Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEstimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 02 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19160. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Estimates DebateIn CommitteeDebate resumed from 1 July on the Appropriation (2014/15 Estimates) Bill.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I can advise the Committee that the two votes that were unavailable for consideration yesterday—Vote State Services and Vote Sport and Recreation—are now available. They will be considered in the order of seniority of the responsible Minister.Vote Social Development (continued)Vote agreed to.Vote DefenceRICHARD PROSSER (NZ First):At the commencement of this debate you made the observation for the edification of the Committee that votes would be debated in descending order according to the rank of the Minister. It is rather telling—rather revealing one could say—that Vote Defence is languishing way down the order at No. 10. It is not even on the front bench. In a bygone era not so very long ago in actual fact only about 30 years ago—hardly a previous geological age by any reckoning—defence was regarded as a matter of great importance. Ministers of Defence were regarded as senior Cabinet Ministers. This very serious and important portfolio was entrusted to a Minister of experience and standing—a Minister ranked no lower perhaps than fourth or fifth in the Government. But this is no longer the case. It is not a reflection on the importance of defence; it is a reflection on the fact that this Government appears unable to understand that importance.That lack of understanding is illustrated clearly by the wholly inadequate level of funding allocated to defence by this administration. The Government trumpets the quite mythical $500 million that it claims is additional funding afforded to defence in the Budget. The reality of course is that it is $500 million over 4 years and it will go only part of the way to replacing the roughly equivalent amount that it has pruned out of defence over the past 2 years. It is sleight of hand—give with one hand and take with the other. Two percent—that is the level of expenditure that New Zealand First would like to see allocated to defence—2 percent of GDP. It is not a massive slice of the pie—2 percent to ensure our sovereignty 2 percent to secure our borders 2 percent to protect our exclusive economic zone and our fisheries resource to contribute to the security of the region and to support the efforts of our regional partners and allies. Two percent is the figure Australia is working towards and Singapore has already long since exceeded it. But not New Zealand; no.Under this Government the defence expense is less than 1 percent and from that paltry sum the Government claws back revenues in the form of GST road-user charges and a capital charge that relates to the cost of servicing expenditure on major projects and acquisitions and then of course depreciation. The actual amount of funding the New Zealand Defence Force has to work with is even more miserable. The defence of the nation is the first responsibility of Government and less than $1 in $100 is manifestly insufficient as a measure of the importance of this truth.Then what the Government spends money on what it does allow defence to actually procure and operate fails to reflect the realities of the world we live in. There was never any such thing as the benign strategic environment. In the real world there are still wars and conflicts. In the real world nations are not always nice to one another despite the existence of the United Nations. Diplomacy is a wonderful thing but only a fool would presume that people and nations could rely on it alone. There are times when it is also necessary to wave the big stick.As we debate the Middle East is dissolving into chaos yet again. Iraq and Syria are embroiled in civil conflict. Russia and Ukraine are facing off. The South China Sea has several potential conflicts threatening to spark up at any moment. North Korea is testing new missiles. Japan is talking openly about arming herself with nuclear weapons.In the midst of this mêlée New Zealand stands blissfully unconcerned. We have no force in the air force notwithstanding that it is possible to drop a Mark 82 bomb on the beach at Kaipara from an Orion retrofitted with a bolt–on hardpoint. Hallelujah! The Orions can drop bombs. They cannot jink or dogfight or avoid air-to-air missiles defend themselves from ship-launched anti-aircraft missiles or even hunt submarines any more like they were originally bought to do but they can drop old 20th century free-fall iron bombs. We are safe—not! Are the air force Orions also going to be fitted with infrared search and track or data links or Paveway designators so they can drop smart bombs as well I ask the Minister? Or are we relying once again as has been the policy of this Government and the one before it I might add on the hope that we will not ever have to use any of these things in anger.I ask the Minister but the reality is he probably does not know what any of those things are. Defence is a side interest for this Minister at best. His real passions are finance and foreign affairs. Those things are admirable and necessary—granted. But it would be nice at the very least to have a Minister of Defence who cared enough about defence to argue in Cabinet for a credible-sized slice of the pie. On the subject of admirals the navy is down to one frigate because the other one is tied up in Canada having an extended refit. It will be out of service for more than a year for the duration of which New Zealand will have one ship to patrol a maritime territory covering one-sixth of the Pacific Ocean.Hon Phil Goff: And they can’t crew the inshore patrol vessels.RICHARD PROSSER: Quite right Mr Goff. There is one ship. The refits to Te Kaha and Te Mana will amount to around half the cost of replacing them. I ask why this maintenance is not being done in Whangarei. Why is this Government not trying to get more bang for our defence buck by growing the ability of domestic engineering to take on such tasks? We could be building patrol ships here. We could be and we should be investing in developing a shipbuilding industry here in New Zealand anchored on the requirements of the military and from there being able to construct everything from coastal freighters to fishing boats. Instead we have a navy cobbled together from imported civilian-standard vessels based on designs for ferries and coastguard boats and the like. The two poor tired and old MEKO 200 German frigates are being flogged to death because they are two ships being required to do the work of four.In the 1950s and 1960s New Zealand maintained an operational fleet of six frigates. It was a core capability and for a nation of 2 million people with no exclusive economic zone it was entirely affordable. What