Volume 621 Week 72 - Thursday 4 November 2004 
Volume 621 Week 72 - Thursday 4 November 2004 
[Volume:621;Page:16593] 
Thursday 4 November 2004 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Visitors 
Commonwealth of Australia—Minister for the Environment and Heritage 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have much pleasure in informing members that the Hon Ian Campbell Minister for the Environment and Heritage from the Commonwealth of Australia is within the precincts of this Chamber. I am sure that members would wish that he be welcomed and accorded a seat on the left of the Chair. 
The Hon Ian Campbell accompanied by the Hon Pete Hodgson entered the Chamber and took a seat on the left of the Chair. 
Italy—Parliamentary Delegation 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have much pleasure in also informing members that a parliamentary delegation from the Parliament of Italy led by Ms Gabriella Mondello is present in the gallery. I am sure that members would wish that the delegation be welcomed. 
United Kingdom—Constitutional Affairs Committee House of Commons 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I also have much pleasure in informing the House that members of the Constitutional Affairs Committee from the House of Commons United Kingdom are present in the gallery. I am sure that members would wish that that delegation also be welcomed. 
Business Statement 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Next week in the House priority will be given to the third reading of the Care of Children Bill and to the second readings of the Transport Legislation Bill the Electoral Matters Bill and the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill. Wednesday is a members’ day. On Thursday it is intended that the sitting of the House will commence at 4 p.m. with a motion in relation to the entombment of an Unknown New Zealand Warrior. There will be no oral questions on that day. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 Can the Leader of the House give us some indication of when he would expect the Foreshore and Seabed Bill to receive its second reading in the House and at what pace will it progress through its Committee stage towards a third reading? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 We will proceed to that when we are ready to do so—that is when we have completed discussions with my own colleagues and with New Zealand First in particular. Should National members wish to become supportive and positive I am sure I will be happy to have discussions with them as well. I expect that the second reading will be not too far in the distance. The pace at which the bill will be taken will depend upon the speed with which closure motions are accepted during the Committee stage by the Chairs of the Committee. 
Motions 
Presidential Election USA—Congratulations 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I seek the leave of the House to move a non-controversial motion without debate congratulating President George Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney on their re-election. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection to that? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 It is usual to declare these matters with the whips in advance as a matter of courtesy to all other parties. Obviously the Government would not object to such a motion being moved. 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I move  
That the House convey its sincere congratulations and warmest regards to President George Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney on their election win in the United States of America. 
 I hope that they will continue to regard New Zealand in a favourable way as a good ally and a good trading partner— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There is to be no debate. Leave was sought to move a motion without debate. The member has moved the motion. I now want to put the motion and other parties can very briefly comment. [ 
Interruption 
] Well if the member wishes to make a brief comment I will allow him to make it now. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Also I send on behalf of this House regards to John Kerry and his running mate John Edwards. It was a very tough campaign and I thought that the way those candidates handled the results was a credit to a great country and a great people. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 The Government joins obviously in congratulating the successful candidate in the United States elections. It was pleasing that in the end there was a clear majority and so an avoidance of what happened at the last election in the United States. We look forward to cooperating with the re-elected Bush administration. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 The New Zealand National Party also wants to join in the motion congratulating President Bush and Vice-President Cheney on their re-election for another 4-year term. The United States is one of the largest democracies in the world and it is always fascinating to watch how despite all the perceived difficulties the transition of authority from one administration to the other takes place—in this case the continuation of an administration. We hope that New Zealand is able to improve its trading relations with the United States. It is an important country. President Bush has won this election with the largest-ever popular vote in the United States. There was a huge turn-out to the polls. Although Mr Kerry has lost the election he was certainly instrumental in provoking a lot of thought about the state of the world and he should be congratulated on that. We would make the comment that perhaps the New Zealand media might have been a little slicker in understanding that the election was a choice for the American people rather than for the rest of the world. I conclude by once again congratulating Mr Bush and all his administration. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Obviously we all endorse the comments made—or most of the comments made—by previous speakers. We also say that when a growing population turns out in greater numbers than ever before there are likely to be very high numbers of votes for both the winner and the loser. But I would hope that in future rather than members of Parliament and party leaders seeking to gain a vicarious benefit from a victory they had nothing to do with whatsoever maybe it would be better and more courteous if a member who had that in mind would consult others so that we could move just one motion and then get on with our own business in our democracy. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party joins with other parties in sending President Bush congratulations on winning the election but it is also with a sense—and I think in this I am expressing the views of the majority of New Zealand people and of a significant majority of the people of the world—of sadness at the fact that Mr Bush was re-elected because unfortunately— 
Hon Members 
: Aw! 
Mr SPEAKER 
: We do have free speech in this Parliament. People are entitled to have their view heard even if others do not agree with it. I will uphold that. I ask the member to be brief.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I thought that the purpose of a motion without debate was such that those who agreed with the person moving it could perhaps make a comment. But if one is in violent disagreement then how can that be in accord with the non-debatable objective even though we have been given some leniency at this time? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am asking Mr Locke to come to the end of his comments because he did say at the start that he was going to support the motion. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: Yes the Green Party is supporting the motion and as with other debates of this kind we are allowed to put it in the right context. I think that the House should take note of the polls that have been conducted around the world in addition to the polls in the United States where overwhelmingly—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: This is the member’s last sentence. Would he please finish it. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: Overwhelmingly the people of the world have expressed their opposition to George Bush’s re-election. [ 
Interruption 
] Could I finish? As I was saying overwhelmingly the people of the world have expressed their opinion against George Bush being re-elected because they do not want a continuation of the wars of aggression such as the one we have seen in Iraq and the so-called war on terrorism which is undermining our civil liberties—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I just want to say one thing. This is a democracy too and people have the right of free speech. I am going to uphold that. I thought the comments that were made were unnecessary. Of course Mr Locke has a different point of view from that of other parties. He is entitled to that; that is what democracy is all about. That is what we have just witnessed in the United States where there was a free choice. 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I want to join with other members and on behalf of United Future to express our congratulations to President Bush Vice-President Cheney and the Republican Party on what has been a sweeping victory in every aspect of the United States election. I want to make this point though. At a time when it is often convenient to see the world in a global sense this election reinforces the value of individual nations. This was a choice made freely democratically and quite appropriately by the people of the United States—as it should be—and to draw any wider implications or to be negative about the views of the rest of the world in this respect misses the fundamental point that democracy is the exercise of the franchise by the people of a nation. In this case the people of the United States by a clear majority have re-elected President Bush. Our congratulations are with him. Our commiserations go to Senator Kerry and his team and we express our ongoing support for the fact that the democratic ideal has been upheld. 
Motion agreed to. 
Questions to Ministers 
Immigration Minister—Confidence 
1. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in her Minister of Immigration; if so why? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
 on behalf of the  
Prime Minister 
: Yes because he is a hard-working and conscientious Minister. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: How is it that this hard-working and conscientious Minister had his officials at the Finance and Expenditure Committee yesterday admitting that of the Afghan refugees refused by Australia from the MV  
Tampa  
three have already brought 11 people each into this country and how is it that Asha Ali Abdille can be claiming and demanding to bring in another 14 of her relations even though she is on a benefit and has a conviction record that would make Al Capone proud? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: On the latter matter I understand the Minister’s office has contacted Mr Peters and we look forward to cooperation on that matter in terms of establishing the facts. Members will note I am sure that Ms Abdille first got into the public arena because she was complaining of the harsh treatment by the New Zealand Immigration Service in demanding DNA testing on her supposed relatives—yet to be established whether they are her relatives. 
Keith Locke 
: Will the Prime Minister be suggesting to the Minister of Immigration that she issue a simple regulation change to the Immigration Act to make sure that Mr Zaoui can be released into the custody of the Dominican friars as proposed in a recent statement by one Catholic cardinal one archbishop eight Catholic bishops one Anglican archbishop and 10 Anglican bishops? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I suppose that would take him out of the pot into the friars but beyond that I am not terribly interested. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why was it that the Prime Minister’s hard-working and conscientious Minister of Immigration gave my office a phone call this morning asking me to provide him with the information for which he is paid a ministerial salary and has all the baubles of office—a ministerial home a full department a police force and a Customs Service—and why does she think this hard-working and conscientious Minister needs to be employed one more day given that clearly he cannot do his job? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I have to say I am upset that the member is offended that somebody should seek his information and his advice on immigration matters. I thought he regarded himself as an expert on those things. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why would the Prime Minister have confidence in any of her immigration Ministers who have been there since she came to power when they let in a known terrorist in three jurisdictions Switzerland France and Belgium—all with far higher legal status than that which is applied in New Zealand thus far—who could be out of prison tomorrow if he would only go back and join his family in Malaysia? 
Keith Locke 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In the question Mr Peters referred to Switzerland. There was no court case or designation of Mr Zaoui— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member knows that is not a point of order. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The member is correct in stating that Mr Zaoui has had convictions in France and Belgium. I believe he was paid by Switzerland to go to live in Burkina Faso and he certainly had residence within Malaysia which is by no means a country that would be unsuitable one would have thought for a Muslim refugee. The fact is that Mr Zaoui claimed refugee status once he landed and under international conventions certain consequences have flown therefrom. If his lawyers had been avoiding the extremes of litigation we have seen this matter would have been settled long since one way or the other. 
Cancer Control Council—Objectives 
2.  
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: How will the recently announced Cancer Control Council help to address the burden of cancer in New Zealand? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 The council has been established in response to the cancer task force recommendation to bring together under an independent body oversight monitoring collaboration and leadership in cancer prevention treatment services and research. The key tasks for the council will be to monitor and review implementation of the Cancer Control Strategy and report annually to Parliament; provide independent strategic advice to the Minister of Health the Director-General of Health district health boards and non-governmental organisations on matters related to cancer control; foster collaboration and cooperation between bodies involved in cancer control; and foster and support best practice in an evidence-based approach to improvements in the effectiveness of cancer control. 
Steve Chadwick 
: What has been the response to the announcement of the Cancer Control Council? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The Cancer Society said today that the establishment of a dedicated independent council is a major achievement for all of those who are concerned about the consequences of cancer in our society. The New Zealand Cancer Control Trust described the council as a significant and critical milestone and added that these initiatives reflect the Government’s recognition of the significance of cancer and its commitment to taking a long-term coordinated approach to addressing the devastating impact of cancer in New Zealand. I thank both those groups for their cooperation and for the constructive approach they have taken in helping us to establish the council itself. 
Judith Collins 
: Will the Cancer Control Council investigate the possibility of a private cancer treatment facility being established in New Zealand or will patients still be forced to head to Australia for treatment as happened to 171 patients last year? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The Cancer Control Council will have the ability to look at anything that is put before it. However it will probably find what others have found—that when one sets up a private facility for the treatment of cancer one has to staff it and where will the staff come from? For a decade the 1990s we never trained enough staff. 
Barbara Stewart 
: Is it not a fact that the only way to increase capacity to deal with the demand for cancer treatment in New Zealand is to address the staff shortages that have been cited continually as the key component in New Zealand’s disastrous ability to cope with this devastating illness—not introduce yet another layer of bureaucracy? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I need to inform the member that this council is not a layer of bureaucracy but something that was asked for by the Cancer Society of New Zealand the Cancer Control Trust non-governmental organisations and the New Zealand community in general following the disaster of the National Cervical Screening Programme which showed there was a need for an independent group to have oversight of cancer control. So it is not another layer of bureaucracy; it is the Government’s response to a need identified by the community itself. 
Bernie Ogilvy 
: Does the Minister agree that one of the first priorities of the Cancer Control Council should be to lobby the Minister of Research Science and Technology to boost funding for the hamstrung Health Research Council—the largest funder of cancer research—in light of recent reports that indicate that New Zealand’s expenditure on health research has declined to a point where we are seriously lagging behind international standards? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: It will probably not be necessary for the council to do that. I think the Minister has that matter in hand. 
Local Government—Voting System 
3.  
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
 to the  
Minister of Local Government 
: Does he agree with the statement provided in the Vote Local Government estimates examination responses for 2003-04 that “The critical current issue faced by Government in Vote Local Government relates to the successful application of the STV (single transferable vote) election method in the Local Authority Elections to occur in October 2004.”; if so does he think the Government has done a good job of dealing with that critical issue? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Local Government) 
: 
 Yes and yes. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: How can the Minister possibly tell this Parliament that the Government has done a good job of introducing STV when 26 days after the ballot 144 candidates do not know whether they have been elected particularly when we compare that delay with the election results in the United States which has just counted 119 million votes and given a result within 24 hours? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: The facts of this sorry situation are that a computer system has failed and it has taken time to fix it and to ensure that the results it produces are absolutely correct. The computer system is not one that Ministers were involved in selecting designing or testing. Contrary to the notion that the member is putting out the Government does not run local elections. Councils do that and they have done so since the 1860s. 
David Parker 
: What did the Government do to assist with the implementation of STV? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: The Government was responsible for coordinating the development of the STV calculator and a publicity campaign both of which it did very successfully. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: How does the Minister reconcile the statement made by Helen Clark as Leader of the Opposition in 1999 when she damned National Ministers for the 2-hour delay in election results stating: “Ministers must take responsibility.” with his refusal to take any responsibility for this 26-day delay or is this just like the situation of John Tamihere and the golden handshake—saying one thing in Opposition and applying a different standard when in Government? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister can answer the first part of that question. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: The member still fails to grasp the fact that although central government is responsible for running general elections local elections are run by local government. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: How can the Minister tell this Parliament that he has no responsibility when his own department in the estimates for the financial year for which he was responsible clearly stated that it was the critical current issue for that year; is he saying the department is wrong or is he wrong? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I repeat to that member that the Government was responsible for developing the STV calculator which worked perfectly. It was also responsible for a publicity campaign which also seemed to be very effective. 
Contaminated Land Auckland—Testing 
4.  
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
 to the  
Minister for the Environment 
: Will the Government assist Aucklanders who are worried their backyards may be contaminated by pesticides to have their properties tested? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Associate Minister for the Environment) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister for the Environment 
: The Minister is advised that the Ministry for the Environment will assist Aucklanders by working with their regional and city councils. This Government’s Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund exists to help overcome the unwanted legacy from the past use of chemicals and the ministry will consider any application from the Auckland Regional Council for assistance from the fund. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Is she saying not only that the Auckland Regional Council has applied to the Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund but that the Government will agree to fund testing for potentially contaminated properties and given the uncertainties for owners of these properties can she reassure them as to when they can expect the testing to commence? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I am not saying what the member suggests. I am saying that the ministry is working with local authorities to progress this matter and when tests will be available is really a matter for local authorities and the property owners. But the ministry as I said is working through both through those councils and I am sure that with the level of cooperation we already have to date we will ensure that this issue is resolved to the satisfaction of the community. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: What is the Government doing to assist councils to deal with contaminated sites around the country? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: The Ministry for the Environment is working closely with seven regional councils on 13 separate remediation projects on behalf of local communities and landowners. The ministry is developing a national approach to the management of contaminated land in partnership with regional councils and unitary authorities. 
Keith Locke 
: Does the Minister agree in the light of the answer to the previous question that the Auckland situation could be just the tip of the iceberg and that it does require serious Government action to make sure that people outside of Auckland whose homes might be on the sites of former orchards or market gardens are not left in the dark as to whether there is contamination in their backyards? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: Yes I certainly agree it is unlikely that issues like this which are really a legacy of the past are isolated to Auckland. That is why the Ministry for the Environment wrote in 2002 to councils recommending that they require soil testing of land that had previously been used for horticultural production prior to 1975 before approving subdivisions for residential purposes. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Will the Government expand the modest amount of funding available in the Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund so that there is sufficient funding for nationwide testing of contaminated sites and does she accept that the Government does have a moral responsibility to New Zealanders to do so because successive Governments have permitted the widespread use of the pesticides that are causing concern and reassure New Zealanders that they are perfectly safe? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: Two million dollars per year is available from the fund and last year we did expand the criteria for who could apply to that fund. We currently have no plans to expand that funding but will monitor closely the operation of the fund and its effectiveness. While many sites in Auckland may not reach the high-risk category our aim as set out in our policy manifesto in 2002 is to investigate and have a remediation plan for all high-risk contaminated sites by 2015. Can I add that I think the key issue in this is that while making good progress on resolving the issue for concerned residents we are not alarmist and we make sure we get the facts of the matter and have useful and comprehensive information. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Does she agree that the Government should long ago have withdrawn approval for pesticides whose residues persist in the environment and introduced a levy on toxic substances to fund restoration clean-up and compensation of innocent landowners such as in the Auckland situation today? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: We have no plans to introduce the eco-tax that the member’s party is advocating but we are prepared to continue assisting regional councils to manage contaminated land within their regions to provide the best possible value to ratepayers. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Why is the Government still permitting the use of pesticides that persist in the environment for very long times—such as the organochlorine endosulphin which is still turning up as residues in our food? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: Work continues towards pesticide risk reduction. A pesticide risk reduction strategy working-group has identified a range of ways of reducing pesticide risk. The recent ratification of the Stockholm convention is just one example. Also the Environmental Risk Management Authority held a 2-day symposium in July bringing together all the groups involved in reducing pesticide risk. Further the Ministry for the Environment has commissioned HortResearch to report on trends in usage of pesticides and their quantities and risks. That report is due in early 2005. 
Member for TamakiMakaurau—Waipareira Trust 
5.  
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Is she satisfied that John Tamihere has disclosed all his financial dealings with the Waipareira Trust that might cause her or the Labour Government embarrassment; if so why? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister)  
on behalf of the 
 Prime Minister 
: 
 The Prime Minister has suspended judgment on the financial dealings Mr Tamihere has had or is alleged to have had with the Waipareira Trust while they are the subject of inquiries. 
Rodney Hide 
: Is the Prime Minister aware that former trust board member Dennis Hansen claimed in a letter dated 11 June 2000—a letter that I understand he is under some pressure to withdraw—that the Waipareira Trust board loaned Mr Tamihere $100000 interest free in 1991-92 a loan that at Mr Tamihere’s request the board wrote off in 1993; and does the Prime Minister think it appropriate that John Tamihere received both a golden handshake and a golden kia ora? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I am aware of that. I am also aware that today the member received a fax from the same person stating: “However I was wrong.” 
Rodney Hide 
: Would it help the Prime Minister in forming a view on whether she thinks that was appropriate to know that board members have said it is correct and that the minutes state: “The motion was passed that John Tamihere did not have to pay the $100000 loan back provided futuristically if and when his contract expired and he moved on there was to be no further package deals financially or otherwise.”; and in light of that will the Prime Minister ask Douglas White QC to consider all lump-sum payments made to Mr Tamihere by the trust and whether the appropriate tax was paid? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I am aware of those accusations. I repeat that the member has received a fax denying them. As the member has already indicated to Mr White that he will release information to him I invite him to release whatever information he has. We will see how it all works out in the wash. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Since the Prime Minister is now aware of that allegation why will she not ask Douglas White QC to include that particular matter in his investigations? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: That matter has been in the public arena for a long time; it is not a new allegation. Mr Peters raised this issue some 5 years ago as I recollect within the public arena. There is no need to revisit the issue unless of course Mr White chooses to consider it to be relevant. If Mr Hide wants to raise the matter with Mr White he is perfectly free to do so but I trust that he will table all the documents he has and not just some of them. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is the Prime Minister satisfied with that given that Mr Tamihere in November 1999 admitted receiving the loan but then said he could not remember the details; and if the loan was connected with a prohibition against any other exit package will she now begin to think that this matter has more relevance than she originally gave it? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: If that is the evidence that members wish to present to Mr White I am sure he will consider it to be relevant for consideration. I would say that—in terms of simply issuing a loan—if the notion of an employing body issuing a loan to an employer is in itself wrong then an awful lot of people in this country will be in trouble. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Would it help the Prime Minister to stop suspending judgment if I was to tell her that the letter was to myself is handwritten is dated 11 August 2000 and states: “Mr John Tamihere in 1991-2 borrowed $100000 from the Waipareira Trust board without interest. In 1993 John asked the Waipareira Trust board to write off the $100000 which was a personal loan to him. I moved a motion that John Tamihere did not have to repay the $100000 loan back provided futuristically if and when his contract expired and he moved on there was to be no further package deals financially or otherwise.”; having now heard that why should we accept a fax sent today and why is this matter not being referred to the QC or can the Prime Minister give us an assurance that tax has been paid on the second golden handshake? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The Prime Minister certainly could not give an assurance about taxation at all and nor could the Minister of Revenue because they would be in breach of legislation were they actually privy to an individual taxpayer’s information. 
Rodney Hide 
: Is the Prime Minister aware that—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I gave a warning and somebody has interjected. However I am prepared to give another warning. I am being fair to the member as two comments were made. I now want there to be no more interjections during question time. 
Rodney Hide 
: Is the Prime Minister aware that despite this claim having been around for some years John Tamihere has never denied receiving a loan from the Waipareira Trust and having it written off; and given the inquiry that is under way why will the Prime Minister not ask Douglas White to check the minutes of the Waipareira Trust board regarding that loan? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Mr Tamihere I believe has stated quite clearly that he received a loan from the trust in I think 1991. There is no great secret about that. If the member feels that he has some other evidence I invite him to give it to Mr White. Mr White has sufficiently broad terms of reference that he can cover those matters if they are relevant to the payments made in 2000. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Is the Prime Minister aware that Mr White is likely to be inundated with all sorts of people making allegations against Mr Tamihere; if so why is she not prepared to take the information that comes from Mr Hide and Mr Prebble that would indicate that during John Tamihere’s time at the Waipareira Trust he received almost half a million dollars worth of extra payments by way of his severance payment the car and the $100000 interest-free loan and why will she not ask Mr White to investigate whether the tax was paid which is a simple question? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The issue of the tax again is an issue for the trust not an issue for Mr Tamihere. The responsibility for the payment of fringe benefit tax rests with the employer and has been deeply criticised by National for the last 20 years because of that. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: At this point in time has Mr Tamihere advised the Prime Minister that his loan was written off and more important what the effect of the golden handshake was upon his ordinary salary taxation which he seems to be overlooking? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I cannot answer the first part of the question. Regarding the second part of the question I am not sure whether any Minister could give that answer—only the people involved could give it. I repeat that it is actually illegal for the Minister of Revenue—or through him the Prime Minister—to have details about individuals’ tax status irrespective of the information that is given to them by the person involved. 
Rodney Hide 
: Is the Prime Minister aware that John Tamihere has never denied having the $100000 loan written off? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: My understanding is that Mr Tamihere has denied the loan was of that size but obviously I am open to correction on that matter. What the Prime Minister is certainly aware of—at least the Acting Prime Minister is—is that today the member received a fax denying the original allegation. I note that he is not inviting the Prime Minister to send that to Mr White for investigation. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I seek the leave of the House to table a letter from Mr Dennis Hansen who says he is a kaumatua and a board member of the Waipareira Trust dated 11 May 2000. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that letter. Is there any objection? 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I will not take objection to that if I can also have leave to table a fax sent today to Mr Hide. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member cannot do that on behalf—[ 
Interruption 
] Dr Cullen has no objection to that. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I first seek leave to table the fax sent today to Mr Hide. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: First I will deal with the first issue. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: No we can deal with Dr Cullen’s request first. Let us get them all on the table. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table Dr Cullen’s fax first. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is now sought to table Mr Prebble’s letter. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Working for Families Package—Taxation 
6.  
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does his answer to question No. 3 yesterday indicate that he considers the tax regime that applies to families is fair? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 In general terms yes. There is always room for improvement and that is one of the reasons for the tax elements in the Working for Families package. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Does that answer the Minister’s comment yesterday that he was not in favour of income splitting and the Minister for Social Development and Employment’s comment earlier this week that the Government was not looking to allow capitalisation of benefits arising from the Working for Families programme for the purpose of home purchase mean that as far as the Minister is concerned the Working for Families package as it presently stands is as good as it gets for families? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No. I look forward in the long term to a Labour-led Government supported by United Future and whatever other parties continuing to deliver substantial gains for families progressively year by year. 
John Key 
: Does the Minister think it is fair that by 2008 207000—or 64 percent—of the recipients of the Working for Families package will be welfare beneficiaries and was that the policy intent when he designed the scheme? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The policy intent was both to increase the gap between paid income and benefit income which the package does and to lift the incomes of all low to middle income families which the package does. Under Labour the number of families who depend upon benefits has been falling. 
Peter Brown 
: Is the Minister aware that there is some sympathy on this side of the House for the tax relief suggestions that United Future occasionally makes; if he is aware of that would he recommend that United Future members show a bit more fortitude and stick to their guns in which case they might succeed or is he quite happy that they roll over continually? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: We have a positive relationship. Mr Copeland is full of many ideas for reducing the Government’s revenue not all of which are affordable—at least not simultaneously. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Why should a family with a single income of $60000 per annum pay $57 per week more than another family in which one partner is earning $40000 and the other $20000 when both families have the same pre-tax income; how can that be regarded as fair? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The member does point to a difficulty that is created by progressive tax rates but income splitting creates the opposite problem in that there is significant disadvantage for the single-income family in many respects particularly in that higher-income families get much better tax relief than lower-income families. That will always be the problem around income splitting. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Has the Minister recovered physically from the injuries no doubt inflicted on him by the rigorous and aggressive presentation and prosecution of the United Future party’s case whenever its members talk to him? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: My understanding is that the United Future party incorporates a large Christian party element. I have always found those members gentle Christian knights to deal with in these respects. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Does the Minister believe that there is wisdom in the statement: “That in all cases where a woman elects to superintend her own household and to be the mother of children there shall be a law attaching a just share of her husband’s earnings” as stated by Kate Sheppard in 1896; and would not income splitting fulfil at long last those aspirations? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No. I am afraid that relationships within families are a bit more complicated than that. If the result of that was that the income of say a family earning $60000 a year was split into two amounts of $30000 and the husband kept one lot and the wife with say three children had the other that would be distinctly unfair I would have thought. 
Larry Baldock 
: Does the Minister prefer working with a party that engages reasonably in discussion or would he prefer to work with a party that demands its own way every week? [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I say to Mr Hide that I said on a previous occasion that that was my final warning. The member will stand withdraw and apologise. 
