at literally hundreds of other workplaces that is precisely what a deregulated health and safety regime allowed bad employers to do.We were pleased when the Government introduced this bill because it was a great step forward from the regime that existed previously. It was not a perfect bill by any means but it was a step forward. Unfortunately the Government has once again caved in to the case made by bad employers and as a result of that we are changing our vote today and the Green Party will vote against this bill. We hope that there will be changes made in the Committee of the whole House that will enable us to once again support this bill.Some of the specific issues—and we will deal with many specific issues in the Committee stage—we want to refer to now. The biggest I think is probably the exemption that the Government intends to grant for workplaces of under 20 people. If people are truly at the heart of the policy then we need to see the policy from the perspective of those whom we are trying to protect—the people who are the workers and who go to work in their workplaces. A person’s right to go to work be safe in that workplace and then come home to their family is no different in a workplace of fewer than 20 employees than in a workplace with more. The Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety and the Government will no doubt argue that that right of those workers needs to be compromised to avoid unnecessary or disproportionate compliance costs for small employers.I used to be an employer in a small business place—in a variety of them in fact. Although I certainly had some gripes about compliance costs health and safety compliance costs were absolutely never one of those. Indeed the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment has taken the extraordinary initiative it seems to me of in fact putting up on its website some information to dispel the mythology around this kind of rhetoric that has been presented from a small group of bad employers.Not only is there no reason not to protect workers in small workplaces to the same extent as we might in larger ones but in fact it is arguable that there is more reason to do so. This is because the international evidencein particular from the United States—the New Zealand evidence is not currently strong enough either way—makes it clear that in general smaller workplaces are in fact less safe than larger ones. The Government’s move to water down the obligations of employers in smaller workplaces actually places less protection on the workers whom we expect to be at greater risk.We have some specific concerns about the treatment of work groups in the bill. Health and safety representatives are there to represent workers but what the bill enables employers to do is deem a particular work group whom these representatives will represent. In other words it will be employers not the workers themselves who decide which workers representatives represent. That is a travesty of the very idea of representation. It may be a drafting error in which case I look forward to the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper on that matter.We are concerned about the situation of home support workers people who will be by definition in very small workplaces. It appearsthat under this legislation nobody essentially will be responsible for the obligations that the employers of those workers have under this legislation. Again this is a travesty in relation to some of the most vulnerable workers in our country. We will raise other matters in the Committee of the whole House.Members will recall that this bill has arisen pretty directly out of the report of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy and from the report of the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety. Both of those entities recommended sweeping changes. They said that New Zealand’s health and safety law was entirely inadequate and both focused on all employers not just some. They both said that major reform was required and that greater worker engagement was essential and they both heard and retold evidence that unions were essential as worker representatives. They both proposed alignment with jurisdictions that had better health and safety records than New Zealand in particular Australia. The regime that the original bill proposed was precisely what Australia has and it works there. There is no reason in fact to change it.One of the sections in this report of the royal commission on the Pike River disaster is entitled “A failure to learn” and as Sue Moroney has already spoken about in this House that seems to be precisely the route that we are now proceeding down. I recall that when I asked the Prime Minister on 8 November 2012 whether he accepted that deregulation as the royal commission had said had caused the disaster he said no—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry; the member’s time has expired.CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First and as a new member I would just like to say that to be on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee which has taken a big part in helping put this new legislation the Health and Safety Reform Bill together has been a great honour and I feel very privileged to stand here today on behalf of New Zealand First. We would also like to acknowledge the people who are here in the House today. We have got Sonya Rockhouse Anna Osborne and Deborah McMillan who themselves know the sadness of losing people in health and safety accidents and we have also got a representative here from the New Zealand Fire Service Mr McGarvey. It is great to have people here who care so much about their family members and fellow workers.I think this new bill of 247-odd pages is well and truly overdue. I would also like to acknowledge the patience of New Zealand workers and their families in waiting for the second reading of this bill to actually make it to the House today. There has been a considerable amount of work. A lot of time has been given with those people coming to put their submissions forward and I also commend Mr Jonathan Young our chair for actually enabling us new members to hear from those submitters again because joining this House only 10 months ago we were very much as new members on the back foot. So thank you for that. I think he has done a good job of chairing us.I have heard a lot of passion in the House today particularly from Mr Iain Lees-Galloway and Sue Moroney and it gives me great pleasure to speak to their passion which they hold so tightly. There was some good robust discussion at the select committee with regard to putting this bill into place. Conversely I would also like to commend the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety himself for his words. Somewhere in the middle between the passion and sincerity and what this Government is trying to put together is a very prescriptive piece of legislation to reduce the number of deaths in our workplaces by 25 percent by 2020. New Zealand First stands here to say that we 100 percent support the intent of this bill but we cannot be supportive of this bill as it sits here in front of us today. I would like to talk today about some of the unintended consequences of this bill which New Zealand First has some concerns about. I would also like to say that if we could get some of these changes which might be small in the number of words they take up and small in the number of pages that are required to eloquently put what we are trying to say they would be of very very large overall benefit for New Zealanders.When we talk about health and safety in our workplaces it really comes down to a three-pronged spear. We have workers or employees; employers; and of course governance that oversees health and safety and the enforcement of it. When you have those three things in good solid legislation you are actually going to have a massive reduction in deaths and severe incidents causing major harm to our workers. If I look at our current occupational health and safety legislation I see that two of those prongs have been missing. There has not been the support from enforcement and labour inspectors—they have not been adequately funded—and of course there was not anything in that legislation that enabled worker participation. Just for the people at home who are watching this today and for those members of the House who have not had the pleasure of reading this bill as some of us have I say that there are some new terms coming in now. Employees are no longer called employees. They are called workers—to keep it nice and simple. An employer has now become a PCBU a person conducting a business or undertaking. That in itself I think is a good thing.I want to talk about some of the good things in this bill so that we are not sitting here and throwing stones at the Government for the sake of throwing stones. The term “person conducting a business or undertaking” enables a multiple number of them so that a variety of people are taking ownership of looking after their fellow workers their employees etc. Having worker participation in that process helps build and change the culture of the “she’ll be right” attitude which Mr Scott spoke about earlier. I have to say that one of the concerns we brought to our select committee and one of the things that we would like to say is that for every action there is going to be an equal and opposite reaction. That is Newton’s third law. That goes through life in just about every single thing we have an effect on. If you change something something else will change. We have got an opportunity here today with this new legislation and we will certainly be putting some Supplementary Order Papers through when we get to the Committee of the whole House to try to take off some of those unintended consequences or as Newton said the inaction of those actions.The first thing I would like to talk about and bring to people’s attention is that 99 percent of New Zealand’s workforce is made up of small to medium sized enterprises. Quite a lot of the engagement that we are going to have and we are going to see brought into play will have a serious impact on some of those businesses particularly around compliance costs. When Sue Moroney mentioned the fact that having a health and safety representative does not put any financial cost whatsoever on to the person conducting a business or undertaking the employer that is not actually entirely correct because of course to have a health and safety representative you first need to have a trained health and safety representative. That comes at a considerable cost to all businesses but it has an impact particularly on those small to medium sized enterprises or SMEs—the acronym that everybody talks about in this House. What I would like to ask—certainly I will be putting through a Supplementary Order Paper to that order—is a question that was asked of the Minister in the House today. It is whether this Government will help to fund those course costs—the courses could be for up to a week; we do not how long they are going to take and we do not know the cost of those courses—to ensure that those small and medium sized businesses are not hamstrung by further costs.The concern of New Zealand First is that we seem to be having an abundant number of extra compliance costs in our day-to-day lives. Just let me bring some of those costs to your attention. The costs are already in place now and we can see further costs coming in. For example in the building industry where you have got a drill or an appliance that has got a cable attached to it every 3 months you have to get an electrician in to certify that cable tag it and pass it on. I know of a small business in Tauranga that employs a very small number of people. That business owner has spent $1200 in the last 6 months just on getting his certifications for his tools. It was not that long ago it was only a few