has changed? What has changed about the reality of the world we live in since those days apart from the fact that it has become less stable and less safe? Our population has doubled and we have a vastly larger chunk of ocean to look after. We could be forgiven for thinking that the navy’s tasking requirement now calls for something closer to eight frigates than two but that reality does not appear to have worked its way through the collective skulls of this Government which disregards the need for credible defence relegates it to 10th on the Cabinet priority list and bases its decisions on financial considerations that have nothing to do with defending the nation and everything to do with making bottom lines look good.We have no combat aircraft nowhere near enough of a blue-water navy and an ever-shrinking army that is perilously close to not being able to properly support the SAS let alone mount an operation on the scale of Timor where we sustained a battalion on rotation for more than a year. The New Zealand Defence Force simply does not have a sharp end any more and because of that—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We are on Vote Defence not Vote Defence Force. There are two separate votes here. The member is straying into Vote Defence Force. I just bring him back. This is about defence not the defence force.RICHARD PROSSER: Because of that it is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit and retain enough good people to maintain core capabilities. Simply throwing money in the wrong directions within the context of an ever-decreasing budget is not the way to approach defence. We need to address the very real issue of pay and conditions and acknowledge that our people are underpaid in relative terms.But money alone will not fix this problem. At the heart of it there is a lack of understanding of what motivates people to join the military. They do not join for money. George Orwell said: “We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” That is why they join. Good men and women join up because they are motivated by a desire to fight the good fight. They are motivated to fight the righteous fight to protect the innocent and to stand in defence of the nation. To do that they need a military that is the sharp end that is resourced and that is intended to operate as a credible force but this Government just does not get that. That is why Vote Defence is so pitifully insufficient and meagre and why defence expenditure is so woefully misdirected.New Zealand First in a position of influence over Government will set this matter to rights. We will resource defence properly and we will give it back the focus and breadth of tools that it needs. This is a dreadful Appropriation Bill and the election cannot come soon enough. Thank you.Vote agreed to.Vote Defence ForceHon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):Eight months ago the Cabinet external relations and defence committee produced this minute that I have got in my hands. It had been kept secret and confidential until such time as the Government was forced to reveal it under the Official Information Act. Why was it kept secret? Because it reveals this point: “New Zealand now has the smallest number of personnel deployed to international peacekeeping operations in almost 20 years.” The number of New Zealand men and women who are superb peacekeepers whom we have deployed today is 77—just 77.When I was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Minister of Defence it numbered up to 800 and was generally in the 300 to 500 range. This minute in its last point urges the Government to take an active approach to considering contributions to international peace support operations. Why? Firstly it is the right thing to do for New Zealand as a good international citizen. But also New Zealand is putting itself up to be a candidate for the United Nations Security Council and what do we say about our good international citizenship—that the best we can mount to help international peacekeeping operations is 77?I wondered about this. because I know that the Government from this minute wanted to have more people out in the field. So why did it not? Well the answer was given in the estimates questionnaire where I asked the question about deploying overseas. And do you know what the Minister of Defence tells me? He says there is a risk that you could not deploy New Zealand service personnel overseas in a peacekeeping operation for more than 12 months. For 9 years we had 400 to 500 people deployed on these sorts of peace missions Minister and you have run down the Defence Force to the point that we cannot have our very good peacekeepers deployed for more than 1 year. That is a disgrace.One reason—and this comes out of the Auditor-General’s comments on the Minister’s handling of his portfolio—is that between 2009 and 2013 the number of Regular Force personnel has been slashed by 1200. That is a 15 percent reduction in our Defence Force personnel. But it is worse than that. It is worse than that because when that Minister did what the Auditor-General accused him of doing—breaking the social contract with the Defence Force personnel—we reached 24 percent attrition in the Defence Force. It was 24 percent in vital trades and in vital ranks and it takes years 7 to 8 years to replace people with the skills of those who walked away from the Defence Force.That is why our Defence Force cannot mount a decent peacekeeping operation—because that Minister by destroying the morale of the Defence Force in 2011-12 and by cutting the Defence Force budget for personnel has reduced it to the point that it cannot deploy for more than 1 year.But it is not simply that. There has been botch-up after botch-up. When the Minister of Defence gets to his feet I want him to comment on why the army court martialled a brave Special Air Service soldier who had served in Bosnia and served three times in Afghanistan for stealing army equipment when they could not find any equipment missing. They could not find any equipment missing and that has just been overturned—Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. That matter is still before the courts and it is best not to refer to it.Hon PHIL GOFF: No it is not.Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: It is.Hon PHIL GOFF: Speaking to the point of order.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I will hear the Hon Phil Goff.Hon PHIL GOFF: I was passed the Military Court of Appeal decision from the court by a party to the court because the suppression order has been lifted. It is in the public arena however much the Minister might try to suppress it.