Rodney Hide 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Larry Baldock 
: Does the Minister prefer working with a party that has reasonable discussion and recommendations or with a party that would demand its own way every week and would if it did not succeed in that put the country and the economy at risk by pulling down the Government every other week? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: That is not my experience at the moment working with Mr Dail Jones on the Foreshore and Seabed Bill matter but I would say that the Government’s motto in this respect is “Working with Families” and the Government’s policy is that families are often quite different one from the other. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Is the true reason that the Minister cannot consider income splitting the fact that his Government supported by the United Future party brought in amendments to the Property (Relationships) Act that mean it is almost impossible now to define what a family is anyway? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Absolutely not! Technically income splitting for tax purposes is no more difficult than a number of other aspects of the current taxation system. 
John Key 
: I seek leave to table the answer to written question No. 13537 which shows amongst other things that 64 percent of recipients of the Working for Families package are welfare beneficiaries. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Member for TamakiMakaurau—Waipareira Trust 
7.  
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Was she advised of reports that John Tamihere told colleagues he had accepted a golden handshake from the Waipareira Trust; if so did she inquire whether any of those colleagues were members of her executive? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
 on behalf of the 
 Prime Minister 
: No. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does the Prime Minister intend finding out whether any members of her executive have known for some time that John Tamihere accepted the golden handshake while she was out in public defending him? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Is she aware that today John Tamihere has stated that he was always going to accept a golden handshake despite the fact that he had gone on record saying he would not and what confidence should anyone have in Mr Tamihere when he deliberately sets out to deceive her the media and the public of New Zealand; and why on earth is she considering putting him back in Cabinet? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I have seen that comment there is an inquiry under way and consideration will be given to all matters at the end of those inquiries. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I seek leave to table a Radio New Zealand transcript in which Mr Tamihere admits that he always intended to take the golden handshake and that he knew it would be offered again when he turned it down. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Youth Offending Teams—Objectives 
8.  
MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: Is he satisfied that youth offending teams are achieving the purpose for which they were established? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 Yes the Police the Department of Child Youth and Family Services the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education are now working together much more effectively in responding to youth offending which was one of the purposes of setting up the teams. In the member’s own electorate of Hamilton the youth offending team there is a model example. The agencies now work together as a team instead of as in the past with at-risk youths dealing with a series of authorities none of which were talking to one another. The new joint initiatives from the youth offending team are now delivering outstanding results and the youth offending team has won very strong community support because of that. 
Martin Gallagher 
: What programmes run by the Hamilton youth offending team does he believe have been particularly effective especially in view of his recent trip to Hamilton? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I think the programmes run by the agencies to share information and to coordinate case management of youth have been particularly effective. What has also been working really well are programmes designed to tackle the causes of offending such as truancy suspension and expulsion from school educational failure and drug and alcohol abuse. Finally what has been really effective has been the use of alternative action or diversion programmes. The number of offenders successfully completing those programmes has doubled; and the numbers failing to complete the plan have fallen to around 3 percent. That is an outstanding result. 
Marc Alexander 
: Is the Minister satisfied that family group conferences lead to effective outcomes for young offenders when a Blenheim youth involved in the repeated burglary and assault of an 88-year-old World War II veteran who had recently admitted his guilt in a family group conference then subsequently denied it in court; or does he agree that getting offenders to own up in these conferences is pointless unless it is also accompanied by swift punishment that actually provides consequences for their actions? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Like any form of justice and punishment we do not get 100 percent success. What is really good about family group conferences is that they deal with the hard-core offenders and they succeed in more than half of the cases in either preventing reoffending or only further minor reoffending. If the members opposite who are speaking from the depths of their own ignorance would like to read the report  
Achieving Effective Outcomes In Youth Justice 
 they would find good results. When we take a matter to a family group conference rather than to the Youth Court in fact the victim is most likely to achieve reparation and an apology that do not come through the Youth Court process the level of reoffending is less and it is seen by both the victim and the offender not as a soft option but as a more effective option for both the victim and the offender. 
Teachers—Training Quality 
9.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Can he confirm that the reason the New Zealand Teachers Council cannot release a report about the quality of teacher training in New Zealand is because he has not released it; if so when will he release it? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education)) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Education 
: No the Minister cannot confirm that. The report is not the Minister’s to release. I am advised that although the report was never intended to be officially published it has already been released. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister of Education aware that the New Zealand Teachers Council is meant to be an independent statutory body and can he confirm that the public comments made by the Teachers Council over this damning report show that he is exercising political influence which in this case is against the law? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: No I cannot confirm that. 
Lynne Pillay 
: What are some of the positive achievements of the Teachers Council since it was established? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Although the Teachers Council has had a challenging start we should not overlook the good progress that has been made in some key areas. The council has made good progress in putting in place a code of ethics for the teaching profession in implementing a greatly strengthened disciplinary system in implementing the police vetting of non-teaching staff and in re-registering a large number of teachers. In time the Teachers Council has the potential to contribute considerably to the quality of the teaching profession. 
Deborah Coddington 
: How can boards of trustees principals parents and even teachers themselves have any faith in the quality of teacher training in New Zealand when the Teachers Council which specifically approves all teacher-training courses in New Zealand has come up with its own report that states that even it cannot guarantee that all courses are turning out well-prepared teachers? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I understand that this report was commissioned following a suggestion made by the New Zealand Educational Institute as part of a working-party on qualifications for primary school teachers. The report was the initial stage of a four-phase research project being carried out by the ministry and the Teachers Council and helped to establish the parameters for the rest of the research programme. The report looked at a sample of historical documentation on initial teacher education programme approvals by the Teachers Council. Of course this research is being used alongside the development of the council to improve the qualifications of teachers. 
Bernie Ogilvy 
: Does the Minister of Education—given the repeated muck-ups by the Teachers Council such as the backlog of teacher registrations the demise of several council chairs with golden handshakes the concerns of the Education and Science Committee and the continued absence of the council’s first item of business which was the code of ethics—have complete confidence in his Teachers Council; if so why? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I think it would be fair to say that the Teachers Council has had to overcome some pretty serious setbacks in the formation of its work plan and its organisation. Of course the future of the council will be dependent upon its ability to continue to attract good management staff and members of its governing body. We hope that is the case because like most countries we want to have a Teachers Council doing this kind of work. 
Hon Bill English 
: What action does the Minister of Education intend to take on the findings of the report which are that among the programmes reviewed there are many with poorly developed conceptual frameworks narrowly conceived programmes based on a single theorist an unidentified research base inadequate practicum arrangements unclear progression through the programme and irrelevant courses not aligned with the New Zealand curriculum; and when will he take this issue seriously given that very poorly prepared teachers are standing in front of thousands of children today because these courses are no good? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The report was commissioned as I said before by the ministry and the Teachers Council so that it could inform their thinking about initial teacher education and their respective roles in it. In other words the research the first stage of a four-stage piece of research is to help the Teachers Council to do exactly what the member is seeking. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister of Education not see that much more urgent action is needed than a four-stage report and collaboration process given that a recent report from the Education Review Office concluded that half of all beginning secondary school teachers and one-third of all beginning primary school teachers were ineffective which affects the education of 30000 children today? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I would point out that the Minister of Education’s concern about initial teacher education has been of note for some time which is why there is a moratorium on initial teacher education providers and why organisations such as the Teachers Council and the Ministry of Education have been working actively on initial teacher education since that time. 
Broadcasting—Government Policy 
10.  
DIANNE YATES (Labour—Hamilton East) 
 to the  
Minister of Broadcasting 
: What recent reports has he received about the success of the Government’s broadcasting policies? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Broadcasting) 
: 
 I have received the report released today from New Zealand On Air’s research which shows that 90 percent of New Zealanders regularly watch locally made documentaries. More than three-quarters believe that they want to see more television with New Zealanders in their proper place on the television screen and more than three-quarters enjoy hearing New Zealand music on radio and think radio stations should play more. This research endorses completely the Government’s policies in these areas. 
Dianne Yates 
: What reports has the Government seen on the possible sale of Television New Zealand? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I have seen a report which leaves open the possibility of selling TV2 and scrapping the charter from someone who says that he never watches television. If he did watch television he would know that TV2 is a channel for locally produced children’s and young people’s programming. Selling it would fly in the face of the views of 86 percent of New Zealanders who want to see a lot more local programmes for children and young people on our screens. Furthermore that member might like to know that it is impracticable to sell Television New Zealand’s second channel because it is just a frequency. It would require first of all splitting an integrated business but of course someone who does not watch television probably does not know that. 
Superannuation—Married Rate 
11.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: What has a married couple receiving New Zealand Superannuation been receiving as a percentage of the net average ordinary time weekly wage on a quarterly basis since and including September 2003 and is this consistent with the Government’s policy? 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I am advised that as of September 2003 the average quarterly rate of New Zealand superannuation for a married couple as a percentage of the average ordinary time weekly wage was 65.09 percent. This is consistent with the Government’s policy. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I asked that Minister as to what has happened since and including September 2003. He deliberately left out the “since” part and that is the key part of my question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is perfectly correct. The member has answered the question relating to September 2003 but the question stated “since and including” so there need to be more statistics there. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: I can give the member a couple more figures if he wishes. As of 1 March 2004 the quarterly rate was 64.88 percent and at June 2004 the rate was 64.83 percent but the average was 65 percent. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I thank the Minister for getting to the point he did not want to disclose but can I ask him why he is being so mean and outside the law in respect of the elderly people of this country who in comparison with the promise Labour made are getting well in excess of $30 less per week now than they were getting before? 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: The claim that superannuitants are getting $30 a week less than they should be is pure nonsense—absolute arrant nonsense. When one sets a figure in a simple way as a relative percentage it is to be expected that over time it may erode. The next time it comes up for inspection it will be adjusted back to its level—that member and all superannuitants can be assured of that. 
Georgina Beyer 
: What is the Government doing to meet the concerns and the welfare needs of our senior citizens? 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: When this Government came into office the previous administration had reduced the fall of superannuation from 65 percent down to 60 percent. That was the legacy of the National Party in Government. This Government reversed that and has now lifted the fall back. This means superannuitants as a married couple are at least $21 per week better off. In addition to that we have made changes in local driver licensing reduced primary health organisation charges brought down the cost of prescriptions put money into knee and hip operation costs and have maintained income-related rents. We have done an enormous amount for our senior citizens and will continue to do so. 
Foreshore and Seabed Bill—Ancestral Connection 
12.  
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Deputy Prime Minister 
: Does the Government intend to support the removal of ancestral connection provisions from the Foreshore and Seabed Bill; if not why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 I am still involved in a range of discussions with my own colleagues including Maori caucus committee colleagues and with New Zealand First. When those discussions are concluded I will be happy to provide the outcome of that process. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does the Minister have any concerns that the Government’s proposal to enable ancestral connection orders to be recognised for more than one iwi hapu or whanau over the same stretch of coastline will have an adverse effect on iwi capacity to establish coastal boundaries for allocation of fisheries and aquacultural quota; if not why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No not necessarily but I do note the range of submissions that have been made on this issue and they will be considered before final decisions are made. 
Dail Jones 
: Has the Minister seen the National Party’s report on the Foreshore and Seabed Bill which affects these matters indicating that the National Party supports the recognition of customary rights now and has he received any indication from the National Party as to the manner in which this change of mind can be implemented? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: In so far as this relates to the Minister being in charge of this particular legislation yes he can answer that part of the question. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We have put our report in. To my knowledge we certainly have not been notified that it has been tabled. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I tabled it today. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: OK I did not hear you. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member should have been listening. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a new point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: This is a new point of order? What is it? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Yes it is. Firstly I would hope that when a point of order like that is called you would not tolerate members making the sorts of comments for which I was slung out of the House yesterday. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will sit down. He was not thrown out of the House for that at all. He was thrown out of the House because he used an unparliamentary expression that he refused to withdraw. He knows why he was thrown out yesterday. It had nothing to do with that at all. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. How can the Minister responsible for that bill have any responsibility for what we put in our report? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister was asked whether he had received communication from the National Party. He can answer that question. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I am aware of the support for customary rights orders expressed by the National Party in the report. To do that requires legislation. Otherwise one sits with the current law. First there is the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court to consider questions of customary title and aboriginal title and under the Ngati Awa decision to award customary land status to Maori. I understand that the latter is opposed by National. It completely fails to understand that simply regulating that side of the equation does not cover the issue of the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court in this matter. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Under the current arrangements of the foreshore and seabed legislation what would prevent a 1/64thMaori living in Sydney from asserting ancestral connection rights through iwi affiliation? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Under the bill as it stands at the moment it is possible to apply for ancestral connection orders which would be on behalf of a group of Maori. Normally they would be regarded as iwi hapu or whanau. The fact that somebody lives somewhere else does not remove the fact he or she has a connection back to his or her ancestors. I continue to support the Tottenham Hotspurs despite their appalling record over recent weeks. 
Metiria Turei 
: Will the Minister consider the Greens option that ancestral connection orders should give practical effect to the kaitiakitanga responsibilities that arise from whakapapa links to the coast rather than pursue further backtracking on Maori decision-making in the Resource Management Act as announced earlier today? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: What the Government seeks to do arising out of the select committee process is to give clear expression to the impact of common law rights within a New Zealand context. If one approaches that from the context of a treaty framework then that is not in fact the correct legal framework for this matter to be dealt with. 
Larry Baldock 
: Does the Government intend to support either the removal of clause 8(2) from the bill or the amendment of that clause to make it clear that nothing in the foreshore and seabed legislation will affect the common law fishing rights exercised in this country by recreational fishers? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: As I said we are still involved in discussions on changes to the bill. However a lot of very useful technical submissions have been made by a variety of organisations and they will be taken account of in discussions now occurring and in the drafting that is occurring as well as we move alongside in a dual process. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Can he confirm that the recently passed Maori fisheries allocation bill prevented iwi from getting hold of their allocation in areas where there were coastal boundary disputes and can he say how he expects the proposed law which will give ancestral connection to more than one group and therefore create boundary disputes between iwi will assist poor Maori getting the best effect of their fisheries settlement? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Even if the provisions remain in the bill it does not give ancestral connection to Maori. Maori have ancestral connection— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: You’re being pedantic. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: That is not pedantic. That in fact is at the very heart of the issue that is under consideration. The reality is that Maori do dispute where the boundaries are between them. One of the issues in the Maori fisheries allocation bill was to provide a mechanism to ensure that those disputes did not drag on indefinitely into the future. 
Metiria Turei 
: Will the Government look at replacing ancestral connection orders with some kind of substantive process for Maori decision-making in the Resource Management Act as was sought by submitters to the Foreshore and Seabed Bill or is this Government so desperate for popular appeal that it will follow New Zealand First and National ensuring that Maori have as little decision making as possible in the Resource Management Act? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: There are a number of issues. One is the issue of the recognition of specific customary rights. The bill provides and no doubt will continue to provide a clear set of mechanisms in relation to that though customary fishing rights are already dealt with in legislation and will not be affected by the Foreshore and Seabed Bill. On the other matter which is more relevant to the NgatiApa decision it is clear from the Court of Appeal decision that there is not expected to be some kind of general right held by all Maori everywhere. It is specific to those with particular rights in relation to what in the bill is called “territorial customary rights”. That of course is the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court. I repeat the National Party does not understand that if we do not legislate around that then that inherent jurisdiction can continue to be exercised as freely as the court wishes. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: In the light of Chief Maori Land Court Judge Joe Williams’ recent activist statements does he think it is appropriate for the Government to be giving Maori Land Court judges jurisdiction to issue ancestral connection when clearly those ancestral connections will give some iwi leverage over others in preventing them getting at their fisheries allocations? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I know that I have said this a few times but I will repeat it. The Government is in the process of discussions with its own caucus membership and with New Zealand First. We have not made a decision on whether that part of the bill is staying in. 
Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Customs) 
: 
 I move  
That the Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I will move that the bill be referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee and that the committee present its final report on or before 16 December 2004. To allow for this I will move at the appropriate time that the committee have authority to meet to examine the bill at any time while the House is sitting except during questions for oral answer during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and to meet on a Friday in a week where there has been a sitting of the House notwithstanding Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c). 
This bill is important because it provides a more secure funding base for the improvements in land transport that are part of the Government’s Investing for Growth strategy announced in December 2003. That strategy was designed to improve the governance of transport in Auckland and significantly boost regional land transport funding throughout the country. Good transport systems however cost money and this bill is about ensuring there is money now and in the future to make improvements to land transport. 
The bill contains two amendments to the Customs and Excise Act. The first amendment increases the amount of duty to be paid on petrol by 5c a litre excluding GST. This bill provides for this increase to come into effect on 1 April next year. However the Government will promote an amendment to this bill to provide for an increase in the petrol tax to be brought into effect by Order in Council on a date no earlier than 1 April 2005. This allows the Government to determine the appropriate time to apply the increase taking into account the international price of oil. The second amendment indexes to inflation the portion of fuel excise duty used to fund land transport. Indexation will be annual and will be implemented from 1 April 2006. At expected average rates of inflation each annual increase will be approximately half a cent per litre. 
Outside the scope of this bill the Government will also move to make an equivalent increase to road-user charges payable for diesel vehicles weighing 5 tonnes or less. This increase will also be brought into effect by Order in Council on a date no earlier than 1 April 2005. Together the increases in petrol excise and road-user charges will generate approximately $207 million annually exclusive of GST. All the additional funds will be dedicated to land transport allocated under the National Land Transport Programme and distributed around the country according to population. On the basis of population $1.3 billion will be distributed over the next 10 years to areas outside Auckland. This means for example that my part of the country—Hawke’s Bay—will gain approximately $70 million for road transport. The Nelson-Marlborough-Tasman area will receive $66 million extra and in the far north Northland will receive an extra $73 million for road transport. Auckland because of its population will receive $716 million and will also receive a special grant of $900 million from the consolidated account making Auckland’s total funding for land transport for the next decade $1.62 billion. 
This funding is part of a massive Government commitment over the next 10 years to land transport nationwide—a commitment worth more than $18 billion in total. This commitment is by far the largest that any Government has made to land transport for some considerable time. As we all know it is sorely needed as this Government works to rebuild the country’s worn-down infrastructure. 
The bill also provides a mechanism for collecting those funds to ensure that the result of decades of underfunding of land transport will be addressed. In the past successive Governments have had to pass new legislation every time increases in excise tax on petrol were required. Increases to the excise duty on petrol were needed just to maintain the levels of transport initiatives. That is not only because it costs more and more to undertake land transport initiatives but also because new technologies make vehicles more fuel-efficient. While I salute fuel efficiency it also means that we gather less excise revenue per vehicle per kilometre. 
This bill provides for the rates of duty on motor spirits to be amended by Order in Council. Any new rate must be calculated in accordance with a specified formula. This formula indexes existing rates of duty in accordance with the consumer price index excluding credit services and by reference to the amount of duty required to be diverted to the National Land Transport Fund. So it is carefully targeted and the increased funding resulting from indexation will be used only for the specific programme for which it was intended. By doing this the bill puts transport on a more secure funding base than has previously existed. 
As I conclude I would like to quote the National Party leader: “There is no doubt that our roads are under huge pressure.” and “The real solution to Auckland’s traffic congestion lies in building more roads and doing so without delay.” So I say to the National Party leader: “Watch this space.” We are setting up the mechanisms to achieve that and more. Of course his party does not like the way we are going about it but I say that people sitting in cars and waiting at bus stops want solutions. This Government is delivering them. This Government has identified transport as a key element in achieving the economic social and environmental outcomes that are desired for New Zealand in the 21st century. Our vision for transport is that by 2010 this country will have an affordable integrated safe responsive and sustainable transport system. There is still some way to go before we achieve our vision but this bill today is one of the essential building blocks delivering some of the funding required to make our vision a reality. I commend this bill to the House. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 What this Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill reminds us is that when it comes to the Labour Party voters should be very careful of what that party does not say. The House will remember Helen Clark’s promise back in 1999 when she said that a Labour Government would not increase income tax other than the increase to 39c for she said 5 percent of the people. Of course it did not remind the public of New Zealand—the voters—that income tax is only one of dozens of taxes that people pay. This Labour Government has had a field day in lifting all the other taxes. It is gouging tax out of New Zealanders. 
 At the last count I saw of the tax increases under this Labour Government this is the 24th since it has been in office. This is the 24th tax or levy increase since Labour has been in office. Those members conned the people of New Zealand that they would put up only the top income tax rate for people on over $60000. They said they would not put the corporate tax rate up or GST. What they did not tell the voters is that there are lots of other taxes that people pay and this Labour Government just keeps wrenching them up and gouging more tax. How much more has it collected? Thirty-four billion dollars more. That is a 40 percent increase in the tax that is taken off New Zealanders. This is the 24th increase in tax. 
What will upset voters and should make them very angry is that Helen Clark’s Labour Government is going to hit them again with more expensive petrol at a time when petrol is at about the highest price it has ever been. It costs me over 80 bucks each time I fill my car up—more than $80! I am lucky; I am on a better salary than the average New Zealander. But ordinary average New Zealanders are hit hard and it hurts and Labour does not care. It will just gouge another 5c a litre out of the ever-suffering motorist. 
Pansy Wong 
: Plus GST. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH 
: Plus GST as my good colleague Pansy Wong reminds me. What will make people angry is the fact that this Government is sitting on a surplus of $7.4 billion. 
Brian Connell 
: How much? 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH 
: It is $7.4 billion. Michael Cullen the Minister of Revenue will say that the operating balance excluding revaluations and accounting charges is not that big. It is over $6 billion and no one is denying that. It is clearly within the Government’s power to change the way we fund our roading in New Zealand. To fund roading out of cash income is like trying to buy one’s house out of one’s piggy bank. If this Labour Government has not got its economic maturity above that level it does not deserve to govern. 
Pansy Wong 
: They are still in cash-flow accounting. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH 
: As Pansy Wong says it is still in cash-flow accounting. It is absurd to tax today’s New Zealanders to get cash to invest in assets that will be enjoyed by New Zealand 20 years hence. That is clearly absurd and it is wrong. There are several ways that the Government could be looking at refinancing roading in this country because that is what it is about. There is a desperate need. This 5c increase will raise I understand about $165 million or thereabouts. That is a laughable amount of money when we look at the investment and the financing required. What this Labour Government does not seem to understand is that the roading problem is huge and Transit’s 10-year plan does not even start to grapple with the magnitude of the problem out there. Trying to solve it by gouging more cash out of ordinary hard-working New Zealanders is not the way to finance our roading. 
If the Government cannot get its mind round a decent long-term financing system for roading it could shift across some of the petrol tax money that goes into the consolidated account. National did that in the 1990s. We shifted money across to help fund roading. The Government could do that but no I guess that would be helping our ordinary citizens and this Labour Government does not believe in doing that. 
I just want Labour members to reflect on what they are doing to this country right now. On 1 April 2005 the tax on petrol will go up an extra 5c and I suppose that by the time GST goes on top of that it will be more that that. What will that do to the price of transport in New Zealand when we are already being charged fuel levies—and members should not forget that the Government will put up road-user charges too— 
Brian Connell 
: And a carbon tax. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH 
: —and a carbon tax is coming in as well—for freight in this country? I know that Labour members would not know that because none of them run businesses but I can tell them that when I pay my freight accounts for the transport of livestock there is a fuel levy as a separate line item. The freight rate charge is one thing but there is a fuel levy in addition to that. So at a time when businesses are already being charged fuel levies Labour wants to put the cost of transport up still further by putting petrol taxes up and increasing road-user charges. Do Labour members not care at all about what they are doing to businesses in this country? Do they not care at all about what they are doing to the average hard-working New Zealander? If one is on the average income in New Zealand—about $37000 I think—then 80 bucks to fill a tank with petrol is a huge hole in one’s pay packet for the week and Labour is about to make it more expensive. 
And Labour will increasingly make it more expensive because not only does this bill put up the petrol tax from 1 April next year but from 1 April 2006 it will be indexed to inflation. If this was a reasonable even-handed Government and it was going to do that one would think that it would also index the income tax thresholds so that the average New Zealander was not being pushed up into higher income tax brackets. But oh no not Helen Clark’s nasty Labour Government! Those members are not interested in the welfare of the ordinary New Zealander. They want to have it both ways. They want to gouge tax both ways. In the last couple of years the average New Zealand worker according to OECD data has had the second-biggest increase in income tax in the OECD largely because of the bracket creep issue. Wage and salary earners are being pushed up into higher tax brackets because although Labour wants to index petrol taxes it will not index the income tax thresholds. So average New Zealand workers are being gouged more for income tax—the second-biggest increase in the OECD for the average worker—and now the Government is going to make it more expensive for them to fill their cars up at the petrol station. 
I want the Labour Government to think about what it is doing to ordinary New Zealanders. I suppose ordinary New Zealanders would say it was OK if it was solving the problem but I come back to the fact that Minister Barker who introduced this legislation today is deluded if he thinks this measure will solve the roading problem. He is in a dream world. It will not. In the next 10 years for example north of Auckland—where I come from—there is a plan to take the motorway through to Puhoi. Many members of this House will not know where Puhoi is although it is a lovely place; it is in my electorate. This four-lane motorway will dump out into an area where there is already huge traffic congestion as Aucklanders try to get to the east coast beaches north of Auckland. There is nothing in Transit’s roading plan for the next 10 years to do anything about that and this money will not solve the problem in any way at all. 
New Zealanders will suffer from the tax gouging of the Labour Government and they will still be caught up in gridlock on our roads. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 That was pathetic. If the National Party could find somebody who knew something about transport that person would be here making a speech. The National Party has no policy and no ideas. It did nothing. The member who just resumed his seat needs to be reminded that when the National Party was in Government for 9 long years it built half of the ALPURT motorway in Auckland and did nothing else. It froze public transport spending. It had a road toll that it could not control. It had no plans ready—nothing. When I became the Minister of Transport the Opposition said we would see not one motorway project built or even started in Auckland in our first 3 years in Government. What happened? We got heaps of projects going and finished. Now the Grafton Gully—as the members over there would know if they had ever been there—is finished the Puhinui interchange is finished and State Highway 20 is about to start. 