weeks ago when I walked into PlaceMakers and looked at these people who were changing a lightbulb. It reminds me of the start of a bad joke: how many people does it take to change a lightbulb in New Zealand? Well the answer is one and 99 other people to turn the building round it. What we saw in the middle of PlaceMakers was a scissor lift with two people up the top two people down below and four cones out there. They all had hard hats and safety goggles on. It gets back to common sense. You know dead right—we are concerned about the common sense of this. That is taking things to the next level I have to say. We have got more to say on that.We need to be careful that the good legislation that we are trying to bring in to save the lives of people in our workplaces is not brought in to such an extent that it is hamstringing small businesses from moving forward. Small businesses do employ 99 percent of the people who work in New Zealand. That is a serious concern.There is another concern that we have around those costs and it is in clause 28 which states that no worker can be levied or charged for any PPE—which again sorry to use the acronym is personal protective equipment—by the employer or the person conducting a business or undertaking. We absolutely agree with that. It makes sense—it is common sense. If you have got somebody who needs to do a job then they should have that equipment supplied to them—whether it be a hard hat or safety goggles.Where I do not understand it is that we have got the opportunity to fix this problem up by simply putting in a codicil to clause 28 and make it clause 28A to make people your workers personally responsible—it is about personal responsibility—to ensure that they look after and maintain the equipment that has been given to them. There is nowhere in this legislation that enables a person conducting a business or undertaking to charge a worker who has no regard for their health and safety equipment whatsoever. The Minister mentioned earlier on today that it can get picked up in another bill somewhere else in some new legislation. But again that comes at a cost to those small businesses. The cost to get HR personnel in to reprimand a staff member who is not looking after their health and safety equipment or not showing up with it is a further cost that needs to be looked at and remediated and sorted out. We will be putting in some Supplementary Order Papers to that effect when we come to the Committee of the whole House. Thank you.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga): I intend to take only a reasonably brief call on the Health and Safety Reform Bill at this point because this bill will get a lot of debate when we go to the Committee of the whole House. I know there will be a lot of amendments flying around. Because I am going to take a brief call I am going to restrict my speech to just the big heading issues under the heading of balance.Everything in life has a risk associated with it. When we drive on the roads in our cars when we fly on planes tonight when this Parliament lifts when we go sailing in a boat—there are deaths every year from those activities. The Government always tries to regulate and legislate to try to minimise the deaths from those activities. I was Minister of Transport for a number of years and I know I could have brought the road toll to zero just by making the speed limit 5 kilometres per hour and having only self-laying track armour-plated vehicles on the roads. The economy would have been bankrupt within a day it would not have worked but I could have held my hand on my heart and said: “We’ve had no deaths.” So why am I saying this? Because it is about balance. We think now that the road toll we have with the laws that we have and the vehicle standards and the warrant of fitness testing we have is about right. We are trying to improve it every year we are trying to reduce the number of deaths but in the end people will die on our roads and many of them will actually have been in the workforce at that time. We are trying to reduce aircraft accidents. If you want to reduce the chance of anybody dying in an aeroplane you just ban flying. But of course again that is not sensible—an extreme view.What this legislation has tried to do is have the right balance point. I am the first to admit—if the Labour Party members want to have an evil demon beast over there whom they can stick the skewer into put my name on that—that I was uncomfortable with this bill as introduced as not having the right balance point. I wanted to see some more balance in it. That does not mean to say I am in support of people being killed in the workplace. I want to try to reduce deaths in the workplace as much as we can. There is not a single member in this Parliament who does not want that. For God’s sake! Please get one person to stand up and say “I’m happy for more people to be killed in the workplace.” because no one will. But what we want is a balance. What we want is legislation that says this is not about having ridiculous self-laying track vehicles or a speed limit of 5 kilometres per hour. This is not about banning aeroplanes from flying altogether so that we have no aviation deaths.This bill is about making sure that employers have some obligations but that they are not ridiculous and they are not extreme. Those obligations are to provide the best possible safety conditions in the workplace that they can. That does not mean that even after this bill or the bill as introduced or any other legislation in this place is ever passed there will not be deaths in the workplace. There will be—just like there will be deaths on the road just like there will be an aeroplane crash within the next few years and just like there will be some more drownings before the end of this year. I am delighted that the Government took some time backed the truck up a little bit had a look at this legislation again and brought back to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee some changes that I think get us closer to the balance point. That is what this legislation is about—making sure that we make the workplace safe but doing it in a balanced way so that we do not have ridiculous extremes at either end and where we are not cutting off people’s arms and legs willy-nilly because we do not want that or where we make it so onerous for people to stay in business that it is not economic any more and they finally say that it would be better to sell up their business and go and invest in the Auckland property market. That is what we have done with this bill today.Debate interrupted.Points of OrderTabling of Documents—Question No. 1 to Minister 29 JulyRON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have taken your advice Mr Assistant Speaker. I have gone to the record and pulled down the Hansard for the day in question regarding the point of order that I raised earlier. There is no mention at all in Hansard of the comment from the Speaker saying “Shut up Winston.” contrary to what you thought might be the case. I am going to ask again for the leave of the House to table the transcript from 29 July question No. 1 where Mr Speaker of the House said—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No no—I have heard enough. I have sought advice and I refer the member to McGee page 54 which says: “Nor can the Speaker be attacked except by a direct motion of censure of which notice has been given. Any statement in the House reflecting on the Speaker either directly or indirectly is out of order;”—[Interruption] I am quoting from here and this is the ruling I am giving—“a suggestion of partiality on the part of the Speaker or any other occupant of the chair may constitute a contempt of the House. Accusations against the Speaker that reflect on the Speaker in that capacity or in respect of an office held by the Speaker ex officio … may also constitute a contempt.” Mr Mark there are measures that you can follow. I am not prepared to accept leave to table that document. I have sought advice and that is the end of the matter. There are other avenues available to you.Ron Mark: Point of order—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Well if you are going to relitigate what I have already said Mr Mark—as I said this is a serious matter.Ron Mark: It is a point of clarification. I was not aware of that ruling.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Well I have just quoted it—[Interruption] Order![Interruption] Order members! I have given you the page number and I suggest you seek advice on it. I have sought advice. There are also some Speakers’ rulings that you might like to look at. There are Speakers’ rulings 165/1 and 165/2. I have ruled on the matter and that is the end. We are moving on and I am calling Catherine Delahunty—5 minutes.Health and Safety Reform BillSecond ReadingDebate resumed.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. First I would just like to acknowledge all the whānau and families who are here today and who have followed this bill. I really do apologise as an MP that this opportunity has been wasted that their call for justice has not been heard and that we have failed the commitment made by all those people who travelled down to the Coast to grieve with the families. They had a legitimate expectation that we would do something and do it right.I am not disputing that people in this House care about human life but I am saying that the Government has watered down this legislation and has failed to meet the expectations of the families who have lost people. Instead of a revolution in health and safety dedicated to the families of Pike River to the people in forestry and to all the lives lost what we have is a watering down of the opportunity. So it is a sad day. We are very very sorry some of us that people have to bear witness to this.There is a fundamental problem which is the Government’s belief system that this is about participation rather than power. In a small workplace or a large workplace without good law power will determine who is safe and who is not safe. Can anyone in this House with their hand on their heart tell me that Peter Whittall would have chosen a worker to represent workers who would have been able to shut down the mine? Would he have done that? Read the book and you will find out what he would have done. Can anyone tell me with their hand on their heart that in every hairdressing salon where toxic dyes are used in every dental surgery where toxic substances are present that every employer—and there are some great ones whom we herald—is fit to do the job without proper empowered worker representation not participation?Participation means being there. Representation means standing for something and having a voice. That is what this bill has failed to do. We had high hopes of supporting it. We are really really sorry that at this stage we cannot and that it is failing the needs of people. It is very very disappointing.I did spend time on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and I was shocked—and I thought I was beyond being shocked—when I realised how much this bill was being watered down. I really did believe that we were going to learn the lesson of history and really make a difference. Ever since the Employment Contracts Act we have had a neo-liberal undermining of the power of working people and we have seen the cost of that. The people who pay the price have a right to expect us to do better—not to create some kind of mythical balance but to do better and to set up the structures that the independent task force as well as the royal commission asked us to.There is no shortage of advice and there is no shortage of history on these issues. There are very clear recommendations from both those bodies about what this legislation needed to do but the Government is not doing it because it has lost its guts in the face of lobbying by people who are protecting their vested interests rather than the needs of everybody in the workplace. It is not going to work to improve safety in the workplace.It is very very disappointing. We do need to test it against the current situation. For example a young man Mr Charanpreet Dhaliwal was killed 3 days ago with no training on anything let alone on health and safety in the workplace. He was working for a small business. He had no panic button and he had no power. What was he going to do? If there was nobody in the workplace—he was someone whose life was lost. What are we going to do for the next person in that situation?Actually this Parliament could do better. I believe that a lot of people out there are waiting for us to do better but please do not tell the people that this cannot happen again or say that through these thousands of jargon-filled words in this bill we have actually done the job that the families have asked us to do. We have not done the job. We have sold them out. We have ignored history and we have failed to recognise that whether they are small or large businesses the way in which we get safety is through having a proper inspectorate and through having worker representation. That is the only way we can guarantee that the tragedies such as the ones we have seen in this country in recent years—ever since the delightful Rogernomics revolution which failed this country—and that sort of stuff will stop happening and will stop happening better.So at the risk of repeating myself it is not participation that is the problem and it is not individual responsibility; it is structural power and we have failed to address it. Kia ora tātou katoa.