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I will need to seek some guidance on this. I do not have the answer and I will ask for some guidance from the Clerk. [Interruption] No I need to seek some guidance on this matter. I am informed that three of the four charges were dropped but there is still one that has not been so on that basis I would ask the member to move on on the Defence Force and we will leave that matter as it is.Hon PHIL GOFF: Speaking to the point of order the fourth charge was not appealed by the soldier concerned though the military court of appeal said that the army should consider withdrawing it. But this matter is not live before the court. It is not under a suppression order.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): OK. Well look just give me one moment while I just make sure that I have got my advice correct. All right I have some advice and the advice is that we can continue in the same vein.Hon PHIL GOFF: Well I would like the Minister to explain to the Committee why the army court martialled a solider for the theft of equipment that was not missing. The Minister will know that that soldier spent $15000 of his own money on buying equipment. It may well be that he passed back his own equipment and sold equipment that was the army equipment but there was no intent of theft and the military court of appeal damned the judgment that had been made in the first instance.Do we have so many brave and experienced SAS soldiers that we can court martial them effectively humiliate them and drum them out of the military only to find that the military court in the first instance got it wrong? That was a botch-up.The second botch-up: why is it that people working full-time for the air force at Whenuapai can set up a private company and tender for the equipment that they are working full-time on? And why is it that that matter is before the Auditor-General? That is another scandal waiting. The third thing is Babcock. Why did Babcock in its key performance indicators hit the lowest level five out of five which is designated unacceptable for 6 months? Why is it that the Defence Force is doing so badly that it is having these problems?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Defence):Looking to what we have just heard from both the New Zealand First member Richard Prosser and Phil Goff you would not believe that there has actually been so much great progress in the Defence Force. We are talking about the Appropriation (2014/15 Estimates) Bill here: $535 million over the next 4 years going into Vote Defence Force.Chris Auchinvole: How much?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: It is $535 million. That is something to really celebrate quite frankly.Hon Phil Goff: That’s less than I spent on the NH90s for God’s sake.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I am very disappointed with Phil Goff because no matter how nice I am to him I cannot get him to take a bipartisan approach and support our serving men and women. It is very very sad.Look what I can say to him is that he really has been misleading—I would like to say—there around the PKO the peacekeeping operations paper. He knows that the reason we have got relatively few people out on deployment at the moment is that we have people who have come back from Afghanistan from East Timor and from the Solomon Islands. The situation is very different from when he was the Minister. On 8 September 2008 there was a headline in the New Zealand Herald relating to Phil Goff’s tenure as Minister which said: “Can’t fight can’t sail can’t fly”. We have had to turn that round.What we had in 2010 was the first defence white paper in 13 years. What that did was set the policy for defence. We said: “Look it’s fiscally pretty constrained times. We’ve got to be very clear about what we need the Defence Force to do. Primarily it obviously has to maintain the integrity of New Zealand’s borders and be able to operate in our exclusive economic zone. It has to be able to deploy into the south-west Pacific in cases where there may be security emergencies or where there may be humanitarian assistance and disaster relief issues they have to deal with and it has to be able to make a contribution further afield.” So the policy was set but what we knew was that there was a funding gap there. We knew what capabilities were needed to deliver on that policy and we followed it up with the release of a capability plan which we have just refreshed recently and released just 2 weeks ago. But we had this hole of well over half a billion dollars which was going to roll up into the 2020s to a massive deficit of money needed to fund the sort of capital equipment that the Defence Force needs.So we went away and the officials from the Ministry of Defence and the New Zealand Defence Force did an excellent job at looking at all the capabilities that the Defence Force has—about 220 of them. They costed them all. They arranged them into 11 capability sets to deliver on the policy. At the end of that we had a very clear view of what capabilities were needed for the Defence Force to actually deliver the effects that the Government needs it to. We went to Cabinet and said: “Look this is the policy this is the strategy this is the capability we need and now we need this funding.” As a result of that in this Budget we have got this over half a billion dollars’ worth over 4 years. That is something that Phil Goff really should be celebrating. He is being disingenuous to say that we cannot deploy a defence force on a continuous rotation. We can; we can do two at once just like he could when he was Minister. The same problems that have been there around you know critical trades sustaining these deployments have always been there. They were there when Phil Goff was there. The key point is that we are able to sustain these deployments.As for the New Zealand First member he wants eight frigates for the navy. What he did not mention was that it was actually his leader Winston Peters who cancelled the third frigate. I know he would be very eager to go and attack any country ending in “stan” but actually that is not realistic in the current world. So when you look at it we have got a situation where we had no new money in defence for many many years. We had to make the best of what we had at the time. We redeployed resources from the back of the office to the front.Hon Phil Goff: Who paid for the NH90s?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Ah! Phil Goff has mentioned the NH90s—$770 million. He has forgotten though that you do not just buy the helicopter; you need to be able to afford to run it and you need to have people to go in it. Phil Goff ignored that completely. He has now left us to carry the slack.He talks about morale and attrition. Attrition in the Defence Force is now lower than when he was Minister. It is now 11.6 percent. Morale is now at 85 percent. So 85 percent of personnel in the New Zealand Defence Force rate their morale as good or better. I can tell you that that is a damned sight higher than the Labour caucus’ morale.Hon Phil Goff: No no no not true—satisfactory.