Just as important more money has been put into road safety. When I became the Minister the Opposition said we were not going to meet our targets of stopping New Zealanders dying on our roads unless we put in a large amount of money. Between us the Minister of Police George Hawkins and I created the highway patrol and a whole raft of new road safety measures. We have got the best road safety results ever since. 
Just as important we have doubled the spend on public transport. That lot over there had frozen it for 5 years. It is absolutely ridiculous to have the National Party talking about transport. It did nothing. It had a policy called Better Transport Better Roads. It wasted 5 years running around the country getting rubbished by everybody and it is here today with no policies and no ideas. It does nothing; that is why it is in Opposition and will stay there for a very long time. 
This is a good measure. The public of New Zealand know that we have a transport infrastructure deficit created by 9 years of National Party neglect. They know they have to pay some more to fix it which is what this bill does. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I do agree with the statement by the Hon Mark Gosche that during the 9 years of a National Government little was done on roading. But we are not going to support this bill; it is an absolute load of garbage. In 1991 or 1992 I went to the Rt Hon Winston Peters—perhaps in some ways as that is how I ended up here I wish I had not—and told him I was a consultant for port reform. 
Brian Connell 
: He was in the National Party wasn’t he? 
PETER BROWN 
: He was in the National Party at that time yes. I told him that once we got port reform and this country was working 7 days a week 24/7 the trucking on our roads would be enormous and the roads would not keep up with it. In 1993 I went to see the Rt Hon Winston Peters who had by then formed New Zealand First at a public meeting. He put on his usual charm as I walked out and asked me to write him a transport policy. I did not dream for one minute that I would be here now trying to put it into place. 
I have to tell the honourable members over there that the only thing they have got right about this is that we need to put some money into roading. I agree with Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith that the way we fund roads in this country—and this is what I told Winston way back in 1991—on a “pay as you go” system is absolutely ludicrous. People have listened to the Greens far too often in recent times. I am totally ignoring them right now. I am not going to take a blind bit of notice of the member on my left. Basically this country needs more roads fast. Lockwood Smith referred to the fact that they are intergenerational. I think he said 20 years; I hope the roading we build in this country will last a lot longer than 20 years. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: They don’t; they fall apart. 
PETER BROWN 
: They do not last because of construction problems. We should be borrowing the money to finance these roads within the existing funding stream particularly if the excise tax on petrol that goes into the Crown account is transferred across. That was started when we were in coalition Government—2.1c per litre of petrol went across to the roading account. That was a New Zealand First initiative which would have continued had we stayed on the Government benches. 
With that money we should be borrowing to build these roads and building them fast. We have been absolutely dumb in this country. When we had massive unemployment we should have been building roads. A few years ago in the 1930s a chap called Francis Chichester came out and said there was a Depression in this country so we should grow logs. And look at the benefits of that to this country right now. We planted timber and it has had huge benefits. 
When we had unemployment problems in the late 1980s and 1990s we should have been building roads. [ 
Interruption 
] I tell Mr Cunliffe not to take this lightly. Many people have died because of our failure to build roads and because of our inadequate roading. They will continue to die until we build adequate roading and the way to do that is to borrow money. 
United Future is a party with fortitude to some very limited degree. In the last few days its members have been pushing for tax relief here there and everywhere. They have not won one cent of tax relief yet they will support this bill to increase tax on petrol. Does that make sense? It does not make sense to me but I am just a simple sailor. United Future members have been going around the country bragging that we need a 5.6c a litre increase on petrol when we have a huge amount of money in the consolidated account. 
The tax take in June this year is close to 40 percent greater than it was in June 1999. Now we are talking about slugging the motorist for another 5.6c per litre of petrol. It is an absolute disgrace. On top of that—and it is only 10 seconds away—we know that the Government is going to put in tolls here there and everywhere including on the second bridge in Tauranga. United Future members are actually bragging about this. They are bragging that the motorist should be slugged for another 5.6c a litre and that we should be paying road tolls. 
I say to the honourable members in the Government that for God’s sake they should get their wits about them and read the Allen report. It is a very significant report. It tells us what can be done and the advantages on a dollar basis with an investment in roading in this country. It is very very significant. On a dollar-invested basis the returns in Tauranga would be huge. It states that on a loan repayment at 8 percent there is a $6.50 return on a dollar invested. That is the way to go. There would not be one business in this country that would fund its expansion of business—and that is basically what we are talking about by expanding the road infrastructure—there would not be one company or any business people worth their salt who would want to pay as they go. 
 They would be saying “Let’s use the dollars we get in revenue to borrow and advance this business.”—be it capital staff or whatever. That is what we should be doing with roading in this country. We should be taking a more businesslike approach and saying that we need this amount of roading in this time frame and we will have to borrow on this basis and pay it back from revenue earned. I listened to the argument that we will get better consumption per litre of petrol and therefore that the revenue will go down. That is quite some way away. Even with the energy-efficient cars that were outside Parliament this afternoon there will still be some revenue from petrol that will be a return. There are also road-user charges. The other thing about this bill is that it does not target the road-user charges that trucks pay. It is only the average motorist in the light diesel vehicle who will pay increased road-user charges. This bill represents nothing more than a rip-off for the motorist. This is an approach by the Government to say that motorists are an easy target and it will take them for all it can. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Auckland needs it. The country needs it. 
PETER BROWN 
: There is no argument that Auckland needs roading. Members will not get any argument from me. But I tell Mr Cunliffe that the way of funding it—and he must have some idea of finance as he is the Associate Minister of Finance although I guess that does not give him any particular qualification— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: No free lunch. 
PETER BROWN 
: He is exactly right. There is no free lunch and he should not be putting his free lunches on to the working people that he supposedly represents here. You come in here on the backs of average working people— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No I do not do that Mr Brown. 
PETER BROWN 
: The member wants to question what I am saying. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: You are bringing me into the debate. 
PETER BROWN 
: I beg your pardon. I realise that you would not do that in any way. 
I will answer the member’s concerns. If the Government wants to be fair then it should accept that roading costs are paid for people who use the roads now and for people who will use the roads tomorrow and the day after. That is a fair way of funding the whole thing. Until we get a political party sitting in the Treasury benches that takes a businesslike approach to roading the Government will have to slug the motorists or whoever it can. I tell the Government that we will be there. This is the biggest issue that I think this country faces in the next few months in terms of finances. It will be a political issue. The people who think that they can keep slugging the motorist—the average person who just goes down the road—for more dollars or cents per litre of petrol and then add road tolls will find that they will come a gutser. We will be back after the next election and we will be insisting that this tax is removed. It is not fair it is not warranted and we will remove it. I can categorically tell the House now that it will be removed. I say to the poodles now in the United Future seats that they can vote for it because we will not have to worry after the next election. They will not be here and we will be taking it off. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The Greens are supporting this bill for two reasons. We are not supporting it just because there is a great lag in infrastructure funding after years of neglect but also because at the same time we have to accomplish one of the most difficult transitions that our society has ever been through—that is to a transport infrastructure that is much less reliant on oil than the present one. We have to quickly build a much better public transport infrastructure than we have a much better rail infrastructure than we have and better facilities for cycling because there is no evidence that oil will come down from US$55 a barrel to any significant degree or for any significant length of time. It will continue to fluctuate but its long-term trend is inexorably upwards. 
We know that because we have senior people in the oil industry telling us that world production cannot go much higher than it currently is yet demand is continuing to rise. When that happens New Zealand will be hit a lot worse than Europe because Europeans have adjusted to higher fuel prices for their cars and they have bought cars that are much more fuel efficient than ours are. If ordinary New Zealanders have cars that are anything like Lockwood Smith’s and they take $80 to fill the tank then they will be in deep trouble because it will cost $160 to fill the tank before too long. My advice to Lockwood Smith if he is worried about the cost of filling his tank is to get a smaller car. The Europeans have learnt how to do it. It does not cost me anything like $80 to fill my car’s tank. There are solutions to this. 
I would warn the Government though not to wait for the price to go down to what it regards as the long-term equilibrium before it brings this legislation into force. If the Government is going to wait for the price to go down to US$19 a barrel which Treasury thinks is the long-term equilibrium or even US$30 a barrel which is Treasury’s revised idea of what the equilibrium might be then this legislation will sit on the statute book and never come into force at all. It is sensible when oil prices are fluctuating to put a levy on it when it is in a bit of a dip rather than on a peak. But we cannot expect that it will be back to business as usual with cheap oil for the foreseeable future. That will simply not happen. 
The other objection I have to this is that diesel users are still not paying their fair share of excise tax. The petrol users pay for the roads and they also pay into the consolidated account. The diesel users pay absolutely nothing into the consolidated account. They pay only their share of the roading. I think that with the second big increase for diesel users who have vehicles that weigh below 6 tonnes large diesel trucks will be paying less than their share—even within the terms of the Land Transport Fund. 
The argument that some excise on fuel should go into the consolidated account is made because motor transport causes significant costs to the rest of the economy which it does not pay. The principle of economic externalities suggests that those costs ought to be paid by the people who create them. The Government has produced considerable research on this. The land transport funding study that was done back in the late 1990s was not able to be very precise about the quantity of these costs that are caused to the rest of the economy but they saw it as maybe around $1200 million. In fact if we want to have fair and transparent pricing then we need to cost those externalities like the health care costs that are not covered with the ACC levies the noise the pollution and the greenhouse gases that everybody else has to cover. They ought to be covered in the price of fuel itself. In Europe it is and fuel prices are much more expensive than ours. Europe’s economy is not suffering compared with ours and Europeans are coping. 
Peter Brown believes that we should just build large quantities of roads. I wonder whether Peter has ever looked at the outlook for oil the 20-year outlook for transport what will be running on those roads in 20 years and where we will be if we have nothing but roads. There is a terrible short-sightedness around. There is a refusal to even talk about the longer-term future the huge shift we have to make and the infrastructure that we have to build in order to be able to keep mobile after prices continue to rise and also I have to say to cope with the effects of climate change. There is a lot of lip service towards climate change and the Kyoto Protocol but quite frankly if we continue increasing our use of fuel and our road transport and neglecting rail and public transport we have no hope of addressing the climate change issue. We will all go down together in a screaming heap in a warming climate. 
I also have to take issue with Peter Brown’s suggestion that we should pay for our roads by borrowing that that would solve the problem and that future generations can pick that up. There is a rationale for all roads to be paid for by borrowing and amortised over future use. There is a rationale for paying for them on a “pay as you go” basis. But what one cannot countenance with any sense of justice is that one generation that has inherited a set of roads completely paid for by previous generations should then change to borrowing on a large scale in order to pass the costs of the extra roads they want on to future generations. It is a little bit like what was done by some members of this House who received a totally free tertiary education courtesy of the taxpayer when they were young then decided they no longer wanted to pay the sorts of tax rates that it takes to pay for an educated society. All of a sudden they decided the next generation would have to pay for its education with little in the way of student allowances and very high student fees. 
That means that one generation in the middle gets off scot-free. It inherits a really good system paid for by its parents and it does not bother to hand that on to its children. That is what we would be doing if we turned now from our “pay as you go” system to a mainly loan-funded roading system. We would simply be passing that cost along with all the other costs of oil depletion climate change and the increasing cost of fuel to the next generations. It will not work. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to vote against the Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. We do so based on a number of principles. 
The first is that the party disagrees with this tax-grabbing Government’s move. The Government has told the country that this increase in petrol tax is to fund the transport plan to fund roading. But when I look back to 1 March 2002 I see that when this Parliament passed a bill to increase petrol tax by 4.7c per litre that increase was intended to fund the Government’s road transport package. I ask what has happened to all those millions of dollars that the Government told the country would fund roading. Here we are again passing another bill to fund roading. What has happened? Is this Government so careless that it has managed to lose that money? Why did that money not go into roading? I would like the next speaker from the Labour Party to explain to us what happened to that 4.7c increase. Back in April 2002 we had a 30 percent increase in road-user charges for those people who had diesel vehicles. A 30 percent increase is a huge amount and this bill that we are passing now provides for a 24 percent increase in road-user charges for vehicles under 5 tonnes. Back then 2 years ago we were told that all of that money was going to fund roading to fix the transport problems in this country and here we are again—we have a sense of déjà vu. 
This bill to increase petrol tax and road-user charges makes the fifth increase in taxes on motorists since Labour has been in power. What does this Government have against motorists for goodness’ sake? Why is this Government picking motorists as the group of New Zealanders who should be socked with increases in taxes? That is pretty unfair particularly if one sits in Auckland or Wellington rush hour traffic day after day. One can hardly tell one is sitting on a motorway; one probably thinks one is sitting in a great big parking lot. The traffic problems in this country are pretty diabolical and in 5 years this Government has failed to fix those problems. 
The Hon Lockwood Smith spoke in his contribution about a particular road that affects his electorate—the Albany to Puhoi realignment B2 which is the extension of the northern motorway. That road is the gateway to the north which is where I live. I think it is an absolute disgrace that the requirements to get planning permission for that road were completed in 1996 but it was held up for 6 years before the Environment Court and through Resource Management Act problems. The Government has failed to address that major barrier to progress in this country. For 6 years that road was held up. The tragedy is that if permission to build that road had come through back then it would have been seen as a No. 1 priority by the Government. The people of Auckland and Northland were promised that the $150 million—as it was back then—needed to complete that road would be put into it straight away and the road would be built. Now because of that 6 year delay this Government has taken it from a No. 1 priority—knowing that it is State Highway 1 the northern motorway and the premier road in New Zealand—down to No. 10. 
Now the people of that region and of New Zealand have been told that instead of the Government funding it like they were promised all those years ago it will be funded through a toll road. That is completely unfair on those people who all knew that it was a State Highway 1 priority that was to be Government-funded through petrol tax money. That promise has been broken and now it will be a toll road. 
Meanwhile the cost has gone up from $150 million to $350 million. I wonder whether the Government cares about that. I think that sort of increase is outrageous and I would like to know why we have a $200 million increase for 7 kilometres of roading. We are not talking about a huge amount of road. I would expect the Government to be able to explain in this debate that yes it does put all that sort of roading work out for competitive tender and it does get the best value for the taxpayer dollar. I think that in this case the escalation is so extreme that questions do need to be asked. 
The Hon Lockwood Smith talked about the number of stealth taxes this Government has brought in since 1999. I just want to set the record straight: this is the 34th stealth tax imposed since this Government took office. I refer to increases in petrol taxes excise taxes on alcohol and sherry—if members recall this Government rushed up the tax on sherry—and taxes on cigarettes and increased levies tariffs and fees. If members can name it the Government has increased it. That contributes to the $34 billion in extra taxes that Labour has taken since coming into office. It is no wonder that the tax now paid by the average working family equals 46 percent of its gross income. That is far too high. That 46 percent of gross income comes back to Wellington to fund all the things this Government is trying to do. Looking at that one has to conclude that this Government is taking away choices from working families. It is taking away such choices as mothers being able to stay at home and care for their children. Under this Government the pressure on those families has escalated. That is a disgrace and is certainly not in the best interests of New Zealand families. 
If we then go to the issue of petrol tax we find that of the $1.20 or so per litre that we have to pay over 50 percent of it goes back to the Government. It goes into the consolidated account. I understand that around 13c to 14c of that money goes into roading. Of the 60c or so only a very small proportion goes into roading. So I would say to the Government—and maybe Mr Cunliffe can put us right and tell us exactly what the figures are—that if it wants to put more money into roading why does it not just use the petrol tax money that it already collects? Why does it have to add another levy on to motorists? That appears to me to be deceitful and totally unfair. At a time when petrol prices are rising rapidly because of external pressures we have a Government that is putting its own pressure on to motorists and making it almost unaffordable to get into one’s car and drive. I say that is something that the average family that owns a car can well do without. 
This bill is an unfair bill. When the Prime Minister came into office she promised that there would be no tax increases for the 95 percent of New Zealanders who earn under $60000. We know that because of the inflation that has gone on and the creep of taxation a whole load of New Zealanders are now in that high tax bracket and also that a whole lot of them have to pay the unfair stealth taxes that Labour is imposing. 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to speak on the Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill and to announce to the House that United Future will support the bill. We understand that nobody in this country wants to pay tax and we would all like to see tax reduced but we are prepared to pay tax that goes to specific purposes. Most reasonable New Zealanders when they see a benefit from paying tax are prepared to pay their share. We are prepared to support this legislation because this tax is being raised to improve the conditions of our roads in New Zealand and to build the new roads we need. 
We want better roads in this country. I do not believe there is a motorist who would oppose seeing a better quality of road which would mean safer roads for our drivers and passengers and a more efficient transport system. We go to Europe and see their beautiful roads and we understand the price they pay to have that. The cost of their fuel is far far higher than what New Zealanders pay for their petrol here in New Zealand. So we are prepared to support the legislation because 100 percent of this new tax will go to the National Land Transport Fund to be spent on the construction of new roads and the improvement of roads which are desperately needed in New Zealand. 
The second reason we will support it is because it will then be redistributed from the National Land Transport Fund back to the regions it was raised from on a population-distribution basis. We believe that is very good news. United Future has long supported that when we devolve responsibilities to local government we should also give local government the funding it needs to carry out those responsibilities. This is one instance where local communities which face increased costs in building their roads and in improving the State highway network will get back the tax increase for their own regions so that they can have some decision-making power over how the money is spent. We believe that is very good progress on United Future’s policy of devolution of funding to local government and to local communities. 
We agree with the Minister of Finance that it is prudent to allow flexibility as to when to introduce the new tax because of the recent spike in fuel prices. If in fact fuel prices are still very high next year it will make sense to defer the introduction of the tax for some time; at this stage no one can predict what the fuel price will be next year. But we do not believe that we should base all our decisions on overseas factors. We need to have roads in New Zealand and we have to pay for them. 
We should have built those roads some time ago as has been pointed out by other speakers before me. It would have been a lot cheaper to build them in years gone past. The longer we wait to build the roads we need now the more it will cost us in the future. We should not have been diverting as much of the fuel tax to what was the consolidated account but is now the Crown account; previous National and Labour Governments used to take a lot more of the fuel tax than happens today under this Government. We would already have had better-quality roads and they would have been built more cheaply than their cost today. The longer we wait the more it will cost us so by both fuel tax and other means we need to get stuck into the important task of building an efficient transport network in our country. The longer we wait the more construction costs there will be and the more costs there will be to our economy from the congestion and frustration that people face in trying to move both people and products around our country. To have a vibrant economy we must have an efficient affordable integrated safe sustainable and responsive transport system and that is part of what our national land transport strategy states very clearly. 
United Future is well aware of the concerns of New Zealand motorists about the diversion of what is currently 18.5c per litre from the fuel excise tax to the Crown account. In supporting this legislation United Future makes it very clear that we continue to have an ongoing concern about that and we have consistently pressured the Government to complete a study into what the costs to us all in New Zealand are of petrol use for transportation—in other words the health effects of fuel emissions and the environmental costs and effects of vehicle use and road construction. For the last 2 years I have urged the Ministers of Transport to complete the study so that there can be transparency in New Zealand about what the money is being diverted for. I am happy to know that according to information given to me recently the study is almost complete and we will be able to have a discussion in this country about whether it is justifiable for 18.5c to be diverted to the Crown account to take care of those other non-road costs of the use of petrol fuel in New Zealand. If we cannot answer that question transparently and openly it is understandable that motorists begrudge the fact that more tax is coming at the same time as the Government is diverting some of the existing tax that has already been raised without a good explanation of where it goes. 
In answer to my written question to the Hon Pete Hodgson I received the reply that last year 3.214 billion litres of petrol were sold in New Zealand. At a rate of 18.5c per litre approximately $594 million was diverted to the Crown account. We want the Surface Transport Costs and Charges Scoping Study for New Zealand which is the study being conducted to justify that diversion of expenditure to be able clearly to convince New Zealanders that there is $594 million worth of reasonable cost associated with petrol use in our country; otherwise we should see a further reduction of the amount of 18.5c that is currently being diverted to the Crown account. United Future again pledges our commitment today to the New Zealand motorist that we will faithfully and consistently remind the Government of its obligation to answer that question for motorists and to present the information to the motoring public. 
We do however congratulate the Minister of Finance on agreeing last year to my request to reduce the diversion to cover the cost of the Auckland funding package announced last year. Somewhere between 2c and 3c will be coming off the amount diverted as that package comes into full effect. That is more than New Zealand First ever accomplished when it was the coalition partner of National and when the leader of New Zealand First was Treasurer for the country. 
I state again for clarity’s sake that if the surface costs and charges study does not adequately answer motorists’ accusations of unjustified diversion to the Crown account United Future will expect the Government at the very least to announce a future reduction in the amount diverted that matches the 5c we are asking motorists to put their hands into their pockets and pay for the important project of building new roads in our country. 
 United Future supports our building roads and paying for them via revenue raised by fuel excise tax and road-user charges because it does make sense. It is an efficient way to raise revenue. But we do not think it is the only way to pay the cost of road construction. In fact if we were to rely on only that method the cost of fuel in New Zealand would rise dramatically which would create real hardships for some sectors of our society and our economy. The NBR - Phillips Fox poll last week demonstrated that a resounding 60 percent of those polled said they supported the use of road tolls to pay for the improvement of existing roads and the building of new roads. A resounding 60 percent of New Zealanders endorsed United Future’s achievement in this term of Government in passing legislation—with the Government—that allowed for alternative methods of raising revenue to pay for road construction and road improvements. The  
National Business Review  
article stated: “The Labour-led Government has been given a wake-up call on roading issues by the latest NBR - Phillips Fox poll.” It would probably have been more accurate to say that the Green Party was being given a wake-up call because New Zealanders want roads; or that the New Zealand First Party was being given a wake-up call because New Zealanders are prepared to pay tolls to build new roads where necessary. 
So we shall be supporting this legislation which is only one part of a package of measures in order to improve our transport infrastructure in this country. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 Firstly I congratulate and thank that member for a very helpful and useful contribution. The United Future party has—[ 
Interruption 
] Someone is making animal noises and I presume it is someone from the National Party. Oh no it sounds like it may be someone from New Zealand First. I want to congratulate the United Future party members. I think they have had a constructive debate on and engagement in this policy. Their very helpful suggestions as we worked through this policy when I was the Minister of Transport ensured that more funding was siphoned off into transport and I think that was helpful. I want to thank them for the support they have given the Government on the transport policy on its way through. 
I also want to thank Green Party members for their support. They made an important contribution as well in indicating that transport is not just about roads—roading is an important component and it is the component that requires the most funding—but in fact transport is about road rail sea and air transport. That is what a transport strategy is about. I always ask people who go on constantly about roads and who say that public transport does not matter what the Wellington roading system would be like without the rail network in Wellington. It would be impossible to navigate one’s way through the traffic at a peak-hour of the morning. 
So I welcome the helpful and constructive contributions to the debate from both United Future and the Greens as opposed to the whingeing and whining that we constantly hear for example from the National Party. What do National members want? They want to build more roads and they want to cut taxes. They want to build more roads but they do not want to put any more money into it. It is the old Tory policy of somehow trying to make money out of nothing. 
Darren Hughes 
: Voodoo economics. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: It is voodoo economics. It borders very closely on Social Credit economics and that is why no one really takes them seriously on transport policy. No one took them seriously—everybody laughed at them—for 6 years when they went around the country with a strategy called Better Transport Better Roads whereby they were going to privatise the roads as I recall. The local authorities did not warrant hardly a mention in it and that is why the local authorities are very very pleased with the efforts that have been made now. 
I congratulate my colleague Mark Gosche a former Minister of Transport who got all of this going. He was the person who broke the deadlock. He got rid of the gridlock and began the programme of work. I was very happy as Minister of Transport to work with particularly local authorities to move forward a special package for Auckland. We are now working on one for Wellington. All of the money that results from this funding will go into transport and we will see the next stage of development in New Zealand. I congratulate the very hard-working and conscientious Minister of Customs on pushing this bill through the House and I thank the parties that are supporting it. What I would like to hear is just one little wee tiny bit of policy from the National Party. I am sure I will be waiting a long time. 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 That contribution was from the Minister of Immigration—the Minister who is going to bring in 1000 Pacific Islanders to build roads in New Zealand and another 1000 Pacific Islanders to be prison officers. That was that Minister’s contribution. 
It brings me to a point that is important for United Future to note. We were told by Minister Rick Barker during the first reading of the bill that the Government was committed to ensuring that all of the 5c of extra tax would go into building roads. United Future members said that the only reason they were supporting this legislation was that all of the 5c would go into building roads. Then we heard from the Minister of Immigration who said that it was not all about roads. Unfortunately United Future did not give a wake-up call to the Labour Government; as usual it just keeled over and was submissive to it. 
It is important to point out that nowhere in the bill does it state that all the 5c will go into building roads. All it states is that the extra 5c will go into the National Land Transport Fund which has three main objectives: the road safety administration programme road funding and funding for passenger transport. So I want to put on the record United Future’s statement that if it finds out that not all the 5c goes into building roads it will not continue to support this legislation. Currently out of the $1.20— 
Paul Adams 
: I seek the leave of the House to be able to give a short explanation as to why all of this 5c will be going to road construction. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The reality is of course that the House is master of its own destiny. If the member is seeking leave he is quite entitled to do that. It is up to the House whether it grants it. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is. 
PANSY WONG 
: That member has already had a full 10 minutes and he did not even explain United Future’s policy. I think he should negotiate with Labour because it has many calls left. That member has been so helpful to the minority Labour Government that I am sure it will be happy to yield a call to him. 
At the moment motorists pay depending on where they are about $1.20 a litre and out of that 41c already goes to the National Land Transport Fund. Today this bill is stating that they will pay an additional 5c but I want to make it very clear that it is not just an additional 5c because there is GST on top of it. More than that the Government is also going to introduce an indexation formula which means that the amount will be automatically adjusted according to the inflation rate. The Governor of the Reserve Bank has already told the Finance and Expenditure Committee that in the coming year it is very likely that the inflation rate in New Zealand will hit the top mark of the 0 to 3 percent range. The select committee has been warned that the inflation rate is likely to hit 3 percent or even exceed 3 percent. Make no bones about it Labour is sneaking in that indexation formula basically to avoid coming back to Parliament to get a mandate to sneak in another tax. 