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call David Seymour—5 minutes.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this bill. It was not without some hesitation because there have been considerable concerns about the effect of this bill on people going about their daily lives with little danger at present. I refer to people who might go walking or who perhaps use recreational vehicles on farmland or people who might have a volunteer club that occasionally employs somebody in a paid capacity. It is important that we are actually able to do those things without being stymied by excessive regulation. But I would also join all members of the House in saying that it is critical—perhaps one of the most important aspects of going to work; in fact the only aspect of going to work that really matters—that you can come home safely and I join members in expressing sympathy for those who very sadly have not done so.I have to say that if I were to take exception to some of the sentiments expressed by other members it would be when Catherine Delahunty the previous speaker said that only some of us are sad that people have tragically lost their lives in the workplace. I think that is very very unfortunate and it is an extremely unfortunate thing for a member to say. At the heart of it is the belief that “If you do not agree with my public policy remedies then you do not agree with my intentions—QED you are a bad person.” I reject that thinking. I agree with the member speaking prior to that Maurice Williamson who was truly brave and said that public policy involves difficult choices amongst realistic alternatives. Throwing one’s toys from the cot and deciding suddenly to oppose the bill on the basis that smaller businesses and low-risk businesses will not have some of the protections that the bill offers to employees of larger businesses while all the while grandstanding on a tragedy where the workers were unionised and did have representatives I take exception to.I think that this bill has found a balance between the fact that no safety precaution is costless—we do have to make choices between realistic alternatives when we make public policy. We do have to find a balance. My view is that this bill has gone through a tortuous process of making those trade-offs and I think it has got the balance right. I commend the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety and the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee members who have done that work. Ultimately on the basis of that work having been done I will be pleased to support this bill through to the next stage. Thank you.ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Tēnā koutou e te Whare Pāremata. I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak in the second reading of this bill. Before doing so I want to acknowledge the leadership of the Hon Michael Woodhouse and also the other members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee from both National and the Opposition. Although we are now entering the political side of the discussion on this bill I think it is important to note that my belief is that the select committee agreed on the vast majority of the clauses in this bill. There have been some small differences but we have had large-scale agreement on this bill which is a very important aspect.I just want to focus on a couple of issues concerning the bill in relation to how we are going to go about achieving the objective which is obviously to reduce death and serious injury by 25 percent by 2020. The most crucial part of this bill is that we are trying to bring about a change in culture as to how people think and execute safe work practices and this legislation will not be regarded as being successful unless there is a fundamental shift in the way that everyone in a workplace thinks about and undertakes health and safety. That cultural change is absolutely essential. So the question is how we bring about a cultural change.The primary focus is that we should be looking to achieve effective and pragmatic health and safety policies within the workplace not necessarily trying to enshrine a compliance framework. This is best achieved when directors managers and the workers in the business all get together to work out the best way to achieve it. Given that 97 percent of New Zealand businesses employ 20 or fewer people it is our view that they should have some flexibility to be able to work out the framework that best suits their business. This comes back to the cultural issue. The first preference is for everyone in a business—everyone in a business—to be involved in the health and safety decisions. Contrary to press reports this bill does not stop the obligation of persons conducting a business or undertaking to engage meaningfully with their workers nor does it obviate the need to come up with proper health and safety practices.The other aspect that I just want to talk a little bit about is duty of care. Naturally the previous draft of the bill had a duty of care between the person conducting a business or undertaking and the workers of the business. This bill takes that a little bit further in the sense that it also requires workers to make sure that when they are going about their own business whether they are working on a machine or whether they are a receptionist or whatever they take care in the way they look after themselves in the workplace and secondly and just as important they look after their colleagues in the workplace. So what we have ended up with is an inextricably linked connection between the person conducting a business or undertaking the worker and the colleagues in the business. Those are two of the crucial aspects that are going to make sure that the cultural change that we want to see actually occurs. Thank you very much.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. The Hon Damien O’Connor—5 minutes.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): It is important to acknowledge why this bill is in this House and it was the loss of 29 men at Pike River that brought about this bill. But we need this legislation for more than that. We need health and safety legislation to protect us from ourselves. Whether you work at the coalface in the cowshed on the chain or you are sitting in the office or in the boardroom we are all Kiwis trying to get on with our lives. That Kiwi culture mentioned by the previous speaker Andrew Bayly is one of innovation. It is a hard-working culture a No. 8 fencing wire can-do attitude that ends up being a must-do attitude. The must-do attitude comes from the top and the bottom and that is the attitude we must protect ourselves from. I have worked on the chainsaws in the bush I have worked with animals in open yards and I have been on motorbikes without much care. I am lucky to be alive. I am lucky to be here. But Parliament cannot depend upon luck to protect workers in this country. We cannot depend upon human nature and Kiwi culture. We cannot depend upon common sense because it is not that common.The previous National Party speaker said that we need leadership and we need commitment. What he did not say is that we need good law. National voted down my legislation and this is its excuse for why it did so: because it had this bill coming. The rhetoric that we have heard in this House today would have been heard in 1992 when the mining industry was deregulated and when the occupational safety and health regime was put in place to share responsibility for health and safety in the workplace. But do you know who paid the price? It was only the workers. Hundreds and hundreds of workers paid a price for a regime where responsibility was shared by everyone. In 1994 Bill Brazil warned me of what would happen in mining. I warned officials and I warned Ministers but we did not make the changes that were needed to protect workers in the workplace and 29 men lost their lives at Pike River and hundreds and hundreds of other Kiwis have lost their lives as well. They have paid the ultimate price.What we need here is good law to protect us from ourselves. But this law is convenient; it is compromised. It may be comfortable and it may be balanced as Mr Williamson says but what we need is good effective law—law that protects workers in the workplace. There was a huge amount of work done by the royal commission and by officials in this country. I acknowledge that work. A bill was brought to this House and Labour supported that bill—it was not perfect—to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I was not a member of the committee and I trust the wisdom of my colleagues to give me their advice. But now it is a bill that has been compromised by political posturing by some National Party MPs then by political pressure from some of the funders of the National Party to dumb it down and now it is political pragmatism that has delivered a bill that we believe does not provide the protection that is necessary.This bill dishonours the promises made to the families of the Pike River miners. The first promise was that everything that could be done would be done to bring the bodies out. That was a broken promise. The second one was that the huge price paid by those men and those families would result in real change would result in real progress and would result in real protection for New Zealand workers. We do not think that this bill does that. That is why we cannot support it.We say it every year; we say it on Anzac Day: lest we forget. We have had hundreds and hundreds of New Zealanders killed because of compromised legislation and because of convenient legislation. It is time we put in place effective legislation and honoured those—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member’s time has expired. I am calling Phil Twyford—5 minutes.