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Yes it absolutely is. That is 85 percent. So actually what we have done is turned round a lot of the damage that Phil Goff caused when he was Minister.But the one thing I really do wish is this. You know Phil Goff is always welcome to come along to any defence event; I always acknowledge him. But I wish he would just behave the same way in the Chamber as he does at those events.Vote agreed to.Vote State Services agreed to.Vote Foreign Affairs and Trade agreed to.Vote Official Development Assistance agreed to.Vote Sport and Recreation agreed to.Vote CorrectionsJACQUI DEAN (Chairperson of the Law and Order Committee):I am very pleased to stand up and take a call on Vote Corrections. In fact I forgo the opportunity to speak on another extremely well-performing department and that is the police department to have an opportunity to speak on corrections because I want to extend my congratulations not only to the Minister of Corrections Anne Tolley but to the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections Ray Smith on turning round over the past 6 years—and I know the personnel have changed a little over that time but those are the people at the helm now—a service that is very very strongly focused on reintegration and rehabilitation.If I look back to when National first came into Government and look at corrections we used to see corrections officers occasionally along Lambton Quay in their ghastly green ill-fitting uniforms. That is what they had for a number of years under a Labour Government. I remember seeing the women officers walking along Lambton Quay wearing their uniforms with pride but clearly their uniforms had not been cut for the female figure. In fact what they were having to do was wear uniforms that were not fit for purpose. Well no wonder they had extremely low morale within the corrections service. The very first thing that the Minister of Corrections at the time did was give them a new uniform a new uniform that not only was fit for purpose but also engendered the feeling of pride and for the first time in many years under this National Government corrections personnel were not the scapegoat. They were no longer the people who were blamed for anything that went wrong in corrections.In fact the culture has changed so significantly that all we ever see when we go on prison visits are men and women who are professional and have absolute pride in their work. They absolutely know they have been backed by their chief executive and their Minister and they have the strongest focus. They say it in their literature. They say it in their book on reducing reoffending by 25 percent. They say that their absolute goal their ultimate goal is to reduce reoffending. Well what a change—what a change. What a sea change that has been over the past 6 years under this National Government. We have people who take pride in their work and have an absolute focus on reducing reoffending.That is based on some pretty significant research that shows that when offenders are released back into society which of course they must be within months or even weeks from their release from prison or in starting a community-based sentence they then reoffend pretty quickly. So it might be a matter of days; it might be a matter of hours. There is a tendency to reoffend. But also there is research that clearly demonstrates that treatment programmes provided for within corrections facilities can change the attitudes of prisoners and the beliefs of prisoners and they can also teach them skills to cope on the outside. So based on that knowledge based on that understanding based on the great morale and great leadership in corrections we now have a modern corrections system that is absolutely focused on tackling drug and alcohol abuse. Most prisoners who go into prison have issues around drugs and alcohol. We know that. We are providing more rehabilitation to every prisoner and we are beginning to show with the prison muster and the rate of reoffending which is dropping that those rehabilitation measures are working.We have more interventions by probation staff. Probation staff are talking to corrections staff and talking to the police and together with that combined effort those interventions are keeping prisoners from reoffending. There is now an out-of-gate service in our corrections facilities. No longer do you have the day when prisoners finish their sentences and literally walk out the gate and are left to their own devices. Now strategies and plans are put in place to keep the prisoners safe to keep them from reoffending and renewing that useless worthless cycle of crime reoffending and going back into the corrections service.One of the most memorable occasions I have seen over my time involved in law and order was at the women’s prison in Wiri where we went into a working kitchen and spoke to a number of the women prisoners. They had huge pride in what they were doing. They were not only catering for the construction crew for the men’s prison in Wiri but also learning great skills that were transferable to the outside. Those prisoners were looking to a life that did not involve crime any more.Vote agreed to.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Vote PoliceJACINDA ARDERN (Labour):I appreciate the opportunity to speak briefly to the estimates debate on the police. I want to start by pointing out that in all of our debates on the Budget the Labour Party has been quick to highlight that our hope was for a Budget that would set out a strong vision for work for family and for housing because those are all of the areas where we desperately need a strong vision for New Zealanders. But underneath all of that of course are the fundamentals; the things that of course central government is involved in. Justice and law and order underpin whether or not our families feel secure in their homes and their communities.One of the things that I feel frustrated by in the police portfolio is that the Minister of Police has started to take for granted I think that the basis on which she funds police is her determination as to where the crime rate sits. Of course crime in New Zealand is recorded crime. The rates that we use that we talk about are all based on whether or not the general public are phoning in and reporting crime to the police. In order for people to continue to do that it relies on people feeling like that is a worthwhile venture that their report will be responded to and that they will get some kind of either attendance by police or some resolution to the issue that they have raised. So it does become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the police do not attend someone is less likely to report and therefore it looks like your crime rate is going down.We raised this at the Law and Order Committee during the estimates with the Minister. She claimed that my view and to raise this issue was very last