Brian Connell 
: How much? 
PANSY WONG 
: As my colleague Dr Muriel Newman of ACT has already pointed out 34 tax increases have been sneaked in. Can members guess how much extra tax has been introduced by this Labour Government in 5 years? There have been 34 tax increases bringing in $34 billion. Thirty-four is a good number to remember—34 tax increases $34 billion. Those are numbers that it is important to remember. This bill before us today introduces the 35th tax increase. National still wants to hear whether it will be put into road construction. 
Also I want to know why United Future would support a bill with an indexation formula when Labour flatly refused to support United Future’s amendment to the taxation bill that would have introduced an indexation formula into the tax threshold to relieve some of the tax pressure on individuals. United Future told its supporters that it was coming into Parliament to keep Labour honest to give it a wake-up call but today we are still waiting to see that. I see that Gordon Copeland put out a press release stating that United Future’s task in Parliament is actually only to embarrass the Labour Government. Members should just think about that. What sort of political party would come into Parliament only to embarrass the Government? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Why didn’t the member turn up this morning? 
PANSY WONG 
: We now have the pleasure of the Minister of Education joining us in the House. He is the Minister who has single-handedly caused a 50 percent drop in international student numbers coming to New Zealand. Now our primary and secondary schools have to look for alternative funding to make up for the shortfall. Unfortunately parents have to mow more lawns paint more buildings and bake more cakes to increase their schools’ funding. 
The Minister should take a call. When Labour members cannot hack it they just sit there yelling their heads off. They should take a call and tell New Zealanders why any political party should support their Government’s 35th tax increase when it has proudly announced a $7 billion surplus. Yesterday the Finance and Expenditure Committee was told that the Inland Revenue Department has $8 million to spend on promoting the Working for Families package to attract the 48000 people who might potentially be entitled to its benefits—$150 per person. The Inland Revenue Department is the department that makes sure everybody pays his or her taxes but of course when it comes to a certain Labour Minister that seems to be overlooked in the process. 
Let me make the National Party’s position clear. It was outlined by Dr Smith but Labour still does not understand it. Labour is still in the cash-flow accounting stage and it thinks it can tax everybody in order to build roads that will last for a long time. Also I remind United Future about the NBR - Phillips Fox poll: 60 percent of respondents said that tolls were the way to go rather than tax increases. Why when the Government has announced a $7 billion surplus and channelled a lot of money to the consolidated account should the motorist once again be asked to contribute more? We must not forget that today we are voting in not just a 5c a litre increase; it is 5c a litre plus GST and also with indexation—and according to the Governor of the Reserve Bank New Zealand is looking at inflation being at the high end of the range which is 3 percent. 
The other cynical point made by the Minister of Finance was that he just might defer the introduction of the tax if petrol prices stay high. So after this increase has been introduced what will happen in 2006 if petrol prices hit an all-time high? Will that mean that that particular increase is withdrawn? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Associate Minister of Revenue) 
: 
 It is a great pleasure to take a short call on the Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill. My whips have asked me to keep it to a mere 8 minutes so I will give the member only four quick lessons in transport economics. 
The first lesson is this: road transport is good—but so is rail ferry air and public transport. A lot of congestion on the roads can be relieved by a bit of petrol tax. Auckland has a billion dollars worth of congestion a year according to some estimates. The second lesson is—wait for it—this: roads cost money. They have to be paid for—somebody has to pay for them. Whether it is by a combination of Government spending the odd toll road here or there or the odd public-private partnership in order to be built roads have to be paid for. The third lesson is that there is no free lunch. If there was no 5c per litre excise tax on petrol the money would have to be taken out of the consolidated account and that would mean either having another tax or cutting other expenditure. There is no free lunch. The fourth and final lesson in my short call is this: just because the previous National Government ran an infrastructure deficit all the way through the 1990s that does not mean we have to make it worse now. Two wrongs do not make a right—or was that two “Wongs”? 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 When the Minister in charge of this bill introduced it to the House he bragged about taking money from one section of society and giving it back to another—robbing Peter to pay Paul. He cannot understand why people are not standing in the aisles and applauding him. Then we had the rather pathetic sight of Mr Gosche standing up and taking a call. He is another has-been Labour Government Minister. He had the audacity to say that the National Party had no idea. When we asked him what his idea was he said it was taxation— that Labour was going to tax everyone. Well that is not a novel idea because this Government has already done that 34 times. 
Pansy Wong 
: How many times? 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: Thirty-four times. That is that member’s idea of how to fix the problem. Then when he should have sat down and shut up he made things worse because he went on to take credit for having split the police force and the traffic department and for putting cops on the roads. They are the most hated members of New Zealand society—and he wants us to applaud him for that! Then Mr Swain got to his feet and said he wanted to know what the Tories’ policy was. I say to him that it is very simple: we are going to get rid of the Government he belongs to. Then the big schoolyard bully Mr Mallard staggered into the Chamber. He took a couple of cheap shots but he did not have the strength of character to stand up and take a call. I challenge him now to stand up and take a call. In fact I will yield the rest of my call if Mr Mallard gets up to take a call. There is the challenge. He had a lot to say before but will he do that? No he will not do it. Mr Cunliffe got to his feet as well and the less said the better about his speech. 
Surprise surprise! Here we are again debating another piece of legislation that is nothing but a cheap and greedy tax take. This Government seems determined to tax anything that moves. I say to people across New Zealand that if they want to avoid being clobbered by the Labour Government’s tax machine they should change their last name to Tamihere. That is the only way they will avoid getting belted for tax in this country. If this Government would only share some of that koha—just a little of it—with fellow New Zealanders by giving them a tax break they would not feel as badly off as they do. I find it absolutely staggering that this Government can even contemplate introducing legislation such as this when international oil prices are going through the roof. Rather than give fellow New Zealanders a break when the Government has a surplus of $7.5 billion what is it doing? It is imposing more and more tax. 
Pansy Wong 
: How much more? 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: How much more have Labour members taken in taxes since they have been in Government? 
Pansy Wong 
: Yes how much? 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: A staggering $34 billion. That is a 40 percent increase and now they want to take some more. Michael Cullen is smiling because he knows that I am right. 
How are we supposed to encourage production in this country when we are giving investors every reason to look elsewhere? Our electricity prices are going through the roof. Supply is uncertain thanks to “Blackout Pete”. Our compliance costs— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member knows he cannot say that. If he says that again his speech will be terminated. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: Our compliance costs are going through the roof and the Resource Management Act is choking off any sort of productive capacity in this country. Yet this Government now wants to put the boot in just in case there is any doubt that it wants to make this place as unattractive as it possibly can be as an investment destination. What this country needs is nothing less than an extreme makeover. In fact what this Government needs is an extreme makeover so it can cut out the endemic dishonesty and deception that it now practises in its everyday politics. Export industries in this country are seriously suffering as a result of the high exchange rate of the New Zealand dollar. The last thing that exporters need is to have another production cost added. Some members in the United Future party will cringe at the fact that they are building costs into the productive sector in this country because I know that some of them have run businesses before and they know that the way to erode profit margins is to build in costs. But other members of that undistinguished party I am afraid just want to give a tick to the Government regardless of whether it is the right thing to do or the wrong thing. 
Our export industries are a bit like John Tamihere. Their problems just keep being compounded and compounded by the fact that someone keeps building in more and more costs and explanations and sometimes one just does not know which way is up. But unlike Mr Tamihere the industries of this country do not have the protection of the Prime Minister. She is not interested in the primary production of this country; she is more interested in taxing hard-working Kiwis. She is more interested in Labour ideology and in being out of the country when anything difficult breaks. She is more interested in fact in reshuffling her Cabinet or putting in place meaningless inquiries in order to take the pressure off Cabinet members who are up to no good. That has become endemic in that party. 
What will this Government tax next? It is a hard one because there have been 34 tax increases so far. Michael Cullen is going a bad shade of red— 
Pansy Wong 
: What about the “fart tax”? 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: Carbon tax; that is the answer—there is to be a carbon tax. If people in this country think the situation is bad at the moment with 5c more tax per litre on petrol very soon they will find it will be 6c more per litre on petrol. And now there is to be 7c more tax per litre on diesel. But let us relax. We are told that is OK because it will all go into roading. But who would believe that? Who would believe a Government that said that after that one “envy tax” there would be no more taxes? Who would believe a Government that had a Cabinet Minister in its midst who said he would not take a golden handshake and that we could trust him? Well that sort of thing is endemic. Labour has gone through seven Ministers and judging by the way that Mr Barker went a bad shade of red earlier during question time I suggest the number may be eight soon. I suggest there may be more soon because the Grim Reaper—the people of New Zealand—will come looking for the Labour people who engage in mistruths. 
Members probably have a strong feeling by now that the National Party does not support this legislation. It is just another cheap tax and it will not fix our roading problems in this country. 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 One can almost hear the groans of embarrassment from the people of Rakaia every time that member gets to his feet to do his Lockwood Smith imitation of being angry about every single piece of legislation that comes before the House. Every piece of hyperbole that one could ever imagine gets thrown around the Chamber. I know as a rural member of Parliament how important the roading network is. I look forward to seeing this bill go to a select committee so that it can investigate alternative ways of funding roading improvements around our country. This legislation will make a big difference in rural areas and I support it. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill be now read a first time 
Ayes 70 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Maori Party 1. 
Bill read a first time. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Customs) 
: 
 I move  
That the Customs and Excise (Motor Spirits) Amendment Bill be referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee for consideration 
referred to Finance and Expenditure Committee 
 that the committee present its final report on or before 16 December 2004 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time during a sitting of the House except during questions for oral answer during an evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c). 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 70 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Maori Party 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
Urgency 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That urgency be accorded the Committee stage of the Care of Children Bill. 
 The motion is moved in order that the House can move to the third reading on Tuesday and thus complete its consideration of the bill before it rises for the adjournment. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That urgency be accorded. 
Ayes 62 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Maori Party 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
Care of Children Bill 
Instruction to Committee 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Care of Children Bill that it take the bill part by part. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 62 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Maori Party 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
Procedure 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 There has been some discussion between the parties and I understand that there is agreement on the procedure to be followed. I therefore seek leave for the questions on the amendments to Part 2 of the Care of Children Bill set out on Supplementary Order Papers 292 293 and 294 be taken in the following order before any other amendments to the provisions proposed to be amended each with a personal vote: firstly the amendment to clause 37 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 294 in the name of Murray Smith secondly the amendments to clause 35 and new clause 37A set out on Supplementary Order Paper 292 in the name of Judith Collins and thirdly new clause 37B set out on Supplementary Order Paper 293 in the name of Judith Collins. I understand that if those amendments fail there is a further amendment moved by Mr Dail Jones that should also be taken as a personal vote. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection to that course being followed? There appears to be none. 
In Committee 
Part 1Preliminary provisions  
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on Part 1 of the Care of Children Bill. Some clauses in Part 1 have some merit and today I shall focus on some of the more important parts some that do not have quite as much merit and some of the reasons why the National Party is not supporting the whole of the bill although there are some parts that it will. 
Part 1 starts off with the premise that the child’s welfare and best interests are supposed to be paramount and they are. They have to be paramount. However that is already covered in existing law in the Guardianship Act. Part 1 makes some changes and states that the child’s view must be taken into account in relation to where he or she lives and those sorts of other matters. That sounds great in theory but the fact is that the child’s view is already being taken into account in the Family Court and by any parent worth his or her salt. 
Of concern is that under Part 1 children are being asked to choose between parents. That is a very very real concern for those of us with any experience in family law and there are particularly difficult issues when children are so often tugged between parents in very very difficult situations. Let us face it the Care of Children Bill is not legislation that most children in this country will ever have anything to do with. Although the Care of Children Bill is said to be about recognising families in their very many diverse forms it does not deal with families that for the most part are functioning. It deals with unusual situations where families are not functioning correctly. 
That is because families that are functioning and even families that have split up and broken apart but are still bound together by the love care and concern for the welfare of their children do sort things out without going through the process of bringing the law into the matter and wherever possible without going anywhere near the Family Court. It is not that the Family Court is an evil place or that the people in it do not do a very good job. By and large they do a good job. The fact is that parents need to keep their children out of the Family Court and they need to keep themselves out because every cent spent in the Family Court is a cent that is not spent on the child. 
This bill does not state one thing about the role of parents in sorting out their differences and keeping the Family Court out of their lives. Itprovides for counsel for the child. Counsel for the child has been around for a long time and it isa really sad day when we have to state in legislation that counsel for the child—as if it were a really new and wonderful thing—must meet the child. Most people would think that that was a pretty basic arrangement. Most people would think that any law that would allow counsel for the child to exist to be paid and supposedly represent the child and allows for a counsel for the child not to meet the child and not to take his or her views into account would be poor law. It is one that we have been paying for for a long time and it has nothing in particular to do with anything other than the fact that judges and the court system have allowed that to happen. One of the reasons for that is that the Family Court has for a long time been a very secret court. 
One of the concerns that worries us in particular in relation to Part 1 is the day-to-day care provision where day-to-day care is now to be the new politically correct term for custody. Apparently custody implies some ownership. Well parents do own their children but children own their parents and that is something we need to get through in this country. To call day-to-day care the parenting that a normal parent goes about with his or her child is an insult to parents. It reduces parental custody and parental rights responsibility to that of being a childcare worker paid by the hour. Interestingly the concept of partner of a parent gets a huge amount of status in this legislation. Of course it has nothing to do with care of children; it is all to do with parental rights over who they want to have as their partner. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First opposes this bill essentially because it does very little that is new but millions of dollars will be spent to try to achieve its purpose and in so doing it can only confuse well-established legal principles. For example if the Government wanted to do something about making the courts more open that could have been the subject of a simple amendment. Otherwise this legislation is really hidden around the construct of the Labour Party as part of its gender-bending agenda to have lesbians homosexuals and other forms of relationships get formal legal recognition. That is absolutely unnecessary. As we heard from so many witnesses the courts already recognise lesbian relationships as being relationships that are capable of being granted custody orders. We had one of those extraordinary matters before the select committee where it appeared that a lesbian relationship had broken up and one of the lesbians had got custody of the other lesbian’s natural children and was living in yet another lesbian relationship. One wonders what would happen if that lesbian relationship broke up and how many children one lesbian would end up being the mother and the father to. But that is all possible under the existing law. 
There is no need for this legislation as far as that is concerned and it was explained to the many lesbians and homosexuals who came before the select committee that we had witnesses who said yes they had had court orders from the court it took time it was difficult and that is the court’s role but currently under the existing law they could get those orders for custody. 
 So what is the point of this bill other than to put into legislation the Labour Party’s gender-bending attitude to relationships? The court already knows what a de facto partner is; that is common sense. We know what a de facto partner is. We know what a de jure partner is. We do not need some legislature telling us what that means. But this Minister in particular and his Government feel they must dictate everything to the country and tell people what they ought to do and what they ought not to do. 
In fact the existing legislation—the Guardianship Act of 1968—states that the welfare of the child is paramount. That provision goes back to 1926. It has worked well at least since 1926 but this interfering busybody Labour Government must interfere in people’s lives to the nth degree and overturn well-established legal views set in place as far back as 1926. 
When we look at section 23(1) of the Guardianship Act it covers almost everything—in a few lines—that is currently contained in Part 1 of this bill. It states: “(1) In any proceedings where any matter relating to the custody or guardianship of or access to a child or the administration of any property belonging to or held in trust for a child or the application of the income thereof is in question the Court shall regard the welfare of the child as the first and paramount 
consideration.” That has worked perfectly for almost 80 years. Yet here we have this interfering Labour Government trying to window-dress a change to suggest that it has brought things up to date; that things are all very much more modern now. But all it has done is waste everybody’s time in getting back to virtually the current situation but using different names.  
There will be awful confusion as I believe Judge Mahoney said at the Justice and Electoral Committee as to the use of words like “day-to-day care” in an order. The terms “custody order” and “access order” have worked very well. But “day-to-day care order”—itwill take a long time to work out what that means. Now we have the term “parenting order”. Well do we have to tell a parent that he or she has a parenting order? Parents know they are parents. But now we have parenting orders. Is that something for the lowest common denominator in our society? Is that the Labour Government saying that it knows best and it will call it a parenting order? But a parenting order sounds just like a custody order and everyone will call it a “custody order” for a long time yet because that is really all it still is. Is the “day-to-day care order” an access order or not?  
This Minister has absolutely no legal training. In fact hardly any Labour member of Parliament has legal training. I do not know whether any of them have actually been in a Family Court in the last 10 to 15 years to see how the court works. They have no idea whatsoever. Of course that includes the Attorney-General who I suspect has never been in a court at all yet she accepts responsibility for this type of legislation. 
This bill is complete nonsense. It is a waste of time and it is confusing. Part 1 adds nothing to the existing law apart from taking up so much important time of this Parliament and this country. No one should support it. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party will be voting against the Care of Children Bill as well but I would like to put on the record where we stand over this whole issue of family law reform. If the Committee thinks back to the period 2000-01 that was when a bill that actually started off a lot of the debate about family law was debated in Parliament; it was a member’s bill to introduce shared parenting. It appeared to me in my research about how to try to ensure that children in New Zealand do better and particularly those kiddies whose parents have separated and have had to go through the whole trauma of family breakdown that some countries had done better than others— in particular countries like Sweden Holland and many states in America where they had brought into their family law something that they called “shared parenting”. It was an interesting concept which I brought into our New Zealand Parliament back then. Labour voted down that bill but promised to come back to this Parliament with some legislation that would actually address those issues. 
It is with a great deal of sadness that I was not able to convince the Government to look at introducing shared parenting into this Care of Children Bill because the principle of shared parenting is one that is just based on common sense. Essentially that principle means that just as two parents are considered to be equal in their rights and their responsibilities towards their child or children before a family breaks down so too should those two parents still be considered equal in terms of their rights and responsibilities after a family breaks down. That in fact should be the case unless the other parent can prove that one is unfit to be a good parent. 
What we have in New Zealand is the opposite of that. We have had a situation where those parents who do not need to go to lawyers do not need to go to the Family Court often end up with shared parenting arrangements which work very well because the courts do not hear about those cases. But for those parents who are locked into a battle over the children the history in New Zealand has been of giving sole custody to one of the parents and traditionally it has been the mothers but the sad part about it is that the fathers have been locked out. That has given rise to growing levels of fatherlessness in New Zealand and a growing concern by all sorts of New Zealanders and in fact State authorities over the impact on children of growing up without a dad in their lives. 
So when we have sole custody going to one parent and the other one ending up by being locked out we get problems. Shared parenting was a way of addressing those problems and trying to bring a better balance back into the way we deal with family law that deals with children in New Zealand. 
I suppose the greatest sadness from my perspective is that we heard what rebuttable shared parenting could do. We call it “rebuttable shared parenting” because it is a default position; it means that when a couple separate if they are both decent people then they have to make the arrangements for how best to look after their child by working out what is in the best interests of their child. Whether it is the children or child living with mum during the week and dad at the weekends or whatever it happens to be it is up to them to make the individual set of arrangements that best suit their child. 
In countries where they have shared parenting 20 to 30 different types of arrangements tend to be the ones that parents agree to. It takes the warfare out of the divorce situation the separation. It makes sure the child does not lose either mum or dad or grandparents or other family members as well. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Labour Government did not agree to at least bringing this type of provision into family law given that this is the best opportunity that New Zealand has ever had. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Clause 4 explicitly states: “The welfare and best interests of the child must be the first and paramount consideration—”. Then when I read new clause 4A(e) stating that the child’s safety must be protected and how he or she must be protected from all forms of violence I question whether this bill would be sufficient to protect a young 5-year-old girl whose case was brought to my attention by her heroic grandmother now her guardian at my electorate office in June of this year. 
This 5-year-old child was described by her oldest sister as having been kept for prolonged times in a dog kennel or in an old freezer; that a cattle prod was used on her; that she also had burns inflicted and was tied to the back of a motorbike and dragged. A specialist paediatrician said: “The MRI or brain-scan image indicates that this child has been the subject of severe head trauma. This type of severity of head injury is not seen in simple household accidents.” 
When I see in clause 4 that the welfare and best interests of the child must be the first and paramount consideration I think back to the day in my electorate office when I was shown the newspaper headline: “Child ‘lucky’ Couple narrowly escape jail for cruelty to daughter”. The newspaper report notes: “Cassandra Marie-Rose Edwards 31 and her partner Bruce Lloyd Potaka 26 were sentenced for cruelty to a child.” They neglected to seek medical attention for her after what was described as a home accident. What also stunned me was that the judge Michael Crosbie handed down a sentence of 280 hours’ community work to Edwards and Potaka. How does this equate to a life living with multiple brain injuries? As I read the paediatric consultant’s diagnosis which stated that the severity of that type of injury is not seen in simple household falls I wondered how carefully authorities had followed up on what had happened to her. 
On the same day that this child’s grandmother came to see me I wrote to the Hon Phil Goff and other Ministers seeking urgent advice. I stated in my letter: “I am aware that an appeal should be instigated urgently because of the timeframe available and would ask you to make every endeavour to do so.” I did not receive a definitive reply from Minister Goff until 12 July 12 days after the opportunity for appeal had closed. 
Fortunately I had been given alternative advice to write to the Crown Solicitor Andrew Cameron from whom I had a reply. It stated: “I confirm that the Solicitor-General has determined that a sentence appeal is appropriate in this case and it has been duly filed with the Court of Appeal. … Should further evidence emerge which would enable assault charges to be laid I will ask to review the file with this in mind.” 
On 1 October 5 days before the appeal was due to be heard the girl’s grandmother received a letter from the Deputy Solicitor-General N M Crutchley which stated: “I wish to advise that this appeal will not proceed.” What astounds me is the third paragraph which states: “The Crown remains of the view that as a general principle it considers wilful neglect of a child should be met with a term of imprisonment.” It seems extraordinary that the Crown has done a pre-trial deal whereby Mr Potaka and Ms Edwards have been sentenced to a community sentence when the Crown says quite clearly that it remains of the view that as a general principle it considers that wilful neglect of a child should be met with a term of imprisonment. Since that letter I have written to the Commissioner of Police asking for a full inquiry. 
I wonder as to the efficacy of clause 4 “Child’s welfare and best interests to be paramount”—the “paramount clause” of this bill when I think of that little girl and her grandmother and they way she has been served by the police by Child Youth and Family Services by the court process and even by the lackadaisical attitude of Ministers of the Crown to my urgent pleas. No assault charges have ever been laid. I hope that all these authorities do better and will recall the words of the neuropsychologist who assessed this child. Those words were that she has been “severely physically and emotionally abused” and the perpetrator is still out in the community and is therefore free to engage in further abuse of children. The paramount clause of this bill has not been upheld in practice. 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 In rising on behalf of United Future to speak to Part 1 of the Care of Children Bill I want to address clause 4A “Principles relevant to child’s welfare and best interests”. That clause provides that a child’s parents and guardians should have the primary responsibility for the child’s care development and upbringing. It appears that the whole Committee including the Government agrees that a child’s parents and guardians should have the primary responsibility for the child’s care development and upbringing and that is quite proper and quite logical. We do not give that responsibility to the State. We give that role to parents and particularly we give that role to parents until children reach the age of 16 years. 
Why do we do that? We do that because parents provide what the State cannot provide. Parents provide love and affection for their children whom they have conceived and nurtured and had dealings with over their whole lifetime. Parents provide money way beyond what the State could afford in order to properly nurture and bring up a child often extremely sacrificially. They go to extraordinary lengths where children need special assistance such as with special-needs children and other children who suffer disabilities and they use their life savings to help their children to have the best life that is possible. Parents provide time. They are with their children day and night and the State at best can provide only short-term supervision. We do not give the primary responsibility for children to schools to school councillors and nurses or to doctors. Why not? Because schools do not provide the love and affection on an individual basis that parents can provide—far from it. The schools do not have the monetary resources to do that job and they do not have the time to look after children night and day. Children are at school for a few brief hours each working day. Doctors do not provide the love and affection that parents do. They have a multitude of patients to care for. Doctors do not have money to put into children and they do not have the time—they see children for a few brief minutes in appointments. 
Parents are in the best position to know what is best for their children. The case of Stacey Brindle a 16-year-old is one appropriate example of that. She was given contraceptives in order to try to cure acne and she then died from deep vein thrombosis simply because it appears the doctor was unaware that she had a susceptibility to that condition. Her parents knew that but they were not told—they did not know that she had been given that medication. Children are not in the best position to know what is in their own best interests particularly young children and children under the age of 16. That is where our privacy laws have grossly let us down because we assume that children should be able to have privacy and say they do not want their parents to know about something and we assume that that will always be in children’s best interests. It is not. Doctors and children together are not in the best position to know what is in the best interests of a child. Doctors see children for a brief period and a child’s position in terms of seeing a doctor for a brief time is far from satisfactory in terms of the confidence and length of relationship that is necessary to make those sorts of judgments. Doctors act on present symptoms and possibly on past experience. They cannot provide for the future welfare of a child who is in a situation whereby he or she needs ongoing supervision and attention particularly where medication has been prescribed or there is a need for other medical procedures. They simply prescribe the medication and leave the child to it. 
That issue is particularly appropriate when we consider clause 37A and in respect of the termination of a pregnancy. Terminating a pregnancy can have serious health consequences for young children and it is imperative in that situation that the parents be involved in order to oversee the physical emotional and psychological impacts that all pregnancy terminations cause. It is simply inadequate to assume that parents should not be told about a termination because a child and a doctor believe it is not necessary to do so. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I seek leave to table a series of papers relating to the speech I gave prior to the previous speaker. The first is from the  
Wanganui Chronicle 
 and has the headline: “Child ‘lucky’ couple narrowly escape jail for cruelty to daughter”. The second concerns the Crown prosecutor Michelle Howard and is a letter from me dated 23 June 2004 requiring that she instigate a appeal. The third document is from Andrew Cameron Crown solicitor confirming that a sentence appeal is appropriate. The fourth one is from the Minister of Justice Phil Goff and is dated 12 days after the appeal time had run out. The fifth is from the Deputy Solicitor-General advising that the appeal would not proceed. The sixth is from the neuropsychologist involved with the case. The seventh one is from KidzFirst Children’s Hospital advising of the injuries sustained to this little girl. 