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I want to make two points. The first is that elected health and safety representatives are not some kind of optional “nice-to-have”; they are a vital part of an effective health and safety system. To see why we need them look no further than the Pike River mine disaster. The Pike River Coal story is a story of a company that through incompetence and the venal pursuit of profit and its own survival put its employees at catastrophic risk because a hopeless woeful health and safety system allowed it to do that.Pike River Coal was a bunch of cowboys more interested in glossing up their prospectus for investors than running a safe and efficient coalmine. As Rebecca Macfie wrote the company posed as an exemplar of modern health and safety management when in reality it was skating at the edge of catastrophe. The failings of the company are now well documented. There were numerous warnings about high methane coal and the difficult geology of the site which the company routinely ignored over two decades.Hon David Parker: Represented in their prospectus.PHIL TWYFORD: They did indeed. The mine had no way for the miners to get out other than the way they had gone in. The only emergency exit was a ventilation shaft with a ladder almost unusable even for strong men and worse than useless in disaster conditions. The main ventilation fan was underground where it could not be reached when things went wrong. Fixed methane sensors in the mine were not maintained and left not working. There were inadequate methane draining systems. Numerous reports are documented of reports of excess methane being routinely ignored.The company had an anti-union culture and any dissenting voices were bullied into silence and in some cases driven out of the company. If ever there were an illustration of why strong independent worker representation on health and safety is needed to provide a check on the worst most unscrupulous employers the Pike River mine is it. But the behaviour and the qualities shown by the management of Pike River Coal are not unique. They are not confined solely to mining. They exist wherever bad employers are found.The second point I want to make is that workers in small businesses deserve just as much protection at work as anybody else. Carving out those who work for businesses with fewer than 20 workers will deny more than 300000 New Zealanders the protection at work that they deserve. Charanpreet Singh Dhaliwal was 22 years old when he died. It was his first night on the job. He was a security guard on a construction site in Henderson in my electorate in November 2013. He was bashed to death with a lump of wood after he disturbed four thugs who had entered the construction site.The small fly-by-night security firm that sent Charanpreet to his death had given him no training and no equipment. He got a 20-minute induction from another young worker who himself had had only one night’s experience on the job. Charanpreet was sent alone to a construction site in the middle of the night. He was left unchecked until 4 in the morning. CNE Security his employer was charged with health and safety breaches but it was found not guilty and the company was dissolved shortly afterwards. Charanpreet’s killers got off scot-free; our criminal justice system does that sometimes. But the fact that the company that employed him and sent him to his death was found not guilty of breaching health and safety laws is the worst indictment of the current system.Companies like CNE Security will very likely be exempt from the requirement to allow the election of health and safety representatives under this bill. It is a travesty. As my colleagues have pointed out the National Party in the face of fearmongering and lobbying by a small minority of ratbag employers has given in to the worst instincts that we see at work in workplaces around New Zealand and has watered down what should be a decent and effective piece of legislation. As the families of the Pike River victims have said the watering down of this bill will cost lives. New Zealand deserves better.SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): I have the opportunity to take only a short call in support of this bill but before I do I acknowledge the family members of the victims of Pike River and other workplace tragedies in other sectors across New Zealand especially in agriculture which plays a big part in my electorate of Invercargill.I support this bill for a couple of reasons. I believe that it will create a step change in health and safety in New Zealand. The first which has been covered is in respect of worker engagement and participation. This reformed bill will make that mandatory. We have already heard speakers from this side of the House talk about a vertical integration of health and safety from management down to the worker. It also means that a worker will be able to stop work if they see something that could create harm. I think that that step change will create a culture in which health and safety is brought to the forefront of employees’ and employers’ minds.The other change is this new concept of a person conducting a business or undertaking—a PCBU. It is an acknowledgment that in some workplaces there are overlapping duties. It will force operators or people conducting businesses to talk and to cooperate and insofar as they have the ability to control or influence that matter they will need to take account of that and put in place practical measures to protect their employees.I want to pick up on a point that the Hon Maurice Williamson made in respect of balance. We do need to maintain balance in this legislation. This is especially the case in respect of agriculture. We all realise that the agricultural sector has a high number of deathstoo and that is unacceptable but farming is the backbone of New Zealand especially in the Invercargill electorate. We need to preserve a family’s right to raise their children on the farm and what has been seen in respect of that is a change in the definition of workplace in that work must be being carried out. So the children can still go out on the farm and run and play and enjoy a rural lifestyle but when they are in the milking shed they will need to be taken into the care of and basically held responsible to the health and safety plans that that farmer should have. I believe that that is a good balance. It preserves rural life and that will certainly feed through into other sectors. I support this bill.A party vote was called for on the question That the amendments recommended by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee by majority be agreed to.Ayes 63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 56New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 12; New Zealand First 12.Amendments agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That the Health and Safety Reform Bill be now read a second time.Ayes 63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 56New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 12; New Zealand First 12.Bill read a second time.Estimates DebateIn CommitteeDebate resumed from 28 July on the Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill.Health Sector (continued)The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): When we were last progressing the estimates debate we were debating the vote in the health sector—volume B.5 volume 6—Vote Health.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): It is not that long ago that we were in the middle of a health crisis in New Zealand. It seems hard to believe now but people listening at home will remember a time when you would turn up to North Shore Hospital—where the people of the Northcote electorate go to—and you would be greeted by a queue of ambulances in the car park lined up trying to get the patients into the emergency department. And then if you got through the car park past those ambulances you would go into the waiting room and you would find people waiting on trollies under harsh fluorescent lights who had been there for up to 24 hours.Meanwhile you would come into the Chamber here—I can remember it well. We were in Opposition. You would hear health Ministers blustering about the success of the Labour Government. But in actual fact the rhetoric just did not match what was happening out on the ground. While Annette King and Pete Hodgson were in here boasting of false achievements—achievements that never really happened that just did not take place—the public out there in New Zealand knew the reality because they were going to the airports and getting on the jet planes to fly to Australia for basic cancer treatment.There were 30000 people out there who were kicked off surgical waiting lists under the reign of Pete Hodgson and Annette King. That was the fact of it. People could not get the care they needed. There were so many people waiting on those surgical wait lists over 6 months that in the end Labour just canned the wait lists and told everybody to go home.Well help was on the way. In the 2008 election it arrived. Since then this National Government has had a consistent history of putting more money into the budget each year. There has been a record increase—a $15.9 billion vote and $4.1 billion has gone in over the last 7 years. But the most important thing has been the solid stewardship and the results that that has delivered.Labour was pouring money in but getting worse and worse results. Labour doubled the health budget but it delivered 5000 fewer appointments and 2000 fewer operations. It got so bad that in September 2005 as Mrs King’s reign was drawing to a close the Dominion Post wrote an editorial asking how you could pour so much money into a health system yet it still got worse. No one could understand it. It was just incompetent management.Since then what have we seen? Under National there are 5000 extra doctors and nurses in the system 50000 more appointments and 45000 more elective operations. No one is going to Australia for basic cancer care. We have set very clear targets and we are delivering on them. Under Labour they were not even counting which kids got immunised. Now we have started—off a percentage base in the mid-70s—to have nearly 95 percent of 8-month-olds fully immunised. Ninety-five percent of people are in and out of emergency departments within 6 hours. We have achieved the first cancer care target. We have now moved on to a new one: the gold standard 62-day pathway. We are determined we will make progress with that. We are recording smoking rates and cardiovascular data. It has all improved under National. We have actually delivered what the public really cares about.Just with this Budget there have been some great initiatives like another $98 million going into surgery over the next few years and $76 million into palliative care. A lot of that money is going into the community—so delivering nurse specialists; delivering care close to the home. These are the things that New Zealanders are telling us are important. But do you know what the ultimate prize has been? It has been the free health-care for under-13s—a policy that Labour could only ever talk about but it never delivered. So we have now got 750000 children in New Zealand under the age of 13 who are getting free GP visits. We know that is going to make a real difference to the health of those children so that is a signal achievement. This Government will put in $120 million over the next 4 years to deliver that.In the meantime all that Labour can do is to try to make up statistics and look for leaked papers. We have had no policy work from the Labour Party in health. We know that Labour is not ready for Government because we have not seen any work. Labour members do not go around the sector. What they do is go around trying to corrupt officials and steal papers and then make up figures.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will resume his seat. I think the member knows that accusing people of acquiring things or asking people to steal them is not parliamentary. The member will withdraw.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I withdraw. But the essential point is that Labour poured in more and more money but it did not run the system properly.Grant Robertson: Blow your cigar smoke all over people Jonathan.