century. I thought that was curious given it is an issue that members of the public themselves have raised. She claimed for instance that for property offences of course someone would phone in and report something because they require it for their insurance claim ignoring completely the fact that we actually do not know how many New Zealanders have contents insurance. In all likelihood I imagine members of our poorer communities may be less likely to have contents insurance and yet are more likely to be preyed upon when it comes to things like property theft. So I do not believe Minister that it is a strong foundation to argue that based on all of those premises and the crime rate we can therefore reduce our resourcing of policing.In fact it is not just in the operational budget because in this Budget we have seen a decline in the police budget by $40 million. It is a $40 million reduction—and that is on top of frozen budgets and cuts—in operating expenditure for the police. The Minister tried to claim that it was not actually a cut in funding; the Government just was not putting in the extra boost it put in last time. Let me explain what that extra boost was. It was a supplementary appropriation. Mid-year the Government realised that it had not given the police enough to do the job and so it had to put a little bit of extra sneaky money in through supplementary appropriations. The Minister claims those are costs that we will not be facing again. They were basic costs like redundancy—redundancy that was occurring mind to try to get police costs down.We are in a vicious cycle with our police at present and we can see the impact it is having. Example one is ageing police cars. We have now 71 vehicles that failed their warrants of fitness in the last year and 58 vehicles have done over 200000 kilometres. I have heard of police vehicles breaking down on the job. These vehicles are a key part of the police doing their job. Not only is it an ageing fleet they have got fewer cars since this Government came into office.Example two we are seeing the police having to make cost-cutting priorities between drug squads and reallocating people to child protection teams. Those are not two areas that you should pick and choose between. Demand does not lift and drop when it comes to serious organised crime and child protection. In fact if anything both of those areas are escalating and we need to maintain our focus on both.Finally staffing numbers—they are lower now than they were even 2 years ago. This was the Government that in 2008 promised New Zealand a ratio of one police officer per 500 people. The Minister conceded at the select committee that they have given that promise away. They no longer retain that commitment. Why? Because apparently everything is going swimmingly. Ask New Zealanders whether they think crime is going down. Ask them. I think they will tell you that from this high-profile serious violent crime we are seeing it certainly has not.Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police):I would be very interested if we did indeed ask New Zealanders whether they thought that crime was going down because public trust and confidence in the police is at an all-time high. The reality out on the streets is that New Zealanders do know that things are going extremely well. Crime is at a 35-year low. You do not make up those statistics. You cannot fiddle them. That is the reality. Road fatalities are at a 60-year low—down down. Trust and confidence in the police are up. In fact when you have a look at the engagement survey that the police have an independent company do for them staff engagement is at an all-time high.So the police have never ever been in a better space. They are better resourced they are better focused they are better managed and they have a better Government backing them every inch of the way. They have come through 4 years of massive change. They did it themselves. It was not driven by the Government. They knew that they had to come out of 20th century policing into 21st century policing.A lot of what we are hearing from the Opposition about numbers and about police officers sitting in police stations waiting for people to come and report crime is very last century. The modern police officer is in the right place at the right time with the right tools and the right information. When we talk about them being in the right place we talk about them being out on the streets where people can see them. Foot patrols are up by over 150 percent. We are having police out on the streets 150 times more. They are being seen by people in the right places at the times when crime is happening. The police are now focused on preventing crime rather than responding to crime. That does not mean that if you are in trouble you cannot call the police but they say that policing is more about it being better to prevent crime happening in the first place than to respond to it and try to resolve it afterwards.When we talk about them having the right tools look at the smartphones and look at the iPads that this Government has rolled out. There are 350 extra police officers’ worth of technology that they can use. They are showing us how over the next 5 years to 10 years we are going to see a transformation in the way that evidence is kept and presented. In fact I have seen it already such as using FaceTime to record a drug deal going down. There are amazing things that the police are finding that this new technology will enable them to do.When you talk about equipment now they can start with the most important tool that they have which is their tongues. You watch police go into some very dangerous situations and the first thing they try to do is talk someone down then they have their batons then they have pepper spray then they have Tasers and finally every police car now has access to a Glock and to a Bushmaster rifle.The police know this Government backs them. We are backing their district command centres which allow district commanders to look at where the need is right across a whole district and to move his or her resources around as the public’s need dictates. That is modern policing. That is not 20th century policing; that is modern policing. We are allowing the police to get on and manage themselves so that we have in this country one of the most effective police forces in the world. We are the envy of many other police forces in the world and we should be getting behind our guys instead of trying to criticise these statistics and the work that the police are out there doing. We should be backing them and saying that they are a tremendous group of people who are out there working with victims as the focus and preventing crime before it happens. I am proud to be the Minister of Police.Vote agreed to.Vote Serious Fraud agreed to.Vote Conservation agreed to.Vote HousingPOTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East):Kia