Documents by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) 
: 
 I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on this legislation. I do so from the perspective of having listened carefully to the speeches that have been made by members who are concerned about and opposed to this bill. I join them in their opposition to this bill and this sort of legislation. The reason for that is that far too often now Parliament passes a lot of mumbo-jumbo politically correct laws that have no place in our society. We try to be so prescriptive as to deal with every possibility every connotation and everything that may happen and of course we cannot do that in law. 
Instead of spending time here on writing laws that are so prescriptive that we will have to come back and fix them up because we have missed something it would be far better to write laws that encourage parents to look after their children. The sad fact is that we have in this society as in all societies marriages that break up. The problem is that it is the children who are the losers. Under this sort of law what we are finally going to end up with is one parent only. I know the Government will say that it is actually trying to encourage both parents to be involved. We cannot do that by prescription—we cannot write laws that force people to do something. We must write laws that encourage and enable parents to continue to meet their responsibilities even if they are not living together as a couple. This law will fail absolutely. This law that we will probably pass today—because the Government would not have brought it in here to the Chamber if it did not have the numbers to do that—will not encourage both parents to work together in the best interests of the children. Surely that is what Parliament should do. Surely we should look first and foremost to ensure that the child gets the best contact he or she can with both parents. I say to the Government that this bill will not achieve that at all. 
We have got to the stage where we have become so prescriptive in our legislation that we cause stupid decisions to be made repeatedly—to the point where we take away people’s rights take away parental responsibility and cause further problems for people who are grappling with difficult personal situations. We do so because we stand here as a Parliament and say that we can write law because we know best because we can foresee every set of circumstances and because we understand everything that is going to happen. We say that we will put it down in legislation and include every bit of detail so that nothing will go wrong. What a lot of absolute nonsense that is! If members of Parliament look at the laws we have passed in the last decade they will find that there are great gaps in them­—something happens; there is a set of circumstances occurring right now that we did not know about and did not write law for—that somebody falls through. Sadly because we write prescriptive law instead of laws that enable people we end up writing laws that cause more problems and more heartache. 
This bill will do exactly that. Mark my words we will be back in this House in another 2 years or 5 years saying what a great shame it was that the Care of Children Bill did not do this or that. We will end up doing exactly that for the very reason that we have tried to forecast everything that can possibly happen between two people who have a marriage break-up when they have children. Instead of looking at how we can encourage those parents to continue to work together in the interests of their children and their family even if they are not living together—enabling people to work together—we end up writing laws that give some instruction or another. I say to this Committee that that will be an absolute failure. The sad thing is that we are doing it again. Every time that I take the call on this bill I will talk about our writing too much prescriptive legislation instead of writing legislation that enables people. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I am pleased to state that the National Party categorically opposes the Care of Children Bill. In the course of this debate the Committee will hear a number of reasons why we do so. I want to make at least a couple of points in my contribution. First of all if we look at the purpose of the bill we see from the Bills Digest it “will replace the Guardianship Act 1968 and amend the Family Proceedings Act 1980 and the Status of Children Act 1969 with the aim of modernising the law relating to guardianship care of children Family Courts’ procedures and parental status.” On the face of it that is a worthy aim. But on the other hand when we look at the detail of the bill we see that there is no guarantee that the so-called modernisation of several sets of legislation will achieve one jot of difference for the children of this nation. Modernising the law is in itself of no consequence unless there is a vast improvement in what we are doing for the children of New Zealand. This bill in my view does not achieve that at all. I support other speakers from the Opposition side of the Chamber. The Government has taken almost every piece of legislation it can think of and for the sake of looking busy and unnecessarily spending money has reviewed things left right and centre. It brings laws into Parliament to change things because it wants to look as though it knows it all when frankly if we examine the detail we see no guarantee that anything contained in this bill will make our children safer make their lives more pertinent or guarantee that things will be better for them in any way shape or form. That is the first point. 
The second point is that the background to the change is a woolly-woofter explanatory note to the bill that states things like: “Family and ethnic demographics … have changed considerably …”. That is true; we know that. It goes on to state: “The 1968 Act is premised upon a traditional nuclear family model that does not reflect the diversity of family arrangements.” The thing is that the heart of the 1968 Act was exactly the welfare of the child being absolutely paramount. That underlying purpose has to remain true no matter how much the demographics of our country change. The explanatory note then states: “More modern legislation must provide a framework that recognises and supports all types of family units that care for children for example single-parent households extended families reconstituted families”—God only knows what that means under a Labour Government—“and de facto relationships … That challenge is magnified when the varied cultural dimensions of families are considered.” What does that mean? 
I would like the Minister to take the call. I ask him whether it means that for reasons of difference in culture we may accept a lesser standard of care for our children. I certainly hope not. I would have thought that an overriding underlying overarching principle that the interests of the child must be paramount should stand whatever the age whatever the circumstances and whatever period of time in New Zealand we are talking about. That sort of woolly-woofter explanation for changing a law which has stood the test of time to a large degree in my view is not sufficient. It certainly will not get support from the Opposition side of the Chamber and I see that a number of other parties will be opposing the bill as well as National. The Minister tells me to read the bill. Yet we do not have to read far in order to realise—and I support my colleague John Carter on this—that there is a lot of mumbo-jumbo in it. This legislation does not improve the situation one iota. The Minister should read the bill. He should explain to the public of New Zealand what some of these things mean. I want him to explain what is behind the statement that “the varied cultural dimensions of families” must be considered. I do not support that statement. It suggests that depending on a person’s culture a lesser standard of care for his or her children is OK. We will not accept that; I do not accept it. The child is paramount whatever the circumstances. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I appreciate having a second call on this matter which is very seriously regarded by New Zealand First. 
One of the matters that has been raised from time to time by Labour Party members in support of this bill is their view that this bill has a provision that regardless of the age of the child there should be no presumption that the placing of a child in the custody of a particular person will because of the sex of that person best serve the welfare of the child. I have heard Darren Hughes and the Associate Minister of Justice make that remark from time to time. They obviously mean to refer to clause 4(4) but the phrase that I have just read out is from the Guardianship Act 1968 and was inserted in 1980. That provision is perfectly satisfactory and has been around for 24 years. Labour members are trumpeting it as a new idea that the courts must not let the sex of the person applying for custody in any way influence the decision. It is not a new idea. It has been around a long time. 
The wording as one sees when one considers it carefully applies already to the lesbian and the homosexual situation. I am totally opposed to that sort of behaviour but it states: “there shall be no presumption that the placing of a child in the custody of a particular person”—it does not say male or female—“will because of the sex of that person best serve the welfare of the child.” That provision was drafted when I was in the House in 1980 with the assistance of Marilyn Waring. Members can be sure that that type of wording would have been gender-neutral. The current law is entirely gender-neutral and the matter is totally well covered under the existing law by simple wording in a straightforward Act that has been around for a long time. This Labour Party Government tries to trumpet something that is absolute nonsense. 
Another reason that the first part of this bill is invalid is that the Government should have made it clear in clause 3 “Purpose of this Act” that it intended to ensure that the courts would not make ex parte orders without the other side which usually is the father being heard would not grant custody which usually is to the mother of the child—that is the fact of the matter in 85 to 90 percent of cases—without hearing any evidence from the other side and would not totally rely on hearsay evidence from one party who clearly has a very strong vested interest in the matter. This clause should have had a statement that the existing domestic violence legislation was being incorporated in this bill so that there was one codified piece of legislation relating to the care of children. More decisions about the care of children are made under domestic violence legislation than ever will be made under this legislation. The domestic violence legislation will supersede this bill time and time again because under the provisions of the domestic violence legislation an interim custody order will be made the father will lose custody of the child and the child will be without the benefit of having both parents. 
Even Family Court judges have been critical of the changes made in for example 1995. Justice Doogue’s article stated that the decision that had been made—regrettably by the Government of the day which I will not mention—was too much of a reflex action to one case. There was one bad case that took place at about that time. The Government rushed ahead with its viewpoint of the day and decided it would rush through new domestic violence legislation which included things like psychological evidence. We should not be continuing with the 1995 legislation which even judges have criticised for its severity and the way it inevitably works against one party. Reference to that legislation should have been made in the principles and purpose provisions in Part 1 of this bill. That legislation should have been incorporated into this legislation making one law. 
But this Labour Party Government really does not care about all those fathers out there who are unable even to get access rights to their children on a regular basis. Those fathers are made to go through supervised access procedures to sit in supervised access places with in many respects the worst cases in our society who have justifiably had supervised access orders made against them. I have seen cases where 5 and 6-year-olds have had to go to a kindergarten to meet their father and have wondered who the heavy-looking people wearing leather and with all sorts of tattoos over their arms were. Members can imagine the type of behaviour that those people exhibited. Young children were being exposed to that as a result of the domestic violence legislation. 
This bill is rubbish. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 The National Party is not supporting the Care of Children Bill. I have to say that this bill is a wasted opportunity. The reason the Care of Children Bill is before Parliament is that we know we have a problem in New Zealand. We have a major problem with the care of some of our children. We heard from Dr Paul Hutchison just recently of a case that was an example of the sort of thing we see time and time again. We see too much of it in this country. I am sure that if those adults had acted towards another adult in the way that they acted towards a defenceless child they would not have got 280 hours of community service. Somehow we seem to excuse the abuse of children whereas we do not excuse the abuse of other adults. It seems to me that children are defenceless and that penalties for abusing them should be harsher rather than being dumbed down. 
This bill is a wasted opportunity because although it is good to see that we are improving the rights of the child in custody disputes we need to see the Family Court being more open. It is good to see that a lawyer is to be appointed to act for the child. I always thought that we had a lawyer act for the child. It seems absolutely ridiculous to me that it is now put in legislation that the lawyer actually has to see the child. I would have thought it was paramount that a lawyer who was acting for a child in a custody dispute should bother to go and see that child. It seems absolutely self-evident to me that that should be the case. This bill includes a provision that says that has to happen. These people are being paid. What on earth have they been doing to represent the child? It would seem that they and the courts have been relying on psychologists’ reports which can be quite biased in favour of one or other parent depending on whom the psychologist spends the most time with. It is good to see that the lawyer will actually have to see the child he or she is acting for to make some determination for him or her. 
It is also good to see that the child or children will be able to have their views expressed by themselves in a court situation taken far more into account. Children may not be able to express with articulation in a court situation all the ins and outs of what they believe and why they believe it but they do know whom they want to spend their time with. They are the ones who know who the nurturing parent is and will often choose to be with both parents. Most children when a family breaks up do not want it to happen. They want their parents to stay together. If it does happen they want to have access to both parents without any recrimination from either parent without any feeling of guilt and without either parent talking about the other partner in a derogatory sense. 
I am very sad that Muriel Newman’s bill on shared parenting which she introduced to this Parliament years ago and Labour defeated did not pass at that time or even get to a select committee. We heard that some of those issues would be dealt with in the Care of Children Bill but what we have here are changes to guardianship definitions of de facto and very little about the rights and responsibilities of parents. In fact I am not sure that “parent” gets mentioned much in this particular politically correct bill from the Labour Party Government. It talks about de facto relationships and guardianship. There can be more than one guardian; there can be several guardians under this legislation. But what children in this country want is their mum and their dad and ready access to both. 
The fact that shared parenting has not happened is sad. I believe that the emotional trauma of fatherlessness has caused many people in this country immense suffering. I have had father after father in my constituency office who has been denied the right to see his children. One day those fathers were 50 percent of a parenting partnership and involved in the lives of their children and the next day that was gone. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I would like to bring to members’ attention the amendment that has been tabled that introduces shared parenting into the Care of Children Bill. It introduces the concept of rebuttable shared parenting as a default position so that when day-to-day care arrangements are being determined by the court they should be based on the principle that the two parents who gave birth to the child are equal in terms of responsibilities to that child. All care arrangements should be based on the fact that those two parents are equal. 
In doing that I stand here for the right of children to have a mother and a father. I know that many children in New Zealand have lost all effective contact with their dad. I appeal to the Minister in the chair David Benson-Pope who knows my views on this subject and the views of the ACT party to consider supporting this amendment. It would give the children of this country whose parents separate the security of knowing that they will continue to have a dad and to have the grandparents and extended family on that side as well as against a situation that in practice ends up alienating and marginalising the non-custodial parent and the rest of that family. 
I also stand here tonight to advocate for the rights of fathers. Mr Tamihere made his rather infamous speech about the rights of the red-blooded male in New Zealand. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Is he going to speak today? 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: Yes that is a good point. I wonder whether Mr Tamihere will speak in this debate. He has said a number of things that are very supportive of the rights of dads but the proof is in this bill. If Mr Tamihere were serious about what he said about the rights of fathers we would see shared parenting introduced in the Care of Children Bill as it passes through the House today. The onus now rests on the Minister. If he believes in the rights of fathers he should be supporting my amendment which introduces rebuttable shared parenting. If he does not stand for the rights of fathers I think we deserve a call from him so that he can explain to us why he does not support the right of fathers to have contact in an ongoing manner with their children. 
My concern about this bill is that it is one of those bits of Labour legislation that sound good and feel good but that actually will make no difference. In New Zealand we have a practice whereby the custody of children is given to mothers who become the sole custodians of their children. If the mothers let the dads see the kids for more than 40 percent of the time they risk losing their domestic purposes benefit. Forty percent is the cut-off point. We have a system whereby the dads who do see the children for 40 percent of the time have to pay the full amount of child support. They get no allowance for the fact that they have their children almost half of the time. The Labour Government has shown no inclination to change that unfair child support system so that it is actually fairer. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: It’s anti-dad. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: As my colleague the Hon Richard Prebble has just said to me it is an anti-father stance. The Labour Government is against fathers in New Zealand; otherwise it would have done something to fix that in this bill. It is with a heavy heart that I stand here because many New Zealanders thought this bill would sort out the very very unfair situation we have with family law in New Zealand which marginalises kids and is very unfair on fathers. I really ask the Minister to take a call to explain to us how this bill rights the balance that has got out of whack over the last few years. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 I take the opportunity to speak in this debate on behalf of National. As I look across the Chamber which is crowded with Labour members I note that the contribution from them to date has been evanescent. It has been insubstantial. There sit people like the Hon George Hawkins who knows something about family law issues one supposes in the role he seeks to discharge as the Minister of Police. Clayton Cosgrove clearly has a contribution to make but what is that contribution? It is the contribution of moving a closure motion when we are scarcely through this significant Part 1 of the Care of Children Bill. I despair of this Government and its new Minister David Benson-Pope. I am not sure whether he is the front for the social engineering agenda of this Government but he certainly seems to be closely associated with its worst causes. If I were to identify what those worst causes are they would clearly be the Civil Union Bill where he is a frontrunner decisions relating to reforming the laws relating to prostitution which led to prostitution freed of criminal sanction and now the latest excrescence the Care of Children Bill. 
I would like for a moment to pick up comments that earlier speakers have made as to the need for this legislation at all. As a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee I can say without fear of contradiction that the bill certainly occupied a very substantial chunk of our time. The report back noted that 277 submissions were received 102 were heard the hearing of evidence took nearly 39 hours and consideration took nearly 35 hours. On any view of it that is a substantial expenditure of time and effort and I ask “To what avail?”. 
The Guardianship Act of 1968 has served the Family Court and New Zealand families well. Section 23 of that legislation provides that the welfare of the child is paramount. The actual wording is: “… the Court shall regard the welfare of the child as the first and paramount consideration.” So why is that same position repeated in Part 1 of the Care of Children Bill which we are now considering? The reason is that that test which has served so well for so many years is seen as the test that should apply. 
In looking at Part 1 I would like to pick up a particular aspect that must be of concern to anyone concerned with the interests of the family. That is the provision in clause 9(2) in connection with de facto relationships where this Government is prepared to acknowledge that children under the age of 16 may in certain circumstances be part of a de facto couple. That has to be amazing on any view of it. The subclause reads: “Despite subsection (1)(a) for the purposes of …” two other provisions “… a de facto relationship may exist between a child’s mother and father even though they are not both aged 16 years or older.” So it is that the Government is asking the courts to look at relationships involving children who have passed through puberty and who are under the age of 16 in order to determine whether they are in a de facto relationship. 
What are the sorts of things the courts will have to look at? They will have to look at how long the arrangement has gone on for. I am now referring to the statutory tests outlined by the Government in clause 9. They are to look at the duration of the relationship. They are to look at the aspects of the sexual relationship. They are to look at the degree of mutual commitment to a shared life. They are to look at the performance of household duties. How appropriate is it for the courts to be involved in looking at those sorts of statutory criteria for children who are under 16 and presumably 14 and over? It is not appropriate at all. 
TIM BARNETT (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 I referred previously to the principles in clause 4A “Principles relevant to child’s welfare and best interests”. In United Future’s view those principles although they are fine in themselves do not go far enough. I have tabled an amendment to that clause stating: “(aa) the welfare and best interests of a child are best served when the child experiences the love and care of the child’s biological parents when they are living together in a life-long loving and committed relationship to each other.” The amendment is consistent with what United Future believes to be the principles that should underlie all policy that relates to family; namely that the family is the foundational unit that provides stability well-being and continuity to our society; secondly that marriage between a man and a woman is the most deliberate approach to the establishment of a family and that therefore society should promote and support it; thirdly that commitment stability and resilience are essential in marriages and all family relationships; fourthly that the family’s essential function is that of loving caring for and nurturing all its members recognising the need for an equality of well-being among them; fifthly that the interests of children are best served by growing up in a happy understanding safe home created by a loving mother and father supported by the extended intergenerational family or whanau; and finally that family membership requires a balancing of the rights duties and responsibilities of each member. 
The first of two particular aspects of my amendment is that in United Future’s view it is in the welfare and best interests of a child in all cases that the child is brought up by its biological parents. One of United Future’s real concerns in regard to the Care of Children Bill is the Government’s move to replace biological parenthood with social parenthood so that we get to a situation in which a child may have a multitude of parents because they arise through social connections rather than through biological connections. 
The second aspect is the lifelong loving and committed relationship. When children are not brought up in the lifelong loving and committed relationship of their parents they suffer and it is not in their best interests. Clearly that is best fulfilled through marriage. The Government and Parliament should be promoting marriage rather than doing things that will undermine marriage or simply lower it to a common denominator with other relationships such as the proposed civil unions and such as de facto relationships. 
Clearly the importance of permanency in a child’s life—ongoing permanency not the sort of permanency where parents decide to stay together on a day-by-day basis depending on what they feel—is absolutely imperative and should be encouraged by our society. The importance in the child’s life of the parents’ commitment to their relationship cannot be underestimated. Therefore in the Care of Children Bill—which fundamentally deals with the way we approach the care of children in our society and what is in their best interests and welfare—we should be taking the opportunity of promoting the stable lifelong loving and committed relationships that constitute marriage and not at the same time as we are expressing the importance of a child’s well-being undermining it by allowing facilitating and encouraging the sorts of families that clearly do not statistically provide the same outcomes. 
That is certainly true of the provisions in the bill that encourage single women to have children and that encourage same-sex relationships. In neither of those instances can it be shown statistically that the situations provide anything like the same sort of support that loving parents—and biological parents in particular—can provide for their children. It is particularly important that children have both a mother figure and father figure. Certainly there is a dearth of information because of the lack of relationships in terms of same-sex parenting but we know at least that even same-sex parenting research that homosexual researchers have done shows that children in those relationships tend to be far more sexually active and sexually promiscuous. As a nation and as a Parliament we should be putting principles in the bill that will encourage and foster the sorts of relationships that are best for children. 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister for Racing) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. This is one of the most important bills to be considered in the term of this Parliament. It is well known that I have made a number of public statements about the importance of this bill including court proceedings. I find it outrageous having sought the call on four occasions that you have disallowed me even being allowed to participate in this important debate. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: There will be plenty of opportunity to participate. All those in favour please say aye— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Bloody outrageous. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member will stand withdraw and apologise for that remark to the Chair. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. This is a debate in which as my colleague pointed out he has taken a strong personal interest over some time. I expect the debate on Part 2 will be one in which even more members will want to take part. I would be interested to know just how you intend to deal with assigning the call because if Mr Smith was not able to get a call on Part 1 given his degree of involvement there are any number of us who may feel that we are likely to be cut out of Part 2. So I would be interested to know just how you are going to handle it. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Part 2 is the main part of the bill I say to Mr English. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Is this a new point of order? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Yes it is. I recall—and I can deliver the quotes to the Committee—over 10 occasions on which I was told during the contempt of court proceedings and in comment from Government Ministers that the proper place to debate children’s law is in Parliament. I come to Parliament to do so and all Labour members do is move closure motions. I simply seek the leave of the Committee to be able to make a 5-minute contribution as other members have chosen to do to address Part 1 of the Care of Children Bill. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Leave is sought by Dr Smith for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 62 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Maori Party 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Dr Muriel Newman to clause 4(1) be agreed to: 
to insert the following new paragraph: 
(c)that the principle of rebuttable shared parenting be considered as the starting point for day-to-day care determinations. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to 
. 
Ayes 35 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Noes 83 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Ayes 56 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8. 
Noes 62 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Ayes 35 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Noes 83 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to.Amendment not agreed to.Amendments not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Murray Smith to clause 4A be agreed to: 
to insert before paragraph (a) the following new paragraph: 
(aa)the welfare and best interests of a child are best served when the child experiences the love and care of the child’s biological parents when they are living together in a life-long loving and committed relationship to each other. 
A party vote was called for on the question That the amendment be agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendments in the name of Dr Muriel Newman to clause 7 be agreed to: 
to insert in their appropriate alphabetical order the following new definitions: 
shared parenting 
 means joint day-to-day care of a child arranged in such a way that the best interests of the child is paramount but that the starting point is the equality of parental responsibility and rights. 
rebuttable shared parenting 
 as a default position for the starting point of day-to-day care determinations is based on the principle that just as two parents are equal in their parenting responsibilities and rights before a relationship breakdown so too they should be regarded as equal afterwards unless it can be proved that one of the parents is unfit. 
A party vote was called for on the question That the amendments be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 70 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Maori Party 1. 
Part 1 agreed to. 
Part 2 Guardianship and care of children 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The debate on Part 2 includes debate on schedule 1. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 The people of this country have spoken about under-age abortions. In response to a  
New Zealand Herald 
 poll that asked whether people thought that if a girl under the age of 16 went to a doctor to seek an abortion and did not want her parents to know the doctor should inform her parents 71.1 percent of the people surveyed said yes and that does not even take into account those who were not parents. When those people were asked whether the law should make it mandatory for the doctor to inform the girl’s parents 60.7 percent said yes. What is the Government’s response to that? It has said that the law is working nicely thank you. The Government likes 400-and-something girls under the age of 16 years to have abortions every year. It likes to know that the parents may or may not even know about that because it thinks that parents do not need to know. 
I have put forward two Supplementary Order Papers on this matter. Supplementary Order Paper 292 requires three things. First it requires notification to a parent or guardian but if the girl objects to that—and this is very important—there is written notification through to a judge. The reason for written notification is that under the current law judges are not involved where those girls are living in abusive homes or maybe are pregnant because of incest. In fact I am told by some general practitioners that some of them already speak to the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and refer a matter to the police. That is a good thing but unfortunately there is no requirement on them to do so. 
I had a meeting today with the Family Planning Association—a group that we would think would know all about this issue as it works with it all the time—and the association said to me that there are some really good protocols that are used in the UK in respect of under-age abortions and notifying parents. It said we could have that here. Then I pointed out to the association that we are already supposed to have that here. In fact I have here the recommended referral process for general practitioners for suspected child abuse and neglect which includes sexual abuse. The Family Planning Association did not even know about that—I had to show it to the association. I said the recommended referral process had been around for only 2 years so maybe that was why the association did not know about it. That is the sort of level of commitment that we have in this country to this issue. We have none and the Government says that that is fine. 
My Supplementary Order Paper goes on to state that if a judge believes that a girl is in need of care and protection or considers she is the victim of crime or sexual violation then the judge has to act. She must be referred to a social worker or to the police or to both. That must happen because the current law does not protect those most vulnerable girls. I have taken into account the concerns that many concerned professionals have conveyed to me. They said they did not want those girls to have to turn up in front of a judge and I have taken that into account. That is why I have changed my July amendment to an amendment that requires written notification. 
The other point is that the current law affects good parents as well as bad parents—it ignores good parents as well as bad parents. I take it as a real issue when people say to me that any good parent would have a good relationship with his or her child. Well how many young girls of 14 years would want to go home and say to their mum: “Oh by the way Mum I am pregnant and I want to have an abortion.” Who would want to do that to her mother? No girl that I would want to have! The fact is that young girls do not want to say that but the trouble is that they need to say it because they need to be able to have the love and support of their parents. Dad may even shout about it because men often do shout about those things when they are really crying inside and that is what they want to do. So what if they shout about it? The fact is that they have to know. Those girls are so vulnerable—if they were not vulnerable they would not be in that situation. The current law states nobody cares and girls can make those decisions because the general practitioners will do abortions. It is not a general practitioner’s role to be a parent. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 I am glad to have this call now. I wish to continue on from the speech made by my colleague Judith Collins on Supplementary Order Paper 292 which she has in her name before the Committee relating to clause 37 of the Care of Children Bill. As members will be aware the  
New Zealand Herald  
conducted a poll asking the question of whether people thought that if a girl under the age of 16 went to a doctor to seek an abortion and did not want her parents to know the doctor should inform her parents. Seventy-one percent of the respondents said yes. When asked whether they thought the law should make it mandatory for the doctor to inform the parents 60 percent said yes. When a young girl of 13 14 or maybe 15 is in the unfortunate position of wanting to seek an abortion there are a lot of reasons why she may not want her parents to know about it. The reasons may be first the shame second the fear of violence and third incest. It may be fear of what the father will do. There are many reasons. However generally it always comes out. Generally the family—particularly a caring close family—gets to know about it. No girl should have to go through seeking an abortion without the care and support of her family. Yes the family may be angry in the beginning. It may be upset and disappointed and have all sorts of reasons for fearing that there will be disruption within the family. But in the long run young girls need the family’s support. 