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: And you can see what a raw nerve this is because Grant Robertson is losing it. Grant has completely lost it. National has won on health; Labour lost—Labour did.Grant Robertson: What a disgrace you are.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: You can hear Grant Robertson yelling and raving here. He knows he has lost the debate.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): I serve on the Health Committee and we were fortunate to hear at the estimates hearings a few weeks ago from that very competent Minister of Health Dr Coleman who of course brings to the portfolio not only his very good and capable administrative and political skills but also a track record of real medical professionalism having served with distinction as a GP himself. When we heard evidence from him at the select committee in the Vote Health estimates hearing I was delighted to hear that Vote Health is the second-largest vote in Budget 2015. It accounts for 17.8 percent of the total 2015-16 appropriations. That is a measure of the commitment of this Government to ensuring that New Zealanders have access—and easy access—to health services and provision for health services when and as they are needed.As the Minister just reminded the Committee it was during the last Labour administration that things were so woefully bad in health that people were literally being kept in hospital corridors under bright fluorescent lights at North Shore Hospital for days on end because there was no capacity to provide a service for them. Not only that but New Zealanders were being shipped—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to interrupt the member. I gave the Minister of Health some leniency in the debate to refer to periods outside this estimates period because I understand that he was responding to comments made by Annette King. That has now finished and the member will talk about the estimates thank you.SCOTT SIMPSON: Thank you Mr Chair. The simple matter is that in terms of what this Government has done in the health sector it is a remarkably good story. If ever there was an example of a plan that is working and working well it is in health and that became immediately obvious and apparent when the Minister presented evidence to the select committee during the estimates hearings.I represent the beautiful and much-admired environmental electorate of Coromandel. Coromandel is a seat that has not only a wonderful environment and natural aspect but also a population that is of a senior demographic. We are in terms of the demographic breakdown the second-most mature electorate in the country in that regard. So we have got an awful lot of people who are in the 65-plus age group.One of the areas that I was pleased to see the Minister speak about at the select committee was the improved funding and support that would go to people of senior years and those who have chronic diseases. One of the things that became very apparent when the Minister gave evidence to us was that as we all know New Zealand’s population is growing but it is also ageing and the proportion of New Zealanders aged 65 and over is predicted to increase from 14 percent in 2013 to 22 percent by 2033.So in electorates like mine that means that there will need to be greater levels of support and service for for instance palliative care and the Minister was able to assure the select committee that the investment of an extra $13 million a year from 1 July 2015 to help hospices expand their community palliative care services would be of great help and assistance to electorates like mine in the Coromandel. That means that services will be able to be provided to people who need support and care if they are terminally ill and much of that support and service can be provided at home in situ in an environment where the person who is receiving that care and support feels most comfortable. All the evidence shows that where that sort of service can be provided in a home situation then that is a good and excellent outcome not only for the patient concerned but of course for family members as well. As New Zealand’s population ages and grows the demand for palliative care is also going to grow. Hospices make a huge difference to the lives of people who are confronting a terminal illness at end of life.The Health Committee is currently about to embark on a fulsome inquiry into end-of-life choices. As a member of that committee I am looking forward to it.SUE MORONEY (Labour): Tēnā tātou e te Komiti ko Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori tēnei nō reira kia kaha tātou. Ki te kaupapa i tēnei wā.[Greetings to us the Committee this is Māori Language Week so we need to be energetic. And so to the matter at hand.]I want to address in the estimates debate on the health sector the issue of mental health. I note that the Minister of Health when he spoke before was very animated and in fact got a little desperate and started making some desperate accusations. But I want to address—again today it seems to be a day for this—an issue that is very close to my heart.The Minister announced just a few days ago a formal inspection of the mental health services at the Waikato District Health Board. I want to seek an assurance from the Minister that that formal inspection will be done in the context of a health system that we now know has $1.7 billion less funding than it should have had in order to keep up with the demands both the population increases and the inflation demands on the health budget. Even the Minister himself in question time yesterday accepted that the health budget has not kept up with inflation under this National Government. So I want to ensure that when this formal inspection of the mental health services happens at Waikato District Health Board if it is discovered that resources and funding are in fact one of the reasons why we have had problem after problem after problem in the mental health services there the Government will ensure that those issues are fixed and it will not use this as a whitewashing exercise.I listened very carefully to what the Minister said when he announced the formal inspection and he said it was necessary because people needed to be reassured about the mental health services and that sounds like the language of a whitewash to me. What I am interested in is knowing that the service is a quality service and that the most vulnerable people in our community are not put in harm’s way because of the underfunding of the mental health services and the health service in total that has happened under the estimates for the 2015-16 year.The thing that seemed to trigger this formal inspection was the discovery of a fraudulent psychiatrist being employed by the district health board but that is just the tip of the iceberg. I am now quoting from a letter that has been written by Dave Macpherson who is a local councillor in our area. He happens to be the father of a young man who lost his life when he was under the authority of the mental health services in Waikato. He has written to John Crawshaw who is going to do this formal inspection to ensure that he knows the full history.So not only have we had the fraudulent psychiatrist discovered in just recent days but in 2014 Mr Paul Fox was employed as a psychiatrist at the Henry Rongomau Bennett Centre. It was discovered that he had to hand back his licensing registration when he had worked in America because of an inappropriate sexual relationship between him and a patient. We have had Manilall Maharajh a psychiatrist employed by Waikato and Bay of Plenty district health boards who was found guilty of professional misconduct by the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal in 2013 after having sexual relations with a patient and paying her not to inform authorities about this. We have had Jason Luty a psychiatrist employed by the Waikato District Health Board in 2012 after leaving Essex in the UK under a public cloud after the publication of offensive pictures of his own children—and the list goes on.What I am suggesting here is that the Minister needs to make sure that this is a very thorough investigation because there is a range of issues that happened over a period of time. This though is the district health board after all that announced the formal appointment of the current chief executive officer just days before—in fact I think it might have even been only 24 hours before—a very damning report was published about that same person and the hospitals that he had been managing in Canada. So I can only ask that when the Government is doing this formal inspection of mental health services the inspection be more broad because the issue about employing people under dubious circumstances I think is more broad than the mental health services themselves. I want to implore the formal inspection to take seriously the issues that have been raised by Dave Macpherson.BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): It is a pleasure to be taking a call this afternoon. I am really proud to be part of the Health Committee and it is really pleasing to note therecord $15.9 million budget. You know the key thing about this is that National believes that all New Zealanders and their families should have access to timely quality health-care no matter where they live. A really key feature of the estimates going forward is actually putting things into medical services that are much closer to home. It is important for people to be close to home. If we think back a few years ago we were having women with breast cancer going to Australia. That is a most stressful time for a woman and it is so important that now they are able to have that service in their country and in their community.I am really proud of some of the things that are happening to take the services closer to home. Even in the last few days we have seen some announcements that have come out around the estimates so not only are they estimates but they are actually falling into action. One that I am really pleased to be part of is the mobile surgical services contract which has been extended. That is a great bus that has gone around and to date approximately 20000 New Zealanders have been treated on this bus and received over 45000 hours of education. So not only is it actually treating the patients but it is going around and actually educating health professionals on the road. What it has done is it has reduced the waiting times for patients and improved the access to health for those people in rural and remote communities.It was really interesting because in renewing that contract there was a review prior to renewing it and the professional development training provided to health professionals has been described as relevant and engaging. The interactive digital video equipment enables collaboration with health professionals in other parts of the country and overseas. Not only are we training people on the spot but we are actually collaborating between various areas of the country and we have links overseas where people can share information and understand how to do it better. So I am really pleased that 24 rural towns are actually receiving this service and will continue under the proposed health estimates to receive this service in a 5-week cycle where more people can have access.It is also really important that an extra $846000 is now going into funding 20 more nurse practitioner trainees. Currently there are 145 nurse practitioners in the country. I know that we were doing some work looking at some legislation last week where we spoke about changing some of the legislation so that we could give wider roles to some of these nurse practitioners because up until now it has been the prerogative of the doctors to be able to do things that highly qualified nurse practitioners are able to do.There again we are working on this whole theme of it being closer to home having more people out in the community. It means that people do not actually have to always travel to the bigger hospitals and it also means that some of those people in the community can upskill themselves to become nurse practitioners which means that they do not necessarily always have to travel to certain points in big hospitals either.One of the future things for health is actually creating it closer to home for people and I think that is a really important thing. It is also about working on elective surgery. So far there is 37 percent more elective surgery. That means 44000 people up until now and we are going to continue to work on this in the future. It just means that those people do not have to sit around and wait for these operations. I am really pleased with that.The Minister of Health mentioned that we have under-13s being able to get to the doctor for free. That means that they will go sooner and they will get diagnosed sooner which means the chance of them being hospitalised when they do go is less. That actually means that they will end up being closer to home as well and will have more time with their parents.Also up until now in the tracking of full immunisation of children 94 percent of 8-month-olds are fully immunised. That means that we are on track for 95 percent and the Government is really really proud of that—very proud.LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe te Māngai o te Komiti ngā mihi ki a koutou katoa te kaupapa te hauora o tō tātou iwi o Aotearoa.