orana. This morning I spoke with my electorate office. That is not unusual you would argue and no it is not but I spoke to my electorate office this morning about what is happening in housing and particularly about what is happening with emergency accommodation in Christchurch. I do that from time to time. The team down there lets me know what is going on. We keep records of people who come into the electorate office looking for assistance with housing particularly emergency accommodation providers. Today my team told me—and I am just going to quote from the email they sent through to me today—that currently there are no emergency housing units available in Christchurch. Further it went on to say that the Salvation Army is full and has waiting lists but cannot move people on to permanent housing.We all know that there is an issue with housing in the Canterbury region including affordability and affordability of rents. Our rents have moved over $100 a week in the last year. We matched that to census figures that came out from One News a few days ago that said there have been 700 more people living in temporary dwellings and overcrowded houses since the quakes. The census data also goes on to tell us there are 2200 people in Christchurch living in temporary accommodation up 50 percent from 2006 and 700 people living in mobile homes and makeshift shelters. Overcrowding has climbed with more than 25000 people living in crowded households.We in Labour say that there is a better way—that the answer actually lies in building more homes. To be fair the Minister of Housing has done some work in this regard. The Christchurch housing accord with the Christchurch City Council will bring some affordable rentals back into the market. But when I questioned the Minister—Hon Ruth Dyson: About time.POTO WILLIAMS: That is right; it is way past time actually Ruth Dyson. When I questioned the Minister at the select committee estimates discussion he could not tell me how many more affordable rentals the accord would bring and nor could he tell me when they were likely to start construction. This Minister has really proved to be slow in many areas. His own figures show that of the 700 new Housing New Zealand Corporation homes he promised to build a year ago he has built only 29.From the Ministry of Social Development we know that of course the number of people who are on priority waiting lists for Housing New Zealand Corporation homes at the last count was over 500. But of course we do not know what the new figures are because the Minister for Social Development has not been able to provide us with any figures since they moved the accessibility criteria to the Ministry of Social Development in mid-April.The Minister of Housing likes to quote consents as a measure of progress and I would just like to share some information about that as well. I have to say to be fair that Christchurch is currently experiencing the highest number of consents ever. Well what a surprise that would be!Iain Lees-Galloway: Why?POTO WILLIAMS: I wonder why! I think they are supposed to be building houses are they not? The average number of consents for the period the National Government has been in office though is 1647. Let us compare that with the historic average of 1926—this is annually—and compare it with the average of 2012 over the years 1999 to 2008. This obviously goes to show that we were starting from some deficit even before the quakes hit. That is significant because we are starting from way back past left field before we even consider how much we need to do to get us to pre-quake levels.The Minister says that the Canterbury region has to put up with housing unaffordability for at least another 5 years. So for 8½ years people in Canterbury will see their accommodation costs eat up more and more and more of their income. There is a better way.ALFRED NGARO (National):Kia orana Mr Chair. Meitaki. I rise to take a call in this estimates debate in regard to housing. I want to acknowledge my colleague over there Poto Williams who talked about the issues of Christchurch and Canterbury. The lessons from the Canterbury earthquakes are informing our work programme which is also focused on the provision of safe healthy and high-quality homes and buildings. I just want to acknowledge some of the lessons that have been learnt from that as well.I think what is important is that housing policy is one of the greatest challenges of our time. It matters because most of our Kiwi families know that the equity in their home is their greatest asset and that it has become increasingly difficult for families to buy and own their own home. I know that for myself. It was not in fact until my late 30s that my family and I were actually able to buy a home. I know how challenging and how difficult it is and the difficulty of that even in these times. That is one of the reasons that this Government has embarked on a comprehensive package of reforms that will make homes more affordable and reshape New Zealand’s approach to housing as well.I also want to talk about some of the things that we are doing with regard to those reforms. One of the things we have done is the immediate suspension of anti-dumping duties through the Budget night legislation—duties on plasterboard wire nails and reinforced steel bars—for 3 years from 1 July. The zero concessionary tariff is to be reviewed after 5 years and covers around 90 percent of the materials in a new home. It is expected to save $3500 in the construction of a standard home. What I do know is that for me for instance coming from a construction background as an electrician—in fact I could be one of the few tradespeople in Parliament—when constructing homes the cost of construction becomes critically important. One of the things I do know is that when you compare the cost for instance of building in regard to square metreage the costs in New Zealand are around $2200 per square metre in comparison with Australia’s which are around $1300. So if we can reduce those costs we know the difference that that can make; hence the issue of suspending tariffs is quite an important one. We know the savings that that can make is around $3500 in the construction costs of homes.The other thing we have done is put $64.3 million into new operating funding new capital funding for social housing needs and functions for the Ministry of Social Development. So the social housing sector also becomes quite critically important. We know that in areas like Maraenui and Pōmare and also over in Tāmaki even with the struggles they have had they are very important.Meka Whaitiri: Do you know where Maraenui is?ALFRED NGARO: Yes I do know where they are. I know that for instance the Glen Innes housing project started off from going down to Maraenui and seeing what was happening there—the work they had been doing in regard to engaging communities about the issues of housing. So that was really