I am a doctor and I have given Supplementary Order Paper 292 a great deal of thought and consideration because for me as for most doctors confidentiality is extremely important. It is one of the tenets that we work by. I would not have supported Judith Collins’ Supplementary Order Paper in its original form but it has now been changed to the point whereby I will now support it. I support it because I believe there are a lot of parents who have to take responsibility. They have the responsibility for the care of their children but when a huge issue like this faces them they are cut out of the decision. They are cut out of being able to be supportive and we do need to have those parents involved. In this particular case a report will go to a judge. The judge will then act on the care and protection issues if there are any. If there are none then the information the judge has will be kept. Supplementary Order Paper 293 the second Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Judith Collins states that in that particular situation the Abortion Supervisory Committee will also be able to examine the causes of what is going on. 
I have had several constituents in my office whose children have become pregnant and in three of those cases incest was the cause. The mothers did not know about that and the children went through considerable trauma. At 13 and 14 those young girls are children; they are children who are having children. The parents were not informed. It all came out eventually but not at the time. Surely that needs to happen so a young girl is protected. I certainly do not want to see young girls go on the Internet and take measures into their own hands—and they do not have to do so because substantial changes have been made since Judith Collins’ earlier Supplementary Order Paper 237 which has now been withdrawn to the effect that a judge does not have to act and that a girl does not have to appear before a judge. It is just a check and a balance. 
Steve Chadwick 
: Then it’s an absolute nonsense. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: We have heard all sorts of shouting come from Government members on the opposite side of the Chamber but they are not taking any calls on this bill. This is an extremely important bill. I think I have more knowledge on this matter than they do because as a doctor I have been in the position of dealing with such situations. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 I want to speak on clause 37 and for the benefit of all members of the Committee I think we ought to clarify just what the current law does. In the current law there is an exception in the case of a girl under 16 who wants an abortion to the general rule that no medical procedure can be performed on a child without parental consent. So the law takes a very broad consistent view that those girls are children who are subject to parental oversight and parental consent. In fact the law is so broad that if complications arise from an abortion and a girl has to have a D and C later on parental consent is required for that. That is how broad the presumption is and that is why I cannot understand the view that somehow this amendment is a huge retrograde step. The law has long made that presumption in every case of a procedure relating to a child except for one single procedure: the act of performing an abortion on a child. That is couched as an exception to the general law; let us remember that. 
The second thing is that the current law does not prevent notification. What the current law states is that an abortion can occur without the consent of the parents. It gives the girl the right to consent to that. Doctors or anyone involved with a case are not prevented by law from notifying parents. What they are prevented by is the code of ethics of the professional groups to which they belong. No one came and asked me as a parent whether I agreed to a profession’s code of ethics taking away my parental rights. The professionals have never asked that. When I go and ask them how they got to the conclusion they reached they do not even realise that that is what has happened. So a group of counsellors sat in a room somewhere and said they would bind themselves by a code of ethics that excluded parents. And health professionals—doctors and nurses—have done the same. I am not accusing them of bad will but I am saying that these provisions in the law show the limitation of that process. 
It was not a debate of Parliament that took away my right to know about my daughter having an abortion. It was not debated here— 
Darren Hughes 
: In 1977. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No that is where the member is wrong. The law does not prevent notification; it is the ethical codes that prevent it. The reason we are having this debate is that on behalf of the parents of New Zealand we are saying to the professionals that they do not have totally free reign to remove the rights of parents at their behest. Parliament is going to debate whether the right of a parent to know about an abortion should be taken away because it has never debated that issue. It was not debated in the royal commission nor was it debated in 1977. It has not been debated ever in this Parliament in terms of the law of New Zealand. It is time that we debated that issue. 
I have been disappointed with the inability of the professional groups to understand the issue. In fact the attitude they have taken has confirmed for me that they misunderstand a parent’s role. They have not even made an attempt to come to grips with what parents may be on about but have made an arrogant assertion that whatever they have done must be right. I remind the Committee that in the whole time no one has ever come to a parent and said that the medical profession will consult with parents about the extent to which its ethical codes roll back parental rights. [ 
Interruption 
] I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am having some difficulty in proceeding with this speech because of the constant barrage of interjections from the Government side of the Chamber. I would ask you to bring those members to order. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I just say to members regarding interjections that strictly speaking a member can be heard without interruption. But members may ask reasonable questions to elicit further information. I ask members to consider that. 
Dail Jones 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I think there is another ruling as well which is that interjections must be rare and reasonable. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Yes it is Speakers’ ruling 56/1. 
Dail Jones 
: I am glad that I referred that to your attention because you did not mention it before I pointed it out to you. The interjections from Ms Chadwick and Mr Hughes have been very frequent and very unreasonable—words such as “sell out” “no political principles” and suchlike were constantly badgered at previous speakers. The interjections were neither rare nor reasonable; they were constant and persistent. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I think the message has been well relayed to the members on my right and I ask them to desist from that. 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I think that the other thing that the Chair could consider under the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings is the fact that all the Government members apart from the acting senior Government whip are sitting out of their usual seats. They have moved to places that are closer to the speaker than they would ordinarily be. You should take that into account when you allow such a breadth and volume of interjections to occur while a senior member on the Opposition side of the Chamber is speaking. That in itself is out of order. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Yes that is in Speakers’ rulings 57/1 and 57/3. If people move in order to interject then that is out of order. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: After that interruption I just want to reiterate the point that the current law does not prevent notification. It is the ethical codes of the professional groups that prevent notification. That is why we need to pass Supplementary Order Paper 292 in the name of Judith Collins because it will then protect the doctors and the other health professionals who are involved with abortions. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 When I listen to the constant interjections from the other side which almost form speeches—those members have the opportunity to take a call but are refusing to do so—it is almost as if they believe that these amendments are aimed at preventing abortions from taking place. I would like that to be the case but unfortunately from my point of view that is not so. All these amendments are doing is trying to make sure that there is some parental knowledge of what is going on. The abortions will still take place sad though that might be. I think there were about 400-odd abortions involving people under the age of 16. 
I think some members do not realise what these amendments are actually about. The role of the parent in this country has been negated so much by this Labour Party Government already that one or two members of this Committee want it to get back some degree of notice and want to put back some degree of parental responsibility and that is effectively what these amendments are doing—getting parents more involved. 
I have had suggestions made to me that these amendments should not be supported because there are brutal parents who will make the life of their child even worse if they are notified. Well we do not decide not to pass laws in this House just because a tiny minority will misbehave if those laws are passed. We in New Zealand First and I am sure some members of other parties in this House believe that the responsible majority of parents out there can react positively and will react positively when they are given the opportunity to discuss the predicament that their daughter has found herself in and will want to give her help and assistance after the situation has been dealt with in one way or the other. 
What we in New Zealand First are hoping to achieve in supporting these amendments—those of us who do support them; perhaps Mr Brown will confirm the exact number if he wishes to take a call; I know that the vast majority of us support them—is to reinforce parental responsibility because we believe in parental responsibility and without knowledge how can one have responsibility? We believe that New Zealand parents have the strength and the ability to help their daughters when they are in a moment of strife. We also believe that the daughters need help when they are in a moment of strife and the best persons to give them that assistance are surely their parents. This bill is called the Care of Children Bill yet members—I suspect mainly Labour members judging from the heckling we have had—do not care about the care of children. Well I care about the care of children and when a girl of 11 12 13 14 or 15 as is biologically possible today gets into trouble as a parent one should care for that child and hence the name of the bill—the Care of Children Bill. I just remind Steve Chadwick who was interjecting vigorously and Darren Hughes—who may become a parent—that this bill is meant to be a Care of Children Bill and some parents accept their responsibility to make sure that their children are cared for. 
As far as the other amendments are concerned I am interested in the Green amendment that Ms Bradford will put. I believe that is an area that needs some sympathy and some concern—problems with sterilisation and suchlike. I remember that when I was in the House in 1977 we debated many aspects of contraception sterilisation and abortion. I look forward to the Green member perhaps getting more than one call to explain that issue to us. The problems experienced by young women who have mental problems—which is often the case—and what can be done to protect them are issues of considerable importance. 
Essentially I appreciate Mr English’s speech. If one is a child under 16 parental consent is always necessary unless one is going to have an abortion and that just does not seem to make sense. 
Judith Collins 
: Even for dental work. 
DAIL JONES 
: Even dental work needs parental consent. We have seen the 
 New Zealand Herald  
report and the survey saying that 71.1 percent of New Zealanders effectively support the amendments. 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 On 6 March 2004 a 14-year-old girl with a learning disability was raped by a 22-year-old male. Not only was she raped but a second male held her down while the rape took place. The two of them threatened the girl that if she told anybody about it they would attack her. She was scared. Not only that but she contracted a sexually transmitted disease and she went to a school nurse to try to get medication for it. The school nurse referred her to a school counsellor who then referred her to a doctor who gave her some medication. However because of the girl’s psychological state she did not take the medication. She became very moody. 
Her mother and her grandparents who were her guardians knew absolutely nothing about it. They were not told. The police were not told even though clearly an offence had been committed. Two months later her mother not knowing what had happened to the girl and assuming her moods were something to do with her school environment went to withdraw her from the school. It was only during the course of the mother withdrawing her from the school that the school counsellor said: “Look I had better tell you something that happened 2 months ago.” and informed her about the circumstances. That is absolutely reprehensible. What is worse is that following this revelation the school principals association upheld the fact that the school had kept it from the child’s guardians the New Zealand Association of Counsellors upheld the fact that it had been kept from the child’s guardians the health board upheld the fact that it had been kept from the child’s guardians and the Minister of Education Trevor Mallard also upheld those steps. 
 Section 134 of the Crimes Act states that everyone is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years who has or attempts to have sexual intercourse with any girl of or over the age of 12 years and under the age of 16 years not being his wife. The counsellor the school and the doctor totally ignored the fact that a serious criminal offence had been committed. They told nobody. They did not tell the parents and they did not tell the police. Nothing would have happened and nobody would have known if the guardian—the mother—had not approached the school with a view to withdrawing the child. It was very fortuitous that that happened. 
The mother said her daughter was very withdrawn and kept running away that she was not the same girl. Did the doctor know that? No because the doctor had no ongoing concern. The mother said that coincidentally a birthday outing for a family member was at a restaurant where one of the alleged attackers worked. The girl would not eat was shaking and froze when she saw the man. The mother had no idea whatsoever why that should have happened why it went on and why the girl was acting in that fashion. 
It appeared that the daughter had been given medication for the infection but had not taken it because she could not understand the instructions. Who was helping her take that medication? Who was there to ensure that the medication which she needed was being taken? Was it the school counsellor? No. Was it the school nurse? No. Was it the doctor? No. The only person who was in a position to oversee it was the parent and the parent did not know. 
It is astonishing that we now have a situation where those same authorities are saying that that process was OK there was nothing wrong with it and given the circumstances again they would have done exactly the same thing. Have we forgotten that schools are in loco parentis which means that they fulfil the role of parents unless the parents are there? Schools have usurped the role of parents in terms of making decisions about their children. The chief commissioner of the Families Commission got it right when he said: “Parents should be shut out of their children’s lives only in exceptional circumstances.” He did not believe that schools were capable of deciding when parents should be excluded. 
That is what the position should be but that is not the position we have and section 37 needs to be amended to ensure that that occurs. If the circumstances of that girl were serious a termination of a pregnancy is just as serious. It is something that could lead to serious complications. It is a life-threatening procedure. Relevant information that only a parent might know is very relevant. 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party has put forward an amendment to clause 35 in Part 2 under the name of my colleague Sue Bradford. The amendment concerns the situation where young women are unable to give informed consent to their own sterilisation and puts in place legal protection for them. The amendment states that where a girl is unable to give informed consent a health professional must apply to the Family Court with supporting information from a second health professional identifying clearly that the procedure is medically necessary. The amendment also ensures that the girl has a lawyer to advocate for her interests and her views. This issue was raised by CCS in the select committee and has been of concern to a great number of people for a very long time. 
The fact is that sterilisation of young disabled girls is occurring in this country on non-medical grounds without their informed consent. There are many reasons for this such as families being very concerned because they are unsure how to manage the temperamental issues that arise when a girl gets her period or just general menstrual management issues. Those are serious problems for families but there is no way that we in this country would allow the non-medical sterilisation of non-disabled children yet we do at this time allow non-medical sterilisation of disabled children. In fact that is a discriminatory process and it cannot be justified. 
The New Zealand Disability Strategy 2001 identifies those concerns and its list of actions includes supporting disabled people in making their own choices about their relationships sexuality and reproductive potential; looking at ways to ensure that disabled young people are involved in decision making to give them greater control over their lives; and ensuring that the criteria and considerations in terms of the health and reproductive-related treatment of disabled women are the same as those for non-disabled women. 
The Ministry of Health report from 2002 analysed the prevalence of hysterectomies in young women with intellectual disabilities. In the period between 1997 and 2000 24 patients with intellectual disabilities had a hysterectomy. Eight of those hysterectomies were performed for reasons such as genital abnormalities and cancer. Sixteen had hysterectomies for control of excessive and frequent menstruation. The report does note that in only one of those cases was the girl able to change her own sanitary protection. Those 16 cases were reviewed and in 14 of them the average age for the hysterectomy was 15 years 7 months. The range of ages of the girls at the time of those hysterectomies was 13 years 5 months to 20 years. Of those patients 12 were unable to participate in the decision-making consent process at all two did have limited ability to participate in the consent in only one case was contraception seen as a necessary secondary function and in 11 cases the use of contraception was not mentioned. 
Starship Children’s Hospital has produced a pamphlet on this issue and it notes that most girls and young women with intellectual disabilities can be taught how to manage their own menstrual hygiene perfectly well. One of the difficulties is that most problems with irregular and sometimes heavy periods occur in the first year or two of menstruation. We see hysterectomies being performed on young women in the early years of their menstrual cycle. In fact in cases such as  
Re X 
 in 1990 the courts have allowed hysterectomies of girls before they begin menstruation as a means to control and prevent menstruation in the future. 
Those young disabled women are told that menstruation is a problem that it is a negative thing and a difficulty that has to be fixed. In fact they have a right to control over their own fertility and over their own bodies and the right to be able to engage in their natural reproductive processes if they choose. Menstruation is not a problem and not a negative; it is something that should be understood and recognised as natural to the species. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 Firstly I want the Committee to note that we are in urgency on a Thursday night on Part 2 and looking at passing 113 clauses about family law in a mad rush. 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: Who’s rushing? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I will tell the Minister who is rushing. I sought to take a call on Part 1 and Damien O’Connor and that Minister voted for closure to prevent me from making a contribution and he has the cheek to ask this Committee who is rushing. I ask the Minister: “Who moved that this House be in urgency?”. The Labour Government moved that we be in urgency. That Minister wants to socially engineer the most important institution in our nation—that being the family—without the proper scrutiny of this Parliament and the people of New Zealand. 
Firstly I compliment my colleague Judith Collins on bringing to this Parliament rightly a small element of this legislation which is the issue of parents having the right to be informed if their daughter who is under the age of 16 is to have an abortion. I would have thought that if there were even the most minuscule respect in this Parliament for the role of parents every member would support the amendments of Judith Collins. But so deep is the disrespect in this Government for the role of parents that not only with this clause but right through this part we see an undermining of that most basic relationship between a mother and father and their child. The Minister is not— 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: What’s wrong with it? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Is that not a cheek? 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: It says it all though doesn’t it? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The dirty Minister— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: —the absolute scum in the chair— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! I know that members have some passionate views on this debate but that does not mean that we have to lower the tone in the Chamber. Unparliamentary comments are not necessary and I ask both members to come to order. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The  
Hansard 
 record will show that Dr Nick Smith said: “the scum in the chair” and on behalf of this Parliament I take deep offence at the denigration of the position of the Chair of this Parliament. When that member denigrates the Chair of this Parliament he denigrates us all. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member has made his point. He has taken umbrage under Standing Order 116 “Personal reflections”.I ask the member to withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The Minister in the chair the Hon David Benson-Pope made an interjection that was grossly inappropriate. Are you going to ask him to withdraw as well? 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member also has taken objection under Standing Order 116. I ask the Minister to withdraw and apologise. 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: What we see in this bill is a whole number of increased rights—increased powers for the courts increased powers for lawyers increased powers for social workers increased powers for school counsellors increased powers for iwi increased powers for family groups increased powers for partners. All these groups have increased powers—at the expense of parents. What the Minister in the chair ignores and what is completely ignored by Government Ministers and members responsible for this legislation is that the most important people in a child’s life are its mother and father. This Parliament has it all wrong when it passes legislation that undermines the rights of parents. 
Last year I saw fit to draw attention to the fact that perfectly good parents—a mum and a dad—in my electorate were shockingly denied the right to raise their own child. What this bill will do is create so many more injustices of that sort: mums and dads locked wrongly out of their children’s lives; and in the case met by Judith Collin’s amendment locked out of one of the most important critical sensitive decisions in the life of a child and a family. 
I challenge members of the Government to get to their feet and debate these issues because there is no area of law as important as family law and there is no institution as important for children as the relationship they have with their mother and father. 
This bill is just dripping with PC nonsense. We see for instance a radical provision whereby we no longer refer to “parents” but to family groups—whanau hapu or iwi—as if those vague phrases are somehow going to ensure that children in this country will get a better deal. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I am really interested in the comments made by the previous speaker who talked about a “mad rush” with this legislation and that he was denied the opportunity to make a speech but on most occasions it is in fact self-preservation for him. Nick Smith is the only member I know of in this Parliament—I do not know of anybody else—who has been to the High Court and on a parental issue which he has just talked about and the person concerned was asked her view and that member was asked his view and the court chose not to believe Nick Smith. The court found him unbelievable: would not believe him could not believe him and did not believe him. It found him in contempt of court and found that he had attempted to scandalise the Family Court. Why was that? It was because of his attitude. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. I just refer members on both sides to Speaker’s ruling 56/1 stating that interjections should be rare reasonable relevant and I might add restrained. If people wish to make a speech they can do so later. This is not the occasion for running commentaries. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: The point that Dr Nick Smith makes I would endorse 100 percent. Parents are the most important people in the lives of children but sadly there are exceptions. A parent has beaten a child to death before today. Parents have done some terrible things to their children before today. The responsibility of this society is to protect the children not see them as parental property rights. If I had mistreated my kids I would expect my neighbours the court and everybody else to step in and say: “You Rick Barker have mistreated your kids.” and defend my children first. Because children are our future. That is what I would expect. [ 
Interruption 
] I say to the member opposite from my own personal experience that I was at a school when one of my kids’ friends fell over seriously ill and was rushed to hospital. It turned out that she had had an illegal abortion. Why? She had done so because she could not tell her mother or father whom I knew personally of the circumstances in her life. That young woman will struggle forever to have children. Her life has been scarred because she would not tell or could not tell her parents. Because of the law she felt driven to go to a backstreet abortionist. 
That changed my attitude and I say to members that when it comes down to the kids and their future and when it comes down to choice of a life for that young woman because she could not deal with her parents then we have to look after her interests first. That must be our concern on every occasion. I say to Nick Smith that yes parents are important. I agree with that statement absolutely. But when it comes to the most important issue it is the interests of the young woman herself that must always be paramount. 
I say to members opposite that if a young woman cannot go and talk to her parents despite the best advice of the counsellors the doctors and all the rest of them and the circumstances are such whose rights then predominate? Is it the rights of her mother or father to know or the rights of that individual young woman that are paramount? In certain circumstances and it is very very rare—this law has been in place since 1977 and there have been no problems—the young woman’s concerns have to be paramount. 
I stress that point. On too many occasions in this country we have looked at parents’ rights as being paramount and young kids have suffered as a consequence. Too often we have turned our back on the circumstances of young children because we have said that parents have the responsibility; that parents are in control. But those children have suffered. I say to young Nick Smith and other members opposite that we have to consider the young woman’s interests primarily. 
Brian Connell 
: The child. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Now they are saying “the child” but I say to Brian Connell that young people today are very savvy; much more savvy than that member will ever be at the age of 65 and certainly vastly more savvy than he was at 16. 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 I will be voting tonight in favour of the Supplementary Order Paper introduced by my colleague Murray Smith and also for the Supplementary Order Paper introduced by Judith Collins. I want to congratulate both members on the considerable effort they have put into them. It is difficult for me to imagine a more intimate moment in a child-parent relationship than the decision to terminate a pregnancy through abortion when a girl is less than 16 years of age. It is tragic of course for the life of the unborn child which is brought to an end. It is traumatic for the girl having to make such a serious decision at such a young age as she is physically a woman but psychologically and mentally still a child. It is emotional for the parents who as adults are so aware of all the ramifications that will flow from that critical situation. 
It is very wrong for the State to intrude into the affairs of a family at such a time. But that is exactly what we do if we do not change the law tonight to permit parental notification in those circumstances. A family needs to draw together in love at such a time and the parents do not need to be kept in the dark. 
I want to share with members a story from my own experience and I mention it for the benefit of those who claim there is no problem with the present law. I am very good friends with a solo mother a wonderful woman who discovered some time after the event that her daughter of 14 had had an abortion. When she came to talk to her daughter about that her daughter said: “Mum when I found myself pregnant I felt very guilty. When I had the abortion I felt very guilty. But the greatest burden of guilt I have been carrying with me mum is the fact that you didn’t know.” 
That is exactly the situation that applies in this country. The framers of the existing law which has been here since 1977 did not envisage State sanction and in fact State-created deception and secrecy at such a time. Yes the law does uphold the right of the girl herself to make the final choice and not be forced into an abortion against her will or forced to give birth against her will. But the presumption was always that either way the parents would be involved. Never in those lawmakers’ wildest dreams—and I have spoken to people who were here at the time—did they envisage that a veil of secrecy would descend in such situations as the one I have described tonight and that such situations would even actually occur. It never crossed their minds. 
From that point of view those who claim that this law is settled law that it should not be changed and that it has had no problems are either completely out of touch or having made up their minds do not want to be confused with the facts. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Oh! That’s rich. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: Judicial bypass which is suggested in the bill I say to Minister Rick Barker would solve the problem he has alluded to tonight. I do not know whether Minister Barker has read the Supplementary Order Paper but he did not mention the fact that the Supplementary Order Papers of Judith Collins and my colleague have a judicial bypass system. I believe that that is vitally important especially in the case of violence or incest. Such heinous crimes against young girls must not be left in the dark or swept under the rug as they used to be in the Pitcairn Islands. The culprits must be brought to and made to face the full force of the law in such circumstances and I tell members tonight in this Parliament that that is not happening. We have a problem in this country with incest and it is swept under the carpet and this existing law is being used as a means of keeping that information from the police and from the authorities involved. 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: Claptrap! Absolute claptrap! 
GORDON COPELAND 
: It is absolutely correct and I can give the member case histories showing that that is exactly what has happened. 
Finally let us not forget tonight those brave young women who chose to give birth against the wishes of their parents. If we visit the Susan Baragwanath school in Porirua we will find many magnificent young women who are now mothers and whose parents wanted them to abort their children. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on Part 2 and like one of the previous speakers I think it is a disgrace that this particular bill is going through under urgency. I do not know why the Government has decided that this particular bill should be dealt with late at night and rammed through. I cannot understand that. The bill has been many many months in its gestation. There has been a huge number of hearings on it and a lot of New Zealanders are very concerned about this change in the law. It changes laws that have been in place and largely working quite well for many many years. Here we are in a bizarre manner late at night ramming this bill through. I would like one of the Government members the Ministers who are present in the Chamber to explain that to us because none of us on the Opposition side of the Chamber understand why this is being done under urgency. I realise that it is being done with the support of United Future— 
Gordon Copeland 
: No no! 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: —I am sorry; I take that back. It is being done with the support of the Green Party so maybe the Green member could take the time to explain to us why we are here tonight. 
The clause I want to talk about is clause 44. I have an amendment to set right an unfair and unjust situation that discriminates against children fathers in particular and grandparents and that is the situation whereby in general under our current family law sole custody is awarded to mothers and as a result fathers and grandparents are excluded. That situation denies many New Zealand children the right to contact with their father. Tonight in this Chamber the Government could support the introduction of a presumption for rebuttable shared parenting. All that means is that just as parents are equal before a relationship breakdown so too are they equal afterwards unless one parent clearly is not fit to be a parent. If we change the law by introducing that simple provision it would make sure that children are entitled to have the right to contact with both a mum and a dad after their families break down instead of effectively losing their dad as so many of them do now. Tens of thousands of kids effectively lose contact with their fathers every year. The figures are pretty terrible. More children lose a father through divorce and separation in New Zealand today over a 3-month period than the number who lost a father during the entire period of the Second World War. There is an opportunity for this Government to support my amendment to this bill and to put that situation right. 
It is a very sad day when the Government turns its back on what to my mind is surely an opportunity to fix a piece of law that in practice has become sadly detrimental to many New Zealand kids. I say that if the Government fails to do that—and I do not care what the words are—it will show that it does not care about children and most certainly does not care about fathers. I am very disappointed that the only party to support my amendment is the National Party. The members of all the other parties in this Parliament who try to tell us they care about kids and families are not even supporting my amendment. If they have sat here in the Chamber in this debate they would realise the amendment is not going to pass but they still will not even show their support for all the fathers who have lobbied individual members of Parliament and have had those members agreeing that yes we should change something.Now when the time is here for those members to put their necks on the block and stand up for the rights of those fathers they have all backed away. They are failing to stand and actually support the people to whom they have said privately that they agree with them. 