[Thank you Mr Chairperson and greetings to you all. The health of our New Zealand tribes is the matter at hand.]I am a proud member of the Health Committee and as a member of that select committee it is my responsibility with my colleague the Hon Annette King to hold the Government to account. In holding the Government to account what we have done is we have commissioned an Infometrics report that has revealed a $485 million funding shortfall in the health sector. That shortfall is actually not only incredibly relevant to the 40000 staff within the health and care sector but it has huge implications in respect of service cuts. I want to focus my contribution on what those service cuts may be.One of the worries or concerns I have is that school-based health services will be cut. The latest evaluation of those school-based health services has actually highlighted the benefits to the year 9 assessments and particularly to our young boys. Part of that assessment not only looks at their home life education issues what sort of activities they are engaged in drug and alcohol issues and sexuality issues but also focuses quite clearly on suicide and depression. As we know as a country suicide is a big issue particularly for our young people and particularly for young boys so I have a huge issue if part of the Government’s shortfall of $485 million is going to mean a reduction in school-based health services. I do want to contribute that the Minister of Health reassured us that there would be no cuts in this area but it is something that I am particularly interested in and will be keenly watching.The other area that I want to highlight is the provision of maternity services. Unfortunately in Aotearoa New Zealand we have over 660 children who die every year of perinatal mortality. These are babies who die before 28 days of age. In the Counties Manukau District Health Board area where I am from what that represents is 27 deaths that were avoidable—27 deaths of children. This is particularly relevant in my electorate where there are high concentrations of Māori high concentrations of Pacific people and high concentrations of Indian members of our community. Of particular relevance is that 34 percent of the babies who died had mothers who smoked. That is a really significant statistic as we know that smoking is also a cause of perinatal mortality. One of the other areas that I will be focusing on is whether or not the Government plans to cut—like it did in 2010—any smoking cessation programmes. What we know is that in 2010 there was a $12 million reduction in smoking cessation programmes and I hope that that was not a factor in terms of the fact that there were 126 babies in New Zealand who could have been saved from avoidable deaths.I also want to focus my contribution on hospice funding. The Government has been really really interesting because it has been crowing about this investment in hospice funding. Again I want to highlight one of the commitments that the Minister of Health made at the select committee. He committed to 70 percent of hospice funding coming from the Government. That is the social contract—I want to call it that—that the Government has with hospice providers and there are 29 hospice providers round Aotearoa.In the South Auckland area we have two hospice providers: we have Totara Hospice South Auckland and we have Franklin Hospice. Both of those hospice providers I believe are doing a fantastic job. Again it is my responsibility to hold this Government to account for the 70:30 funding split. One of the things that I know in engaging with my hospice providers is in fact that currently Totara Hospice receives only 49 percent funding from the Government. So the community of South Auckland is having to find 51 percent of its $8.4 million budget from a community that has high Māori high Pacific and high Indian populations and that has actually got socio-economic challenges. Our community is expected to provide 51 percent of the funding whereas in fact the Government says that that is not the case.I will be holding the Government accountable to that funding formula and to that social contract because it is something that it has committed to me in written questions. It is something that it has committed to me and my colleagues on the Health Committee in our select committee hearings. So if that is not going to be one of the commitments that this Government holds to then I am sure that I and my colleagues on the Health Committee will make this Government accountable to that issue as well.As a member of the Health Committee I too want to reiterate that some of the issues that we have been dealing with have actually been driven by the community. We saw some women come to us this week whose children through their birth circumstances have had to be tube-fed. One of the issues that we have in New Zealand is that we have a cohort of children who through no fault of their own—premature births—have been fed by tubes some for up to a year. When they leave hospital believe it or not there is no further intervention and engagement with not only the child but the parents. So we have children who are dependent on being fed by tubes with no specific support.In New Zealand we know that there are over 330 children in this circumstance and there is no response from the Government to meeting the needs of these parents and children. So children may leave at 1 year of age and one of the scenarios that was presented to us was children at 3½ or 4½ years of age still being—well not tube-fed but having—what did they call it Barbara?Barbara Kuriger: The Mic-Key button. The Mic-Key tube.LOUISA WALL: The Mic-Key tube. So this Mic-Key tube essentially means that these children are being tube-fed because they have had dependency. Because of the circumstances of their birth they are unable to eat and they are gagging and obviously there are communication issues there are psychological issues and there are behavioural issues. These children are dependent on being fed by a tube and what do we do to support these children and families? We do nothing. I think New Zealanders would be horrified to think that we just leave parents to their own devices.So what we are seeing more and more of within the Health Committee because we have got such an unresponsive system is communities mothers and people who are affected by a lack of support and a lack of care coming to the Health Committee and saying: “Please help us. Please hold the Ministry of Health accountable.” Unless they can get our support and unless we as a select committee hold the Ministry of Health to account it is actually not meeting the needs of our New Zealand citizens. I think as I have said we are seeing a growing number of our constituents and our citizens using the petition process to highlight deficiencies in the health system.I actually think it is a sad indictment on the health system because we should have a more responsive health system. We should not have to rely on citizens having to go through a democratic process. But in saying that I am incredibly grateful that I live in a democracy where citizens can directly engage and citizens can stand up and advocate. And in the instance of those three women it was not just for their children; it was for other New Zealand children who are yet to be born or who are living in the circumstances that they are living in. I think collectively we as a Health Committee were incredibly proud—or I was—of their advocacy their professionalism and the fact that they cared so much that they were so passionate and that they were prepared to make sure that our health system is responsive to the needs not only of their children today but of our children in the future.So I hope that we as a select committee are going to do all that we can to make sure that our best practice is about ensuring that children who have a premature birth and who are tube-fed actually then have the ability to fully participate in life. At the moment those children are not able to fully participate in life. Their parents are not able to fully participate in life. It is going to affect their education. It is going to affect a whole lot of things unless we get it right. And what I see at the moment is that we have got a system that actually just wants to tick all the boxes so we have you know the Better Public Services targets and we have—RIA BOND (NZ First): Tēnā koe Mr Chair. I am pleased to take this short call on behalf of New Zealand First. I specifically want to actually talk today about palliative care in the Vote Health estimates. It is easy for the Government to turn round and say “We’ve put $76.1 million into palliative health care services.” and yet in the same breath it says it would spread this out over a 4-year period.So what we are really dealing with here is the fact that we have 29 hospices from around New Zealand for palliative health care services and they receive only $19 million per year. We know from Hospice New Zealand that in 2014 it dealt with 16000 patients. It visited over 114000 homes of patients who actually have life-limiting conditions. This is actually for them an emotional roller-coaster time of their lives. It is generally in their last stages—about 10 days—when they can expect to live comfortably.So what I can see is that what that works out at is that we are dealing with $1187 per hospice patient. That is not enough. This is the most sensitive time. It is emotional for families it is gut-wrenching and it is really quite a traumatic time for families to go through. Any death in a family is not wanted by anybody but when you have a loved one who is dying of a terminal condition every emotion is wrenched and it is elongated. So what our palliative care specialists could provide and could be funded for is not just $1187 dollars per patient; it is now going to be spread out among our whānau members and within the means of our community.But of course we are not just dealing with the $1187 being the total cost of looking after our loved ones in a hospice or in palliative care because now as the previous speaker Louisa Wall mentioned we are looking at a 70:30 hospice-funding split. That represents 70 percent of the cost of looking after patients provided by the State but the hospices then have to go out past their district health board and reach into the goodwill of their community to help them fund-raise. We have seen this annually through bucket collections on street corners and