There is still time to vote for my amendment to clause 44. I urge the Minister to support it; he knows my feelings on that particular clause. We tried to get the shared parenting measure written into the bill during the select committee process and I would like him to support it. 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
: 
 I take the call in order to do a number of things. Firstly I support the amendment in the name of my colleague Judith Collins the MP for Clevedon. I have some numbers for the most poll-driven Government in the history of New Zealand. Let us listen to what the polls say about what Judith Collins is saying. The Government basically runs according to what the polls and the focus groups say so let us see what it will do once it hears this information from the  
New Zealand Herald 
. Its poll asked people whether they thought a doctor should inform the parents if a girl under the age of 16 went to the doctor to seek an abortion and did not want them to know. Seventy-one percent of respondents said yes; 23 percent said no. The poll also asked people whether they thought the law should make it mandatory for the doctor to inform the girl’s parents. Sixty-one percent of respondents said yes; 34 percent said no. That is a clear message from the people of New Zealand. 
I agree completely with my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith. Was the speech of the Minister for Courts not churlish and pathetic? That man who has overseen the virtual collapse of the justice system in New Zealand with more and more people being let off because he cannot organise the court system stands up in Parliament and lectures Dr Nick Smith about defending his constituents. I have never seen Rick Barker put his head above the parapet to defend anybody from Hastings. I have never seen him come to Parliament and say something that may get him into the slightest bit of trouble in order to defend anyone from Hastings. Rick Barker is happy to come along to Parliament and just go with the flow and take the ministerial perquisites associated with his job. I am very concerned about the very strong flavour of political correctness— 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Contempt of court! 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: He wants to talk about contempt of court. What about the contempt in which the Minister holds people who use the criminal justice system of this country when victims are waiting 18 months to get justice? That is a contempt of court. It is a contempt of court that my constituents are waiting 18 months to have their cases heard because of that Minister’s incompetence. The problem is that Rick Barker cannot be replaced. I do not think the Government can find another member of the Labour Party whose competence matches that of Rick Barker. 
Do members realise what this bill does to undermine the rights of parents even further? This bill as Mrs Collins points out erodes parental rights. It proposes an amendment that will enable a parent to appoint as a guardian someone with whom he or she has lived for a year. If a parent has lived with someone for 365 days that parent can go to the court and sign a form that makes that person a legal guardian. What is worse than that is that if the actual father of the child wants to become a guardian he has to go and get a court order—he has to appear before a judge. But someone who has lived with the mother for a year gets to have—[ 
Interruption 
] No that is not right. I have read the bill. The father is not— 
Lianne Dalziel 
: Read the bill. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: I tell the failed Minister from Christchurch to read clause 19. I do not believe what Lianne Dalziel says. I have never believed what she says and I do not believe what she says on this issue because I am sure that is what she told TV3. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. It is like a hen house here in the Chamber. I say to honourable members that Parliament is a symbol of integrity and the integrity of all honourable members is to be upheld. Every voice should be heard in accord with the Standing Orders and we are well outside them at the moment. I ask members to be reasonable about interjections. 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Thank you for your ruling. We now find ourselves in a slightly difficult position. By my count during the Hon Tony Ryall’s contribution you called Government members to order five times for their interjections. What action will you take in the Chair if the interjections continue—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: There is to be no comment at all during a point of order. I refer members to Standing Order 84(3) and Speaker’s ruling 19/6. I ask members to please look at them. 
Simon Power 
: What assurances can you give members of the Opposition who are making contributions during the Committee stage if your calling of members of the Government to order has no effect? What protection will you offer from the Chair to members on the Opposition side of the Chamber and what action will follow if the warnings that you have been giving continue to be ignored? 
Darren Hughes 
: I accept the point the senior Opposition whip makes that if you are calling the Committee to order members should comply with that. But we are in a situation where there is a healthy degree of interjection from the Opposition when Government members are speaking in this debate. That is fine. That is reasonable and our members can accept that. But whenever Opposition members are speaking and Government members interject on them a high degree of preciousness seems to come through from the Opposition. I accept the point that we should follow your ruling sir but this is a robust debate and that has to cut both ways. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you; I have heard enough. I know that the Hon Tony Ryall is making some strong points so it is reasonable to expect that some interjections will take place. That can be expected but there should not be so much interjecting that the member who is speaking is drowned out. The Chair will not allow that. I also refer members to Speaker’s ruling 56/4: “it is highly disorderly … to persist in interjecting when the member has been called to order.” I ask the members in the Committee to play the game properly. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: I draw the attention of that member to clause 19 which states quite clearly that the father may apply to the court to be appointed as the guardian of the child. Lianne Dalziel did not tell TV3 that did she? She is a former Minister who has voted in Parliament that property rights should apply to de facto couples after 2 years. It takes 2 years to get those property rights; it takes 1 year to become a guardian of a child. It takes 3 years to get rights—[ 
Interruption 
] She proposed different amendments I thought. 
Hon Annette King 
: No. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: OK she did not. The situation is even worse—it takes 3 years to get de facto property rights and 1 year to be a guardian. That is not right. It takes 3 years—I apologise to the member—to get property rights and 1 year to get the kid. 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 When I first read the draft of this legislation I was prepared to give the Government the benefit of the doubt because I think some components of it are quite noteworthy. But all faith I had that members of the Government might have the interests of children at heart evaporated the moment I walked into the Chamber and saw who the Minister in the chair was. He is simply the conduit—the puppet—for a whole bunch of strong barren women who make up the leadership of the Labour Party and who want to re-engineer New Zealand families in their own image. I can tell those members that the public of New Zealand does not want to have one little bit of their legislation. 
Rick Barker stood up in this Chamber and said he cared about children. If he does—and I challenge the member on this—then he will find that he has no alternative but to vote for Judith Collins’ amendment. I suggest that he read it. What Judith Collins is suggesting is that a young girl who finds herself in a position where she may want an abortion has the right to either go and tell her parents or have a medical practitioner go on her behalf to a judge and make sure that her position is clearly articulated. Now it seems to me that that is fair and reasonable. The member opposite Mr Barker is looking at me very blankly which is what he normally does. This time I think it is because he has not read the amendment. This legislation suggests that parents and fathers do not have rights. They are playing second fiddle to the politically correct aspirations of the Government. I say that it is wrong. 
Rick Barker banged on about young women who are under 16 having an abortion without even suggesting that they should talk to their mother or father in their hour of crisis. For goodness’ sake! He calls them young women. Thirteen or 14-year-old girls are simply that—girls. They are confused and what they need is for their mum to put her arm around them and say “Darling I understand. You can talk to me about this issue and I will help you through it.” How traumatic must it be for a child to find herself in that circumstance? The heartless Labour Government would have us believe that in the best interests of children we should cut them loose and leave them to their own devices to swim or drown. How heartless and ignorant is that? Only powerful women in the Labour Party who are childless could think that is a good idea. The fact that those women are surrounded by a whole bunch of weak namby-pamby men just makes it worse. David Parker—the “Parker Pimpernel”—is making a guest appearance in the Chamber tonight. He is interjecting. That member has by my reckoning 38 flights left to Wellington. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I thank the previous speaker for the high praise he poured upon me. I say to him and members in the Chamber that it is a considerable honour to be part of a Government that is delivering good social policy around issues like this which are extremely difficult. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Just social engineering. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I say to Dr Smith that with a judgment like his in his contempt of court case I think his interjections are extremely untimely and unwise. 
It is interesting that in the very substantial Part 2 of the Care of Children Bill which has a very large number of clauses on guardianship joint guardianship dispute resolution parenting orders cases involving violence the enforcement of New Zealand orders overseas and international child abduction—among other things—virtually no one has focused for any time at all on anything other than clause 37 with the exception of Dr Newman who spoke about her amendment. I think that it is a backhanded compliment for the work of my colleagues in the select committee. I say thank you to them now and I will be saying a list of thankyous in due course for some fine work in an area of social policy that is extremely difficult and very sensitive. I commend them for the responsible decisions they have made and discussions they have had. 
I am very sad that a number of members of the Opposition have already taken the opportunity for superficial political populism and the sorts of jousts that sadly we expect in this House at what they see as a political target. That says more about the failures of the National Party to get popular support than about the issues involved. I regret that as I am sure most members of the community do. 
I wish to make some brief comments about clause 37. It is an important issue for our community for families for mums and dads and a very important issue for young women. As I said in my second reading speech I think it is essential and the Government believes it is essential that clause 37 is retained to provide good protection for some of our most vulnerable young women. The people whom I have discussed this with in the media and around the traps inevitably—if they take a rational approach to the matter—understand why the decision that the royal commission made so long ago was the right one when they think it through even if they have had initial reservations about the issues. The key factor is that it is simply impossible to escape the conclusion that the sort of notification or judicial barrier that is suggested by some of the amendments on the table has the absolutely inescapable consequence of forcing young women to either carry to full term or to have abortions against their will. There is no way that that conclusion can be escaped. It would be nice if everyone enjoyed the situation that the majority of pregnant young women enjoy who have the love and support of their parents and families and that they enjoyed that support in such difficult times around decisions about pregnancy. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Most do. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: But as Dr Smith knows from the families that he has tried to advocate for however unwisely it is a fact that some young women do not live in that ideal situation. It is the job of Parliament to ensure that we make law on the basis of good rational decisions and not irrational cant and appeals to people’s prejudice as Judith Collins has—[ 
Interruption 
]. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable Minister. The member on my left knows that under Speaker’s ruling 56/1 running commentaries are out of order. I ask the member to desist. 
Judith Collins 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Thank you for your ruling. Can you just clarify that if the Minister continues to shout at me am I not allowed to interject back? 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Interjections are permitted but they are to be rare reasonable restrained and as one of my colleagues used to say if at all possible witty. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I have already thanked my colleagues for their professionalism maturity and rationality in developing this policy and recommending the continuation of public policy that has been successfully operating for 27 years. I will also make another vote of thanks and that is in response to the comments that Tony Ryall made earlier about media and community views on this matter. I will share with the Committee some of the comments that have come from editorial writers from around the country regarding clause 37 and that were overwhelmingly in support of the Government’s position. 
The first of these is an editorial from the  
New Zealand Herald  
printed on 15 September of this year. I will read the whole thing and only small excerpts from the others. The title is “Abortion law best left as it stands” and it states: “There is a tendency in public discussion to treat parenthood as a state that invests all who reach it with near saintly qualities of care and compassion. Sadly that is not so. Supporters and critics of the Collins amendment are talking about two different types of parent both of whom exist in considerable number. Parents who deserve to know of their daughter’s misfortune probably have the kind of relationship— 
Judith Collins 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I wish to assist the Minister. He is talking about an earlier Supplementary Order Paper written back in July not the one that is currently under debate. I am sure that he does not wish to mislead the Chamber. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry that is not a point of order. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. You will know that under Speakers’ rulings members are to be referred to by their full name. I hope you pull the Minister up in that regard. Several times he referred to the member for Clevedon as “Collins”. She is Judith Collins or the member for Clevedon. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: If that occurred then I am at fault because I never heard it. If it was the case Speaker’s rulings 26/7 and 26/8 state that members are to be referred to by their full names. 
John Carter 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I happened to be listening to the debate on the radio in my room and heard reference to the matter of interjections and your ruling on the matter of interjections. You might care to remind the Minister that while he is in the chair he is not to interject because he is on a live microphone. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the member for that. That is perfectly correct. Can I just say that there is a convention in the Chamber that in Committee members in charge of legislation should not take unfair advantage of a live microphone by way of interjection. It is good conduct and common courtesy not to. I add that courtesy is contagious and that we will all prosper if we keep within the spirit of our Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I continue that quote from the  
New Zealand Herald  
on 15 September: “Parents who deserve to know of their daughter’s misfortune probably have the kind of relationship that means they would hear about it without mandatory instructions from the law. Conversely those who would not hear about it cannot blame the law for a child’s secrecy. The law is working as well as it probably can. The rest is up to parents.” Two days later the  
Waikato Times 
 under the heading “Abortion change hard to justify” stated: “We believe it is those girls in desperate straits who are in most need of the protection the present law affords. To remove that safeguard would create a new level of risk.” The  
Nelson Mail 
 on 14 September stated: “… if the law is to be changed it will undoubtedly work against the best interests of a small number of especially unfortunate individuals—young women who belong to dysfunctional and abusive families where they can expect condemnation or worse rather than support and where another family member might be the cause of their pregnancy.” The  
Marlborough Express 
 under the heading “Abortion law spectre” stated: “However the spectre of the bad old days of backstreet abortions which the royal commission into contraception sterilisation and abortion sought to overcome looms. Any law change that results in that should be rejected.” 
The  
Otago Daily Times 
 on the 16th of the same month stated: “The Government and professional medical bodies have pointed out young pregnant girls are advised by family doctors to tell their parents and seek support. That is as it should be.” 
I have two more votes of thanks to give at this time. The first is to the number of professional organisations including doctors’ organisations who have made their overwhelming support of the Government position abundantly clear. I thank them for taking the trouble to do that. Lastly I say a profound thank you on behalf of the Government to the group—some of whom are no longer with us—who made up the royal commission that sat in 1977. In 1977 it was the view of that royal commission that to remove choice for young women would lead them to be coerced into having an abortion or to consider continuing a pregnancy against their wishes. The simple fact is that nothing has changed in the last 27 years to alter that view. I am profoundly sad that the shallow populism of the Opposition has forced it to take the ridiculous position it has. 
Judith Collins 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I take offence at that insult of calling me shallow. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member has taken offence under the Standing Order “Personal reflections”. The member is entitled to ask for a retraction. I ask the member—[ 
Interruption 
] I have ruled Mr Barker. The member concerned has taken issue under Standing Order 116 “Personal reflections” and she is entitled to do that. I call on the Minister to withdraw. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: Mr Chairperson can you explain to me what I am apologising for? I did not name Mrs Collins. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Mrs Collins has taken umbrage at what the Minister said. She considers that a personal reflection. I ask him to withdraw. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I withdraw. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I note that in his contribution the Minister expressed his disappointment that most speakers were concentrating on clause 37 in this part and not on any of the other 112 quite important clauses about family law. The reason is that given the closures that were moved at an early stage by the Government there is no confidence among members who want to discuss both that issue— 
Hon Annette King 
: What’s your point of order? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I am coming to a point of order. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Please do. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: The Minister quite appropriately spoke at some length on that issue on which members wish to make a contribution. I seek the leave of the Committee to ensure that this debate is granted at least a further 2 hours so that there can be a debate. The Minister has rightly said that there are 113 clauses. The vast bulk of the speeches have been on that single issue which is a conscience vote. That is why I seek leave so that the Committee may properly debate those other 112 changes in the law. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member has sought leave. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Initially I did not intend to take a call on this bill but I am very pleased to do so. I am particularly pleased to follow the Minister David Benson-Pope because if I was not confused before I am now. My understanding is that Judith Collins’ amendment is about notifying the parents— 
Hon Member 
: That’s very moderate. 
PETER BROWN 
:—that is very moderate—not about stopping an abortion from going ahead. It is about parents being notified. I draw the Minister’s attention—and I would like him to respond to this—to the commentary on the bill. I do not want any confusion so I will read it. It states: “Labour and Green members recommend that clause 37 remain unchanged. It has existed in the Guardianship Act since it was introduced in the Contraception Sterilisation and Abortion Act 1977 as a result of the following recommendation of the Royal Commission on Contraception Sterilisation and Abortion:”. It then states: “That legislation be enacted to provide that the consent of a girl under the age of 20 years shall notwithstanding the advice of her parents or guardian have the same effect as if she were of full age provided that grounds for legal abortion exist” and it goes on. That seems to me to imply that the royal commission recognised that parents had a role in that. 
Judith Collins 
: That’s exactly right. 
PETER BROWN 
: I know I am just a simple sailor but that seems to run it home to me. Every so often a bill comes into this House that touches the personal accord in one’s own being. This bill—unbeknown to me when I walked to the Chamber tonight—has touched mine and no speech more so than that by Gordon Copeland. Some years ago when my children—a son and a daughter—were little they lost their mother. My daughter was not even a teenager; my son was. That would have been the worst period in my life by far. I really do not know what I would have done had my daughter had an affair or whatever—she did not—had an abortion and not told me. It would have broken my heart. When Gordon Copeland spoke about the solo mum and the daughter who said that the real tough bit was that she did not tell her it brought water to my eyes. 
Parents give a lot to their kids. I know I have. I do not claim to be the best. I am very proud of my two kids. I married again; my second wife has her three kids and we have five great adults now. My son is now an airline pilot and my daughter is a manager in an accounting firm in Auckland so I am absolutely proud of them. But had they gone through that and not told me I would have been devastated. I certainly would not have been here today; I do not know whether I would have been on this earth to be honest. I would have felt such a failure that I do not know how I would have coped. It was Gordon Copeland’s little speech that really hit it home to me how I could have been in those circumstances. 
 It is not reasonable or proper to withhold that sort of information from a parent. It is not especially from a caring parent who has a good track record. It is not reasonable or proper to withhold that sort of information from a good parent simply because there are some bad buggers out there. That is not fair. That is not the way we do things. I understand that there are some bad parents and I think that is a problem in itself. To some considerable degree Judith Collins’ Supplementary Order Paper addresses that issue. But we cannot punish the good parents or hold them to ransom because there are some bad ones. That is what I call “community punishment”. We punish everybody because there is a bad guy. That is what the Nazis did in the war. They punished the good guys because they could not find the bad guys. It is the same philosophy. 
LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 It is 35 years since the Guardianship Act was passed. It was 1977 that saw the amendments that introduced the section of the Act that is simply repeated in clause 37 of the bill. No changes have been proposed to the clause from what has been the law since 1977. Has anyone produced any evidence to support the need for change? No. I know that some members will vote for the Supplementary Order Paper not because they think it will pass with their support—in fact they are confident that it will not pass—but because they want to show support to a colleague. That is not good enough. There are stories of MPs who stood by the lobby doors counting the numbers as they went through so they could be seen to be opposing homosexual law reform even though they supported it. There is no credibility in adopting that position. 
We need to vote on principle. The principle is to be found in the report of the Royal Commission to Inquire into and Report upon Contraception Sterilisation and Abortion because the clause comes from its well-considered balanced report that gave us the legislative framework to work within an area that is hard. It is hard. No woman or girl no matter her age wants to find herself in the position of choosing to either terminate or continue a pregnancy that was unplanned and it is unplanned pregnancies that are the problem. 
I know there is not one mother or father in this Chamber who would not want to know if his or her daughter were pregnant nor would we want any child or young person to have to make a decision about that pregnancy on her own. We all know that when most families are confronted with hard situations—that call on them to suspend the judgment of moral behaviour that sex before marriage let alone before the age of consent requires them to do—they will do so and offer all the love and support they can. They will almost always respect their daughter’s choice whether she wants to continue with the pregnancy or terminate it. I do not believe there is a single parent in this Chamber who would force his or her daughter against her will into either an abortion clinic or a birthing unit. 
But please let us not judge by our own standards what others would do. Much has been said about good parents being the majority and that we are legislating against good parents. We are not. In 1977 we legislated to protect the minority. The good ones are not punished by this law. The good ones will be told. The good ones will support their children making good choices. We know from the New Zealand Medical Association the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Family Planning Association that doctors advise those young girls and young women to talk to their parents and almost all do speak to parents or to another significant adult in their lives. 
I heard Judith Collins say she would not want to have a daughter who came home and told her that she was pregnant at age 14 and that she wanted an abortion. If anyone’s daughter felt like that and there was a risk of a violent reaction to the news of the pregnancy or of being forced into an abortion or giving birth against her will then would she even go to a doctor if she knew that the doctor would be required to notify her parents? If she were to go home and be kicked and beaten by an angry parent who called her a slut and a whore would she even go to the doctor? That is the issue here. 
Judith Collins 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. It is bad enough having my speech misrepresented in that way without having the words “slut” and “whore” thrown around in this debate on such an incredibly sensitive issue. I think the member should not go ahead with that sort of language. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: That is not a point of order. The member has said nothing that needs a point of order ruled on. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Point of order! 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Does the member have a new point of order? I have ruled on Judith Collins’ point of order. There is nothing to rule. It is not a point of order. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. It is a longstanding convention which has been ruled on by Speakers on a number of times that family are not to be brought into debates in the House. I find it quite offensive that on such a sensitive issue—and I understand there are strong passions—for a member to make assertions about what a parent in this Parliament would do in the unfortunate situation of having a child who was considering an abortion. If the Committee this evening is going to—[ 
Interruption 
] She did. The member on her feet made direct assertions about what my colleague Judith Collins would do if her daughter— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member will be seated. I have ruled on the point of order. There was nothing to rule. The member is quite wrong. It was not— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
:It is a different point of order. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: No the member— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
:If you want to bring the Committee into disorder tonight I say that I heard very distinctly Lianne Dalziel referring to what my colleague Judith Collins would do in the event her child was to have an abortion. I do not think this Committee can have a quality debate if it is not based on the longstanding convention that we do not bring our children into such debates in this Chamber. 
LIANNE DALZIEL 
: If she were going to go home and be kicked and beaten— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I have ruled on the point of order. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
:I notice Damien O’Connor over there. If we are to have children brought into this debate it is a two-sided game and I do not think the Committee wants to go down that track. I ask you Madam Chair to make a strong ruling to ensure that our families are properly protected in this Chamber. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: I think I can assist the member. Lianne Dalziel was not referring to the children of any member in the House. I was listening very carefully. The member was referring to a hypothetical child going home and having that experience. I think this is a serious debate and I think the member should listen carefully. We all should listen to each other’s viewpoints and treat them with respect. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member makes a good point. That is exactly what I heard. 
LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I have made it very clear that there is not a member in the Chamber who would behave in that way. The issue though is that I would rather that young girls and women knew that the doctor-patient confidentiality that applies in all other cases would apply here. Otherwise they will seek advice from people who are not doctors. The result will be increased back-street abortions and botched attempts at abortion as well as more births of children to children. We cannot have that on our consciences as a Parliament. The royal commission developed the principle that should be applied and I really cannot believe that the 1977 Parliament was more enlightened than the one we have today. The bottom line is that we do have to legislate to protect the interests of the minority. The majority of parents—loving good parents—will support their daughters when they are in that situation but unfortunately there are many who will not. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 Yesterday in the United States there were a number of elections. In one state one of those elections was in fact a referendum. It is common practice in the United States for the people to decide these kinds of issues directly. That is something this country could learn from. In Florida on the issue of parental notification 65 percent—4.5 million voters—of the people said there should be parental notification and 35 percent said no. That proposition was not just blanket parental notification; it referred to the state of Florida providing proper exemption provisions and waiver of notification. It was a nuanced approach. Those numbers are remarkably similar to the poll in the  
New Zealand Herald. 
 Seventy-one percent said yes to parental notification and 23 percent said no. 
 Listening to members of the Government including Lianne Dalziel and the Associate Minister of Justice I have to wonder whether they have even read Judith Collins’ amendments. She has put a modest proposal specifically designed to reach the widest numbers in this House. The amendment to clause 35 which inserts a new subclause (6A) states that prima facie there must be a notification. But whom is that notification to? It is to the doctor. The doctor must be advised and that is what her proposed clause 37A states. If the child says: “No I do not want my parents notified.” then the only process that takes place is that the doctor notifies a judge of the Family Court in writing. Ultimately in fact the young person whose medical practitioner must keep the matter in confidence gets to make that choice. If we listened to Government members we would have no sense that that is what these amendments propose. They are reasonable and modest amendments and I just wish that Government members would read them and consider them carefully. 
The Minister talked today about the royal commission. I have spoken to a member of the royal commission. I will be honest: my wife was a member of that royal commission. At that time she was a young woman and she has said the consent issue was dealt with carefully. No one on that commission considered that the consent of the young child would be required. But on the issue of the notification the commission was silent. It is certainly DeneseHenare’s view that notification certainly in the terms framed by Judith Collins is entirely within the intent of the royal commission’s report. 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: That’s not true. That’s not right. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: The Minister simply has not read these amendments because if he understood them he would realise they are actually designed to meet the very objections and concerns that he has raised and that Lianne Dalziel has raised. People on this side of the Chamber and in other parties do understand the tremendous difficulties that a young girl in this situation is faced with. We have to provide reasonable opportunities for her to be able to express her view without intimidation in some cases and to be able to put it in a way that there is a sense of confidence that the young girl’s wishes will be recognised. These amendments do precisely that. Frankly I cannot see why these amendments do not have pretty much the universal endorsement of the Committee. My colleague Judith Collins has laboured long and hard on these amendments. She has talked to a huge number of people including medical professionals and the professional bodies and they support them. 
DAVID PARKER (Labour—Otago) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
: 
 I specifically want to talk about clause 37 because I did spend an entire day on the Justice and Electoral Committee when this clause was being considered replacing my colleague Murray Smith. I want to talk about the issues that came up at that time. 
The committee seemed to be obsessed with the risks associated with informing parents about their child’s condition. It was very hard to bring to the committee’s attention the thought that there were risks involved in not informing the child’s parents that their child was planning a termination. I am talking here about risks to the child not risks to the parents. Let me tell members about a case that happened in my own town where parents woke up in the middle of the night to discover that their teenage girl was haemorrhaging in her bed. They got her to hospital in time for a lifesaving blood transfusion but in the process discovered that she had had a termination of which they had been unaware. They are just grateful they did not wake up in the morning to a dead child. When we talk about a surgical procedure we are talking about risks. When we exclude from knowledge of those risks the very people who are in the house that night and may have to deal with them we create a whole set of risks. 
Everybody on either side of the argument agrees with one thing: we all agree that we must see best practice for the sake of the child. We all agree that best practice includes that the parents should know. So why then are we legislating against best practice? Because that is what we are doing. We are legislating for the lowest common denominator because there are one or two parents in the mix who will mishandle the information. None of us who is opposed to this clause is opposed to the idea of an exemption clause that would allow responsible adults to make an informed decision if there really was genuine risk to a young woman who wants a termination and for genuine reasons cannot inform her parents. Nobody is against that but we do not want law that is written for the lowest common denominator and excludes—as my colleague Peter Brown said—the vast number of concerned parents. 