through groups like Rotary supporting hospices by funding by holding annual events and by giving support by sitting at the bedside of patients in hospices as I know they do in Invercargill. I have also seen fund-raising occur outside the Warehouse with sausage sizzles. I have seen it outside Harvey Norman in order for the community to try to make up the shortfall of the 30 percent of funding that they need.Hospices along with community groups have hundreds of volunteers who have to help raise money for what is a vital part of our public health service at a time when the public health sector and our people need to know that these services will be met. This Government expects the community and many volunteers to cover the shortfall in funding and in 2014 it was to the sweet tune of $42 million. That $42 million of shortfall meant that communities had extra pressure along with hospices to go out there and find some money. In 2014 it cost $99 million to provide these essential health services for palliative care in hospices. I am grateful when I see the figures to speak about them and to understand that our volunteers contributed a million hours as part of their commitment to help with hospice funding.I look at the Mary Potter Hospice here in Wellington which does an amazing job for the citizens of Wellington. It is run by very special people. So I do not begrudge the fact that we probably feel that with a growing ageing population perhaps the Government is being a little bit mean. Of course this is not necessarily the fault of the Government but it is the fault of the Government’s leadership because some district health boards—and as we know from the estimates for Vote Health South Auckland’s Totara Hospice is named as one of those that is receiving 50 percent less than what it needs from the responsible district health board.Vote Health agreed to.Justice SectorThe CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): We now come to the justice sector—volume B.5 volume 7. The question is that Vote Attorney-General Vote Corrections Vote Courts Vote Justice Vote Parliamentary Counsel Vote Police and Vote Serious Fraud stand part of the schedules.JACQUI DEAN (Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee): I am very proud to say that under this Government’s very tough and focused stand on law and order New Zealand’s recorded crime rate is almost without exception falling. It is at its lowest level since 1978. That is a record that this Government should be well proud of. But it is not just the Government of course that is delivering services in the justice sector. It is all of those—our police our Department of Corrections our Attorney-General—who run our courts system and all of those in the justice sector who are delivering on behalf of the people of New Zealand.One of the focuses for the National Government is getting the key justice sector agencies—that is the Ministry of Justice the police and the Department of Corrections—to further drive crime down. That is what they are doing because what we want to do is reduce the impact of crime on all New Zealanders and we are also focusing on the victims of crime. I know that my colleagues are keen to pick up that aspect of the justice sector.However several challenges do remain. When she came to our committee the Minister of Justice Amy Adams made a particular point of focusing on those issues. We know that the incidence and also the impact of crime is very unevenly spread. Research has found that 6 percent of adults experience 54 percent of all crime. That is not a figure to be proud of and that is a figure that this Government is focusing on.One area of concern is the overrepresentation of Māori in our criminal justice system both as offenders but also as victims of crime. Māori are imprisoned at a rate of six times the rate of non-Māori and there are other statistics that do not make for good reading. Whether or not they make for good reading is no reason not to focus on them and that is one of the focuses of the Minister and the Ministry of Justice.The other focus that I want to talk about in my contribution is family violence. The Minister acknowledged to the Justice and Electoral Committee that although crime is at a 63-year low the high incidence of family crime is unacceptable to her. It is unacceptable to us and so it should be. Reducing the incidence of family violence is the top priority for the Ministry of Justice. About half of all homicides in New Zealand are as a result of family violence. On average 14 women seven men and eight children are killed by a member of their family every year. These are shameful statistics. Around half of all violent offence charges before the courts relate to domestic violence and in 2013 there were 11700 prosecutions for domestic violence - related offences.So what are we doing about that? In July of last year the Government announced a new package of family violence reforms and I am going to go through those because they are significant and they are important. There is the review of the Domestic Violence Act to ensure that it keeps victims safe and also holds offenders to account. There is the trialling of mobile safety alarms for victims so that they can notify the police of an emergency and of their location. Just as a sidebar the police are now no longer necessarily sitting back at the station waiting for those alarms to go off. They are out in the community using new technologies out on the streets and being proactive in protecting victims of crime.This Government has established a Chief Victims Advisor and that adviser is to the Minister of Justice to advise on the needs and views of victims of crime including domestic violence victims. It is the views of the victims of crime that are so terribly important in putting victims at the centre of our justice system. We have heard through a number of bill considerations that it is the victims who need to have a voice. Whether it is through the victim impact statement or whether it is putting a voice to the impact on victims that is so necessary.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I rise to take a call. I want to speak about both Vote Corrections and Vote Attorney-General. As my colleague Kelvin Davis has highlighted the terrible fiasco that is the Serco contract at the remand prison at Mt Eden is a disgrace. The performance of the Minister of Corrections has been abysmal so much so that he really is very aptly called the Minister of Corrections because I have never seen a Minister have to make so many corrections in the House after so many mistakes.One of the core responsibilities of the State is that if it incarcerates someone and takes away their liberty it should at least protect the person from harm. The fact is that this Minister of Corrections has so woefully overseen the Serco contract that we have seen through television assaults and people who have died as a consequence of their treatment in a corrections facility. It is a woeful indictment of the National Government’s conduct of this performance and it is a failure of its responsibilities to New Zealand. It is what was predicted would happen with Serco because the only way it can significantly save costs is to have lower levels of staff and therefore lower levels of supervision of prisoners. That results in the sorts of debacle that we have seen overseas where it has been severely criticised and in New Zealand.I want to talk briefly about Vote Attorney-General. Last Friday in the High Court Justice Heath delivered the first declaration ever under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. For the first time since that Act was passed 25 years ago this year there was a declaration that legislation pushed through this Parliament was in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. That legislation arbitrarily stripped all prisoners of their right to vote. There is not much sympathy in society for prisoners but as we have seen in the Serco case they should have some rights.Why the High Court made this unprecedented declaration of non-compliance with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is that it found that the National Government legislation which was opposed by the Labour Party and other Opposition parties in this Parliament including the Greens was arbitrary. Previously if you were in prison for more than 3 years you lost your right to vote. The legislation stripped the right from all prisoners and that was found to be arbitrary. Why? Well if you are someone who has decent home circumstances and can get home detention you can vote. But if you are someone from a difficult situation who has not got anywhere to go and therefore you do not get home detention and you are put in prison and you do not get the right to vote. That is arbitrary. What else? Well if you have a 2-yearprison sentence and it happens to fall between elections you get the right to vote but if your 2-yearprison sentencehappens to traverse a voting period you lose the right to vote.We sought then an urgent debate on the issue in Parliament—it is difficult to get these issues debated in Parliament because the Government is clearly or should be embarrassed about this terrible outcome—and we were refused. It is within the jurisdiction of the Speaker to refuse that but it highlights the need for a change to the arrangements in respect of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.As Andrew Little said in a recent speech referring to the Labour Party policy at the last election we think we should adopt the recommendation of the Constitutional Advisory Panel that says that when the courts find legislation to be in breach of fundamental rights—and this is one of the fundamental civil liberties of any democracy; choosing whom you are going to have to run the country—that sort of taking away of rights can change electoral outcomes. We saw that in Florida in the presidential election when they stripped so many people of their voting rights and changed the outcome of the world given that we had George W Bush who then invaded Iraq and it led to these terrible problems in part that we have got on the other side of the world.When these sorts of things are identified by the courts they should automatically come back to Parliament and be re-debated. It does not mean to say that Parliament should hand over to the courts the right to strike down primary legislation—I do not think we should do that—but I thought that the recommendation of the Constitutional Advisory Panel of this middle course should be followed. If a declaration of non-compliance with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is made it should come back to Parliament be put on the Order Paper and the legislation concerned should be re-debated by this Parliament rather than the breach being ignored.Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): I have been looking forward to taking a call in this appropriations debate in the justice sector area. There is a lot to cover and I want to take a double call which I will obviously call for in due course to cover off some of that. I think the starting place for me is to look at where we are sitting and then I want to talk a bit about where we want to go and the direction of travel that we have prioritised in this Budget.The headline really is that crime in this country is at a 35-year low. That really is a tremendous achievement and a huge amount of credit has to go to everyone who works in the sector. It is not just the Government—there are a lot of reasons why things are working well at the community level—but certainly the police and the justice sector agencies should really be commended I think for a tremendous deliverable for their work in that space.We have a Better Public Services target—target seven—that looks at crime in this country. We set a target of getting crime down by 20 percent by 2017. I can tell this Committee that we have already reduced total crime by 18 percent and we are well on track to reach our target long before the final target date. Violent crime is down by around 10 percent. That one is harder and slower to move as you would expect but none the less good progress has been made. In youth crime we set a target of a 25 percent reduction which we then increased to 30 percent because we have already exceeded it. Youth crimeis down 38 percent.I do just want to take a moment to commend the tremendous work of the Youth Court in New Zealand and the system that has been developed in New Zealand which is held in high regard internationallyfor the way we work with our young offenders. What we know is that our best chance to stop people becoming clients if you like of the justice sector is when they are young. Equally if they get on to a path of repeated offending as children then they are the ones who are most likely to become long-term offenders. If you take the 1970 population cohort and you look at all the crimecommitted by that particular cohort 80 percent of all crimecommitted by them is committed by people who had their first conviction before the age of 20. So working well with our young offenders is fundamentally important so as to not let them get into the cycle of a conviction and a sentence from which it is that much harder to come back and re-enter society. So in the youth crimespace tremendous work has been done.I also want to touch on one of the initiatives that I very well remember being passed when I was a member of the House when the Hon Simon Power was in my role and that is the offender levy. Legislation that was passed at that time imposed a levy of $50 on offenders to help contribute towards providing better services for victims. At the time one half of this House completely derided it and said that it would never work that it was a nonsense and that it was window dressing. One half of the House said it was a stupid and that they would get rid of it. Well that levy has exceeded all collection expectations. So far we have collected $16.5 million which has been entirely—entirely—set aside for victim support services. Because of that we have been able to provide services that were never previously available to victims. More than 40000 victims have had services funded by this Government thanks to that one piece of legislation which was completely derided and criticised by the Opposition. One of those services of course was the 24/7 support service offered to victims by Victim Support which is funded by us.Ms Dean the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee talked about family violence in her speech on this section. I am pleased she did because as Ms Dean noted this is the area that I have made my No. 1 priority. I did that with some degree of trepidation because this is a hard area to make a dent in and if I was a more self-preserving Minister I probably would have picked things that were a little bit easier to deliver on. But like my colleague Hekia Parata I am here to make a difference on things that matter to New Zealand. We are not here to do the easy stuff and if this country really wants to get a grip on one of the most egregious horrific and embarrassing statistics in our society we have to deal with family violence.Let me just tell the Committee a couple of things that highlight how unacceptably high the incidence of family violence is. We have the highest rate in the OECD of reported violence against intimate partners. That is not what anyone in this House would accept for a country like New Zealand. We have more than 100000 notifications to the police of family violence incidents each year. That effectively is one every 5 minutes—every 5 minutes. So during my speech there will be at least two notifications to the police of family violence.What is really scary though is the statistic that tells us that on average a victim of family violence will experience 21 instances of family violence before she—it is generally she; not always of course—will pick the phone to the police. So we are getting one call to the police every 5 minutes and yet we know that behind that there is this enormous history of offending that has not even been registered into the system. Half of our homicides come from family violence so if we want to make a continued dent in that hard sticky area of serious violence it has to be through dealing with family violence.On average 14 women seven men and eight children are murdered in this country every year by someone they have a family relationship with and that cannot be allowed to continue. We had a remarkable statistic from my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse about police time. There was a discussion in the last speech around making better use of police time. Well 41 percent of all police response time is spent on responding to family violence. So if we want to have more police out on our streets keeping us safe and doing the things we would want them to do we have to deal with this issue. The statistics are just mind-numbingly horrific but what I am encouraged by is the fact that I have not found anyone in this Committee in the NGO sector or anywhere in New Zealand actually who is not committed and willing to help try to solve this problem and make things work better.I want to thank members of this Committee who have worked cooperatively collaboratively and across party lines with me to think about how we can do this better. I will say that I do not believe that this is an area that any Government of any political colour has really got on top of. Nor do I think it is one that any Government has not tried very hard to deal with. For years and years we have had countless reports and initiatives and experts and spending but the reality is that we are not getting cut-through. I cannot stand here and promise that we will solve that but I can absolutely stand here and promise this Committee that while I am the Minister of Justice this is going to be what I think about every single day and in this year’s Budget you have seen from us a commitment to ensure that this is right at the heart of our work programme.Just yesterday the Minister for Social Development and I released a stocktake of how the Government has worked in this area to date. What is interesting to me is that it is the first time that that degree of comprehensive all-of-Government assessment has been undertaken and it is certainly something that the sector has been calling for for a while. We as a Government—and I use that term not in the executive sense but in the Public Service sense—have to be better integrated in how we deliver our services. It is no good having different agencies looking at this lens through an entirely siloed vertical approach without giving thought to how other agencies are interacting in this space. It is inefficient it is expensive and actually quite frankly it can be damaging and counter-productive.So Minister Tolley and I undertook a comprehensive stocktake which revealed quite surprisingly that we are spending $1.4 billion a year on family violence—$1.4 billion—and yet very little of it is spent on prevention and screening. Almost all of it is spent on response. It is easy to look at this in the Budget round but actually trying to re-engineer that work programme is going to be quite a piece of work. Later in the coming weeks you will see more announcements from us about how we see that work programme continuing to develop and evolve and I can assure this Committee that as I say while I am in the role it is something I will continue to focus on.Let me just take the time I have left to touch on a couple of other initiatives one of which is the process to appoint a Chief Victims Advisor to ensure that the voice of victims remains absolutely at the heart of the development of Government policy. We saw what a tremendous advance it was to the quality of policy advice when we appointed for the first time ever a New Zealand Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor to really ensure that we had very good high-level scientific analysis at the heart of the Government. I want that same sort of rigour around ensuring that the victim’s perspective is represented at the heart of the policy process and that is why we are appointing that person.Finally the Harmful Digital Communications Act is a piece of legislation that I am incredibly proud of. It is being talked about now in a number of countries as a model on how to address this issue. There is still work to do to appoint the approved agencies that will have the core role in educating the community and user groups and working to resolve disputes but this is legislation that reflects that harm in the modern environment can be caused in a myriad of different ways. We have to be responsive and we have to be continually reviewing our harm frameworks to ensure we have those settings right. We know that harm in the online world is not only real and pervasive but incredibly damaging and the number of suicides and cases of serious harm that have occurred as a result are unacceptable. I am very proud of that legislation.DAVID CLENDON (Green): Could I just begin my comments by acknowledging that the Minister of Justice has just said a great deal that I can agree with. I do not agree with all of National’s programme clearly but I say that in a context of believing that if we are to reduce crime and to make some real inroads into offending and our management of offenders we need to endeavour to depoliticise some of the issues—to perhaps tone down some of the aggression shall we say between the various sides in this debate about how to deal with issues around justice.So with that point I would say that if one looks at the estimates for the whole suite of justice portfolios—corrections police courts and so on—it is very difficult to make an argument that we are underspending on justice. That collective I have mentioned—the spend would be something well north of $5 billion I think. It is a significant amount of money and it has increased over recent years. Corrections for example—in the early 2000s the spend on corrections I think was about $460 million. This year it is around $1.5 billion. That sort of increase is unsustainable. I think that the issue is not that we are spending too little but that we are not spending it as well as we might do and therefore we are not getting the outcomes that we might seek to achieve. “Justice reinvestment” is the phrase that is commonly used by advocates of taking some political risk—and there is political risk in it—but it is being willing to rethink and to reconsider where we focus the spend on justice where we put the majority of that money and what outcomes we will expect from that.Offending is trending down. The crime rate as the Minister noted is at a historic low. The peculiar anomaly with that of course is that imprisonment is at an all-time high. We need to investigate and analyse that peculiar disconnect. I think that in terms of the popular perception that crime is actually on the increase I think our friends in the fourth estate need to consider their dramatic over-reporting of crime which we see constantly across all of our media. I will not dwell on that but I do believe that is another matter that we need to pay some attention to.To state the obvious the best investment is that which prevents crime and that which reduces the numbers of victims. We will never eliminate crime and offending—that would be some sort of happy nirvana some utopia we are unlikely to ever achieve—but certainly we can reduce it. To give credit where it is due we have seen some very positive moves in terms of resourcing and practice. I think of the police particularly with the Prevention First strategy they have adopted and neighbourhood policing teams. These are all very positive moves that will help reduce crime.Progress reported.Report adopted.The House adjourned at 5.56 p.m.