I find it very hard as a parent to separate my heart from this issue. I probably have more teenagers through my home on a weekly basis than most members in this Chamber would. I care passionately about young people. Because of the health programmes we have in our schools young people today are a lot more informed and a lot clearer about the issues than I was as a young person. The situation has changed immensely. To me it is safer than it ever was for parents to be notified because of those kinds of programmes and the understanding that young people have. 
One of the other things we have to understand about this issue is that we are talking about children who are developmentally going through a very interesting phase; they are individuating from their parents at that point in time. It is very natural for a young girl who finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy to say to the school counsellor or say to the doctor: “My parents are going to kill me.” It is a natural reaction. It does not mean that they will kill her; it is just the reaction that comes out of her mouth. She is a little scared a little anxious. It is no reflection on the home from where she comes; it is a reflection that she is a young person who has got herself in a sticky situation and is a little bit worried about how she will broach the subject with her mum and dad. That we would sanction a wedge between the parents and the child on this vital issue is absolutely criminal and I am very concerned about it. 
We should be talking here about supported notification about people who are in possession of the facts supporting this young person. Let us ask ourselves a question. Let us go past the initial crisis. Let us go past the first week the first month the first year. What is happening now in this young woman’s life? She now has a huge amount of guilt because she has kept a huge issue from her parents. She is now finding it difficult to relate to her parents. I have had mothers and fathers in my home talking about the fact that they do not know what has gone wrong with this kid whom they had a relationship with. They are trying to figure it out. Is the child in the wrong school? Is she being bullied at school? They have been down to the school to try to get information but they cannot work it out. She is failing at school. 
MITA RIRINUI (Labour—Waiariki) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 I just want to complete the Green Party position on our amendment to Part 2 in the name of my colleague Sue Bradford. Menstruation is not a problem; it is a natural function of a female. The right of women to decide over reproduction and reproductive health is a fundamental human right. That fundamental human right belongs to all women regardless of whether they are disabled or not disabled. It has been a long hard-fought struggle by women all over the world to ensure that they do have control of decision making over their own reproduction. It is critical that in New Zealand law those hard-won human rights apply to all women and are not applied discriminatorily. 
 Sterilisation of young disabled women occurs for menstrual management not for medical reasons. Where there is no medical need for sterilisation it is critical that sterilisation does not occur. Disabled children are entitled to have the same access to health care as others have and have the right to live as others live. Disabled people must have the same right as other people to be parents. The fact is there is a lack of legal safeguard to ensure the well-being and protection of disabled girls. The fact is they are not protected from non-medical sterilisation. They are not protected by an official mandatory legal process that means they are able to be informed and be part of the decision making over their own reproductive health. 
The amendment that the Green Party has put forward will ensure that a young woman who through age or impairment is not able to give informed consent is provided with a legal pathway of protection to ensure that she is not sterilised for non-medical reasons. We urge the Committee to support this amendment on this very critical issue. 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 I too rise to speak on this issue of clause 37. It is a very important part of this bill and it deserves the attention of the members of this Committee. The Minister in defence of the Government’s position has read out to us this evening articles from newspapers around New Zealand as though we are supposed to take the authority of editorial writers— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but there was far too much talk during the last member’s speech. I ask everybody to give those who are speaking the courtesy of some quiet. 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: I do not believe that we ought to be letting our newspaper columnists determine what is in the good interests of children and parents of this country so I am not impressed with the Minister’s evidence. Also the professionals who have cried out to us to support the bill do not impress me either. Many professionals miss the reality of how much risk is involved in an abortion. It is a surgical procedure as my colleague Judy Turner pointed out before and it is not something that one can enter into lightly. It would be different perhaps if the bill required young people to go to their own general practitioner who has a history of a relationship with the family and who may give better advice than some doctor or professional somewhere to whom a counsellor from the school may take the child. 
All MPs come to this House with experience of different occupations previously. Lianne Dalziel asked us where the evidence was that something was going wrong with this legislation in New Zealand. I want to bring my evidence to this debate. It comes out of 20 years of experience. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I have already asked members to be seated and quiet. The noise is not acceptable. The member is really struggling to be heard. 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: For more than 20 years I travelled the world ministering to young people on a particular subject relating to their relationship with their parents and other family members. One of the single most important factors in the breakdown of their relationships is secrets they have kept involving a variety of issues which begin to undermine an open and loving relationship with their parents and other family members. On hundreds of occasions I have had to hold young people in my arms as they wept uncontrollably with the shame and guilt they have carried for years because of something they did wrong or because of something wrong that was done to them and that was kept secret from others. In fact they lived in fear of that secret ever becoming known. The problem is that the fear and the secrecy do not go away. They continue to intensify in their relationships with their parents and create wider and wider gulfs in that relationship—a relationship that ought to be a normal and happy one. I have even had to deal with people who were 75 years old who had had an abortion when they were young and had not told their parents. They had carried that secret for all those years and could not resolve it because they had not been prepared to come to terms with their need to share it with their parents. 
Parents are unique individuals. Not just anybody can be a parent. Parents play a unique role in our lives. Even parents who are not good parents still have an incredible bond with us and we with them and any difficulties have to be resolved through good relationships with them. Sometimes it is painful to confess things to our parents and to have to face the possible consequences of their being disappointed in our actions. But for healthy relationships to develop it is essential that someone helps us get through that process so that we do not carry deeply held secrets in our lives that ultimately will spill over into many areas affecting our ability to relate in life with not only our parents but many others. 
I believe that this law is creating a situation that will encourage children to keep things secret. I do not trust the professionals in our nation. I do not trust the Family Planning Association to give the right kind of advice because it does not take on the responsibility of parents. It deals with these children then leaves them to go on in life and face the consequences of these decisions. It is not committed to them year in and year out helping them to work things through. Parents have a right to be involved in these important decisions. 
The proposals put forward in these amendments offer very very practical solutions to deal with the exceptions to the circumstances that have been raised by those who are in support of this legislation. There are many nations in this world and there are many states in the United States that have a requirement for parent notification and it does not result in the nightmarish situations that have been put forward by those who are supporting this legislation. It is possible to have reasonably held exceptions that can deal with the problems that have been put forward. That is what we propose when we ask the Committee to consider these amendments. 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I am very pleased to be able to speak on the Care of Children Bill. I am deeply concerned that it is being debated under urgency. It is very important to put into perspective just how important this bill is to New Zealand. A few weeks ago I was in a debate with the Children’s Commissioner and she made the point that between 1989 and 2000 111 New Zealand children were killed in their homes by their parents or relatives and 1743 were admitted to hospital as a result of non-accidental injuries inflicted by others. Those tragic events occurred mostly within families. Madam Chair I urge that you give this debate its full time this evening and if necessary extend it over until tomorrow because there is a crisis in New Zealand and it is hugely important that we as a Parliament address it seriously and constructively. 
I remember very clearly being a registrar and house surgeon in south Auckland when the royal commission was deliberating. I saw young women who had been beaten by their families because they were pregnant being brought into Middlemore Hospital. I remember seeing women being sent off to Australia through the Sisters Overseas Service system and women who were seriously morbid because of backstreet abortions. What has happened in the intervening years has been serious for New Zealand because we now have abortion rates that are very high by international standards compared with say the rates of the Netherlands which are one-third of ours. I do not believe that we have seriously addressed proper reproductive health strategies in this country. In the Netherlands there has been an emphasis on proper resourcing on openness on lifelong education on accessibility to contraception and sterilisation and on a safe abortion service. I think it is hugely important for this Parliament to address the issues of having a proper and well-resourced sexual reproductive health strategy in this country. We are failing not only in terms of the children who are being abused and traumatised in their homes but at every level from conception onwards and that must be addressed. 
As a young registrar I saw those young women and I think it is important to also realise that letting the parents or the perpetrators of such beatings get away with that is absolutely unacceptable. I think that is one of the strengths of what Judith Collins has brought to this Committee in the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 293 in her name. It is hugely important that we do everything possible to ensure that parents are involved. I know that I have seen as the constituent MP for Port Waikato increasing numbers of mothers come to me and say that they have been left out of the circuit when it comes to contraception. The school councillors or the school have taken over and that worries me greatly. I am very pleased that Judith Collins has brought out the amendment to insert new clause 37B because we do not have good data on the situation. The numbers are very small; there is no doubt about that. I think it is a very sensible suggestion that we get the Abortion Supervisory Committee to collate data and do research in order to try to work out the most constructive ways to address this extremely important problem. It is vital to ensure that young women do not return to incestuous or violent homes. It is vital that the perpetrators of violence are indeed held to account. It is also absolutely vital to people such as myself that there be an optimal doctor-patient relationship. 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister for Racing) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 What an interesting debate this has been. I do hope it is allowed to continue because I have sat in my office and listened to the radio and probably some of the most inflammatory comments I have heard have been those that I have just heard now from the distinguished member of the medical profession Dr Paul Hutchison. On the back of Larry Baldock’s contribution which ironically was in support of Judith Collins’ amendments I actually wondered which planet some members live on. I suggest to members that it does not matter one hoot or one iota how much time we spend wringing our hands and analysing ways to collect the appropriate data or to do research into finding ways to stop young ladies from getting pregnant. The facts are that when one has a Government that advocates decriminalising marijuana thereby promoting its use when people blatantly advocate that the use of recreational drugs is one’s right when the drinking age is lowered from 20 to 18—and therefore the de facto age to 12 and 13—and when one allows young men to pull up outside a bottle store buy a case of Canterbury Draught and 24 ready-to-drinks and chuck them in the back seat where 14 and 15-year-old girls are sitting girls will get pregnant. It does not matter how much hand-wringing we do in our little medical practices because we will not stop that. It does not matter whether we pull out the bogeyman. 
Everyone wants to justify this legislation by talking about incest. Everyone wants to justify opposing Judith Collins by talking about violence in the home. Well let me tell members how to stop violence in the home: lock the beggars up the first time they violently bash their wives. Instead of locking the beggar up for a lifetime when he bashes or kills a child he gets 3 years in jail and is out in 12 months doing back-end home detention. Those are the simple things that we can do to protect children. Do we do them? No. We bring in legislation such as this and tell the whole world we are doing it for the sake of children. Well yeah! James Whakaruru is dead. Why? Because successive Governments—successive administrations—have been too soft too genteel and too easy on criminals. We let them out of jail again knowing full well that 85 percent of them will reoffend and be back in jail in 5 years and we hope to God that on the way there they do not kill another child. I do not want to hear any more of that hypocrisy and drivel. For me and for many of my colleagues in New Zealand First the answers are simple—they are black and white. If a man beats a woman he is a wife-beater. The chances are he is also a child-beater. Where should he be? He should be locked up—not given counselling and not given a heart-wrenching opportunity to explain that because he is short bald brown and from a broken home he has the God-given right to do such a thing. Crap! Have members heard it? It is rubbish. We only promote such behaviour when we refuse to deal with it in the way that it needs to be dealt with. 
The same goes for all the liberalism and the garbage that we hear to justify the lowering of the drinking age. Mr Anderton sits there and justifies raising the sherry tax on pensioners because that was to stop binge drinking. Did it stop binge drinking? No. Is the problem worse? Yes. Do all the reports state it is worse? Yes. Has the Government moved to retract the law or repeal it? No. Have girls become pregnant? Yes. Many of the young men out on the streets do not care about that. They get their jollies on the night. They have a flash little car and cruise the streets to pick up young ladies. They drop the booze in the back seats and some poor mother and father under this legislation is not even entitled to know that their daughter has to have an abortion as a result of that. 
I take on board the comments from Judy Turner. That was one of the best speeches I have heard in the Chamber probably because she has a lot of contact with young people as I did when I owned and ran Daytona Park in Christchurch. We had young people sleeping on our lounge room floor day in day out week in week out and we knew that those young people could come and talk to us. It is the truth—and this has been said before—that some kids cannot talk to their parents. But I tell members that the amendment allows for those people who do care the good parents to get to know about abortions as of right. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I firstly want to compliment both Dr Paul Hutchison and Judith Collins for the way in which they have presented a very balanced thoughtful amendment about the intense issue of women under the age of 16 wanting abortions and the respective role of parents. 
I want to make a contribution on another issue that is equally important and that is in respect of the way in which this Minister and this Labour Government are proposing the appointment of guardians. What we have in clauses 21 to 23 is a recipe for parents coming in and out of children’s lives like one would not believe. I have a very simple question for the Minister in the chair Mr Benson-Pope. Why is it that it takes 3 years for a de facto relationship to result in property rights—rights to home car and assets—but only 1 year to be able to become the guardian of a child? That is right—under this bill if one shacks up with a woman for 1 year one has the ability to get full guardianship rights over the child. There is no need to get married. In fact the bill states that it actually makes no difference whether one is married. As Dail Jones correctly points out it does not even matter what sex one is when it comes to picking up these rights as a guardian. What sort of recipe is that for children? If there is anything that stands out in the social research it is that stability of parent-adult relationships in children’s lives is one of the most important elements in those children’s lives. 
 I ask the Minister in the chair and the member for Rotorua why children are less important than property. Why is it that under this Labour Government a person in a de facto relationship can have half the property after 3 years but can get all those important rights as guardian after only 1 year? Those members opposite have absolutely no respect or understanding about what is important to children succeeding. Those long-term relationships are absolutely pivotal. The reality of that clause is that there will be children with dads in and out of their lives like a rotating circus. There will be children with one two five or 10 guardians. Some are responsible for the tragedies that go on in homes and the Minister in the chair thinks that is OK. [ 
Interruption 
] He has confirmed it. He thinks that it is a good idea. He thinks that it is appropriate to shack up for only 1 year and pick up the same rights. 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: That’s not what I said. Don’t misrepresent me. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I notice that again when I made my contribution in this debate the Minister in the chair has breached a longstanding convention that members do not interject on a speech and I ask you to correct him. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Yes I have corrected him. Please continue. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The Minister in the chair is saying that cars houses and household goods are more important than children. Only a Labour Minister would try to impose that sort of insult on the children of New Zealand rather than say that children are the most precious thing in our country. They deserve protection. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: They’re not property. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: They are not property—so Ms Hobbs should get to her feet contribute to this debate and explain to me why this bill states that one can get full rights of guardianship after shacking up for only 1 year but for property one can get full rights after 3 years. Children are far more important than property. One has to go to court to get access to property but one does not even have to go to court to be able to have full rights as a guardian. This will impact on hundreds of thousands of children in New Zealand. I ask any member of the Labour Party to explain that contradiction. 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 60 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 6; United Future 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Motion agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Before I put the question there are a number of amendments and they will be held as a personal vote. A personal vote will be held. Ring the bells. Before we do that as I read out before we started in accordance with the leave of the House questions on amendments to Part 2 are to be taken in the following order: Supplementary Order Paper 294 in the name of Murray Smith Supplementary Order Paper 292 in the name of Judith Collins and Supplementary Order Paper 293 in the name of Judith Collins. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. There will be successive votes? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Yes there will be successive votes. 
LINDSAY TISCH (Junior Whip—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. Mr Jones’ Supplementary Order Paper is included in that motion as well. You did not mention Mr Jones’ Supplementary Order Paper. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 294 in the name of Murray Smith to clause 37 be agreed to. 
A personal vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 26 
Adams  
Copeland   
Mark  
Smith M 
Awatere Huata  
Duynhoven(P) 
McNair(P) 
Smith N 
Baldock  
English(P) 
Ogilvy  
Turia(P) 
Brown(P) 
Field(P) 
Paraone(P) 
Turner  
Carter J (P) 
Gudgeon(P) 
Perry(P) 
Catchpole(P) 
Heatley(P) 
Peters J (P) 
Teller: 
Connell(P) 
Jones  
Peters W (P) 
Collins  
Noes 94 
Alexander(P) 
Dunne(P) 
Locke  
Scott  
Anderton(P) 
Dyson(P) 
Mackey J (P) 
Shirley(P) 
Ardern(P) 
Eckhoff(P) 
Mackey M 
Simich(P) 
Barker  
Ewen-Street(P) 
Maharey(P) 
Smith L (P) 
Barnett(P) 
Fairbrother(P) 
Mahuta 
Sowry  
Benson-Pope   
Fitzsimons(P) 
Mallard(P) 
Stewart(P) 
Beyer(P) 
Franks(P) 
Mapp(P) 
Sutton(P) 
Bradford(P) 
Gallagher(P) 
McCully(P) 
Swain(P) 
Brash(P) 
Goff(P) 
Newman  
Tamihere(P) 
Brownlee(P) 
Gosche(P) 
O'Connor(P) 
Tanczos(P) 
Burton(P) 
Goudie(P) 
Okeroa(P) 
te Heuheu(P) 
Carter C (P) 
Hartley(P) 
Parker  
Tisch  
Carter D (P) 
Hawkins(P) 
Peck(P) 
Tizard  
Chadwick   
Hereora  
Pettis(P) 
Turei 
Choudhary(P) 
Hide  
Pillay  
Ward(P) 
Clark(P) 
Hobbs  
Power(P) 
Williamson(P) 
Coddington(P) 
Hodgson(P) 
Prebble(P) 
Wilson(P) 
Cosgrove(P) 
Horomia(P) 
Rich(P) 
Wong(P) 
Cullen 
Hunt(P) 
Ririnui  
Woolerton(P) 
Cunliffe(P) 
Hutchison   
Robertson(P) 
Worth (P) 
Dalziel  
Kedgley(P) 
Robson(P) 
Yates 
Donald(P) 
Key(P) 
Roy(P) 
Donnelly(P) 
King  
Ryall(P) 
Teller: 
Duncan(P) 
Laban(P) 
Samuels(P) 
Hughes  
A personal vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 45 
Adams(P) 
Copeland   
Mark  
Smith L (P) 
Alexander(P) 
Dunne(P) 
McCully(P) 
Smith M 
Ardern(P) 
Duynhoven(P) 
McNair(P) 
Smith N (P) 
Awatere Huata  
English(P) 
Ogilvy(P) 
Tisch(P) 
Baldock(P) 
Field(P) 
Paraone(P) 
Turner(P) 
Brash(P) 
Franks(P) 
Perry(P) 
Williamson(P) 
Brown(P) 
Goudie(P) 
Peters J (P) 
Wong(P) 
Brownlee(P) 
Gudgeon(P) 
Peters W (P) 
Worth(P) 
Carter D (P) 
Heatley(P) 
Power  
Carter J 
Jones  
Rich(P) 
Catchpole(P) 
Key(P) 
Ryall(P) 
Teller: 
Connell(P) 
Mapp  
Scott  
Collins  
Noes 75 
Anderton(P) 
Eckhoff(P) 
Mackey J (P) 
Sowry  
Barker  
Ewen-Street(P) 
Mackey M 
Stewart(P) 
Barnett(P) 
Fairbrother(P) 
Maharey(P) 
Sutton(P) 
Benson-Pope   
Fitzsimons(P) 
Mahuta 
Swain(P) 
Beyer(P) 
Gallagher(P) 
Mallard(P) 
Tamihere(P) 
Bradford(P) 
Goff(P) 
Newman  
Tanczos(P) 
Burton(P) 
Gosche(P) 
O'Connor(P) 
te Heuheu  
Carter C (P) 
Hartley(P) 
Okeroa(P) 
Tizard  
Chadwick   
Hawkins(P) 
Parker  
Turei 
Choudhary(P) 
Hereora  
Peck(P) 
Turia(P) 
Clark(P) 
Hide  
Pettis(P) 
Ward(P) 
Coddington(P) 
Hobbs  
Pillay  
Wilson(P) 
Cosgrove(P) 
Hodgson(P) 
Prebble(P) 
Woolerton(P) 
Cullen  
Horomia(P) 
Ririnui  
Yates 
Cunliffe(P) 
Hunt (P) 
Robertson(P) 
Dalziel  
Hutchison   
Robson(P) 
Donald(P) 
Kedgley(P) 
Roy(P) 
Donnelly(P) 
King  
Samuels(P) 
Duncan(P) 
Laban(P) 
Shirley(P) 
Teller: 
Dyson(P) 
Locke  
Simich(P) 
Hughes  
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 I seek leave of the House to record Larry Baldock’s vote in favour of my amendment. It was omitted by accident from the vote. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Is there any objection to adding one more vote to the Ayes on Mr Smith’s previous amendment? There is not. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 293 in the name of Judith Collins to insert new clause 37B be agreed to. 
A personal vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 45 
Adams(P) 
Copeland   
Mark  
Smith L (P) 
Alexander(P) 
Dunne(P) 
McCully(P) 
Smith M 
Ardern(P) 
Duynhoven(P) 
McNair(P) 
Smith N 
Awatere Huata  
Field(P) 
Ogilvy (P) 
Tisch(P) 
Baldock(P) 
Franks(P) 
Paraone(P) 
Turner(P) 
Brash(P) 
Goudie(P) 
Perry(P) 
Williamson(P) 
Brown(P) 
Gudgeon(P) 
Peters J (P) 
Wong(P) 
Brownlee(P) 
Heatley(P) 
Peters W (P) 
Worth(P) 
Carter D (P) 
Hutchison  (P) 
Power  
Carter J (P) 
Jones  
Rich(P) 
Catchpole(P) 
Key(P) 
Ryall(P) 
Teller: 
Connell(P) 
Mapp  
Scott  
Collins  
Noes 75 
Anderton(P) 
Eckhoff(P) 
Mackey J (P) 
Sowry  
Barker  
English(P) 
Mackey M 
Stewart(P) 
Barnett  
Ewen-Street(P) 
Maharey(P) 
Sutton(P) 
Benson-Pope   
Fairbrother(P) 
Mahuta 
Swain(P) 
Beyer(P) 
Fitzsimons(P) 
Mallard(P) 
Tamihere(P) 
Bradford(P) 
Gallagher(P) 
Newman  
Tanczos(P) 
Burton(P) 
Goff(P) 
O'Connor   
te Heuheu  
Carter C (P) 
Gosche(P) 
Okeroa(P) 
Tizard  
Chadwick(P) 
Hartley(P) 
Parker  
Turei 
Choudhary(P) 
Hawkins(P) 
Peck(P) 
Turia(P) 
Clark(P) 
Hereora  
Pettis(P) 
Ward(P) 
Coddington   
Hide  
Pillay  
Wilson(P) 
Cosgrove(P) 
Hobbs  
Prebble(P) 
Woolerton(P) 
Cullen  
Hodgson(P) 
Ririnui  
Yates 
Cunliffe(P) 
Horomia(P) 
Robertson(P) 
Dalziel(P) 
Hunt(P) 
Robson(P) 
Donald(P) 
Kedgley(P) 
Roy(P) 
Donnelly(P) 
King  
Samuels(P) 
Duncan(P) 
Laban(P) 
Shirley  
Teller: 
Dyson(P) 
Locke  
Simich(P) 
Hughes  
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Dail Jones to clause 37 be agreed to: 
to omit this clause. 
A personal vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 22 
Adams(P) 
Connell(P) 
Mark  
Peters W (P) 
Ardern(P) 
Copeland(P) 
McNair(P) 
Smith M (P) 
Baldock(P) 
Duynhoven(P) 
Ogilvy(P) 
Turner(P) 
Brown(P) 
Field(P) 
Paraone(P) 
Brownlee(P) 
Gudgeon(P) 
Perry(P) 
Teller: 
Catchpole(P) 
Heatley(P) 
Peters J (P) 
Jones  
Noes 97 
Alexander(P) 
Dunne(P) 
Locke(P) 
Shirley  
Anderton(P) 
Dyson(P) 
Mackey J (P) 
Simich (P) 
Awatere Huata  
Eckhoff(P) 
Mackey M 
Smith L (P) 
Barker  
English(P) 
Maharey(P) 
Smith N 
Barnett(P) 
Ewen-Street(P) 
Mahuta 
Sowry  
Benson-Pope   
Fairbrother(P) 
Mallard(P) 
Stewart(P) 
Beyer(P) 
Fitzsimons(P) 
Mapp(P) 
Sutton(P) 
Bradford(P) 
Franks(P) 
McCully(P) 
Swain(P) 
Brash(P) 
Gallagher(P) 
Newman  
Tamihere(P) 
Burton(P) 
Goff(P) 
O'Connor(P) 
Tanczos(P) 
Carter C (P) 
Gosche(P) 
Okeroa(P) 
te Heuheu(P) 
Carter D (P) 
Goudie(P) 
Parker  
Tisch  
Carter J 
Hartley(P) 
Peck(P) 
Tizard  
Chadwick   
Hawkins(P) 
Pettis(P) 
Turei 
Choudhary(P) 
Hereora(P) 
Pillay(P) 
Ward(P) 
Clark(P) 
Hide  
Power  
Williamson(P) 
Coddington   
Hobbs  
Prebble(P) 
Wilson(P) 
Collins  
Hodgson(P) 
Rich(P) 
Wong(P) 
Cosgrove(P) 
Horomia(P) 
Ririnui  
Woolerton(P) 
Cullen  
Hunt(P) 
Robertson(P) 
Worth(P) 
Cunliffe(P) 
Hutchison   
Robson(P) 
Yates 
Dalziel  
Kedgley(P) 
Roy(P) 
Donald(P) 
Key(P) 
Ryall(P) 
Donnelly(P) 
King 
Samuels(P) 
Teller: 
Duncan(P) 
Laban(P) 
Scott  
Hughes  
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Sue Bradford to clause 35 be agreed to: 
to insert the following new clause: 
35AInability to give informed consent to sterilisation 
If a child is unable through age or impairment to give informed consent to sterilisation: 
(a)A registered health professional appropriately qualified to carry out such an operation must apply to the family court with supporting information from a second appropriately qualified registered health professional that the procedure is a medical necessity; and 
(b)The family court is to ensure the provision of a lawyer to advocate for the rights and best interests of the child. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Noes 106 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 6; United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Dr Muriel Newman to clause 44 be agreed to: 
to insert in subclause (1) after the words “On an application made to it for the purpose by an eligible person” the words “having taken into account the default position of rebuttable shared parenting”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 34 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 6; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 81 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 297 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope to Part 2 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 68 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 48 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 6; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendments agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 2 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 60 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 6; United Future 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Part 2 as amended agreed to. 
Sitting suspended from 10.16 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Friday)