important as well. There are those of us who do engage with communities as well. So what we did learn from that is the importance of engaging in communities—in particular around the social housing sector. We know the importance of the role of the social housing sector; hence the reason we have engaged with it.A great project that has happened in our community—and you might not know about it Ms Whaitiri—is in Māngere. You might not know where it is but it is in Māngere. There is a project called the Matanikolo Housing Project. It is a Tongan project that is partnering with the Tongan community. They have this partnership where they have been able to build 22 homes so now the Tongan community has got this partnership with Lifewise a social housing provider along with the Government. In that partnership there is $4.3 million—Hon Ruth Dyson: How many times have we heard the same old story?ALFRED NGARO: Yes you can go like that but guess what? For all that talk here is a little bit of action that is really happening. And guess what is happening? This Tongan community is saying for the first time that it has got a sense of participation and ownership in dealing with the housing issues for its community. It is a great project making a difference.Meka Whaitiri: It’s too slow.ALFRED NGARO: Well it may be slow where you come from but I tell you what: where we come from over there in Māngere they are absolutely celebrating it. They are asking when the next project is. They are asking this Government when the next project is so that we can partnership together. They have the land and they need some opportunities. So our partnership with the social housing providers is absolutely making a difference. See that is the difference between this Government and that potential Government over there.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū):I came down to the Chamber to listen to that excellent contribution from my colleague Poto Williams but having had to sit through Alfred Ngaro’s—how do I describe it? It was “inciteful”—it was an incitement to disorder listening to the bland platitudes the justifications of that member. That is the member who claimed to come from Glen Innes in Auckland but he has been the worst—the champion the apologist who justifies the disgraceful behaviour of Housing New Zealand kicking out the elderly kicking out the disabled from homes they have lived in for decades. He is the apologist for that sort of awful behaviour that even a select committee unanimously criticised Housing New Zealand for. That member has been the apologist for that kind of behaviour. He stands there justifying the policies of this National-led Government which has done nothing about the housing affordability crisis. That member stands up there like a pious vicar justifying the complete failure of the National Government’s housing policy.There are no winners in the current housing crisis. Let us look at it. In Canterbury the near-criminal negligence the failure of this Government to actually get the residential rebuild going has seen fewer than 1000 of the 12000 to 15000 houses that are needed after the quake actually built after 3½ years. Mr Ngaro the party that you stand up for and justify in this Chamber is responsible for rents going up by more than 40 percent in Canterbury and people living in sleepouts and sleeping in cars. That is the policy that you are proud of. In Auckland this Government has presided over skyrocketing house prices. In the last year in Auckland house prices on average have gone up by $72000 because of this Government’s total failure to do anything meaningful about a dysfunctional failing housing market.First-home buyers all over the country have been locked out of the dream of homeownership by loan-to-value ratios of a 20 percent minimum deposit. If you are earning the median wage in a place like Ashburton or Masterton of something like $28000 and you are paying tax on it it is impossible to save the $60000 $70000 or $80000 deposit that you would have to have to even get in the door to talk to the bank manager about a mortgage. But Alfred Ngaro would not know about that; he would not care about that. He is too busy justifying the failure and inaction of this National-led Government.In the regions because of this Government’s failure to crack down on speculators people are losing equity in their homes. In Southland in the last year the average house price has gone down by $22000. There is no housing crisis in Southland. It is because of the failure of this Government to do anything about speculators in Auckland that people in Southland—the other half of the population who do not live in Auckland and Canterbury—are paying the price of that Government’s failure of a housing policy.There are 285000 kids living below the poverty line. More than half of those kids are living in substandard private rental accommodation. But the best this Government can do about it is a lame pilot scheme of its own State houses that it is too weak-kneed to ensure are properly insulated and are warm and dry. Instead of doing something about the private rental market where those kids are languishing in cold damp homes and ending up in hospital every winter Nick Smith tries to look like he is doing something by announcing a pilot scheme.Alfred Ngaro talked about a comprehensive programme on housing. There is nothing of the sort. What has this Government done in housing? The only thing it has got is a lame housing accord in Auckland that has resulted in zero new houses being built a year after that policy was announced. Not a single new house has been built in the special housing areas as a result of that Government’s housing accord in Auckland. What a total waste and a failure.The Government has been talking about reforming the Resource Management Act to speed up the consenting of residential development for the last 6 years. We have got something like 7 House sitting days left before the House rises and it looks like it probably will not even pass the legislation on reforming development contributions. It has announced that it is not prepared—Hon CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier):Well we have just witnessed the first election debate for the seat of Te Atatū between Mr Phil Twyford and Mr Alfred Ngaro. In that debate we did see some anger from Mr Twyford so I think given that he is actually standing in a seat that is very much for the workers—and we are going to pitch an electrician a craftsman versus an administrator—it is going to be a very interesting battle in Te Atatū. But I want to focus on the positive work of this Government—I very much want to focus on the positive work of this Government.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. There are members interjecting on each other who do not have the floor. It is not permitted in the people’s House.Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: Housing New Zealand provides decent affordable housing to those who are most in need and when they need it. It owns or manages 69000 properties across New Zealand housing around 200000 people.Today I want to acknowledge three people who have worked their guts out over the last 9 years for my electorate in Napier. They are sitting in the gallery tonight: Tania Wright Vicki Sanders and Sharon Coates. They have been my electorate agents over the last 9 years. Unfortunately they cannot come to my valedictory speech in a few weeks’ time but I just want to acknowledge the massive massive work that they have done over the last 9 years and throughout that period. Much of that work has been done with Housing New Zealand and serving people who have walked in our door irrespective of whom they have voted for—that is not a question we ask when you walk into my electorate office. They have been serving those people helping them when they are in tough situations and in a time of need and working very closely I might add with the fine people at Housing New Zealand. They have had to deal with many of the changes that this Government has instituted over the last 3 or 4 years.There have been some necessary things that we have needed to do with Housing New Zealand. The facts are pretty simple. There are three things. Firstly the demographics have changed significantly in terms of the requirements—what is required in terms of the houses and the composition of those houses. Families have changed in terms of what is required. So what we have been supplying through Housing New Zealand has not stacked up with those demographics.Secondly the quality of the housing in some cases—and in suburbs the likes of Maraenui—has been appalling. If you look at the one-up one-down homes the side-by-side homes that sit in that suburb many of them that have not been pulled down still remain cold wet damp and mouldy. They are a disgrace quite frankly and need to go or be changed. The third thing which has been the tough call that many in the House have struggled with but that we believe we need to get on top of is some of the outcomes that proliferate around the cluster of those homes that are wet and damp and terrible. Some of those outcomes are not pretty. Many in the likes of Maraenui have very strong gang affiliations. That perpetuates all sorts of outcomes including low employment low aspiration and high crime levels even amongst and within the community itself. In fact some of the highest crime levels in the country occur most repetitively within the lower socio-economic parts of the community. We make no excuses for looking to change and to make changes. We are doing that.I have got to say I was proud just a few weeks ago to take the Prime Minister into Maraenui and to take him to seven new homes that have been built in that wonderful suburb—seven brand new homes. They are pitched right beside some of the one-up one-down homes—the cold wet and damp ones—that are now fortunately not occupied any longer because they do not deserve to house people. But next door there are seven new homes and they achieved a six-star rating. To put that into perspective a new standard home built to current standards gets three to four stars. The one-up one-downs next door achieve only one star. They are a recipe for disaster for illness for sickness for bad health and for all sorts of things. Next door there are now seven homes which is the kind of stock that Housing New Zealand is now out there growing around the country with double glazing on the windows and insulation. I visited them as they were being built. They have massive insulation on the ceiling.Vote agreed to.Vote Communications agreed to.Vote EnvironmentMOANA MACKEY (Labour):Tēnā koe Mr Chair. I am very happy to take a call on Vote Environment and also the climate change aspects of the environment vote. I think it is fair to say that the environment is going to be one of the major issues of this election campaign. We have a Government that has a stated target of doubling agricultural exports by 2025 but at the same time tells us that it wants to see no further degradation of waterways. Well I am sorry I say to the Minister for the Environment but those two things do not go together. They cannot both happen. What we have is a Government that is happy to oversee further degradation of already very polluted waterways in pursuit of an economic target that will inflict massive environmental damage. It is a short-term sugar fix for people and farmers right now that will potentially mean that future generations will not be able to farm land in the same way that they do right now and that future generations will not be able to benefit from the enormous environmental wealth on which our economy is based. That is what this debate is about. It is about sustainability.It is not about whether or not we farm; it is about how we farm and where we farm because what we know is that we are having land types with extremely vulnerable soils being converted to dairying—lands that leech nutrients very quickly into waterways that are already overallocated and already polluted. This Minister says that is fine. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment did a report earlier this year where she talked about land use changes. For the first time she brought together two modelling tools that are well-known and that are very credible so that we could see what land use changes would look like in 2020 and therefore extrapolate from that the impact on waterways. What that showed was that with the settings the Minister has suggested for the National Objectives Framework within the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management the 2020 worst-case scenario that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment laid out in her report would not be stopped at all. There is nothing in that National Objectives Framework that would stop the worst-case scenario from happening.That is of deep concern to a country that is not only hugely reliant on a healthy environment—because I think Government members do not realise that without a healthy environment we do not have a healthy economy. It is not a trade-off between the two. We must protect our environment because without it we have no economy. It is as simple as that. It can be done. As I said this is not about whether we farm; it is about how we farm and it is about where we farm. That is a discussion that we should be having instead of unfortunately a proposed National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and a National Objectives Framework that will not stop further extreme degradation of our waterways.Labour has said that we will strengthen the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management. We will bring back the national policy statement that we suggested when we were in Government. We do not want to see any further degradation of our waterways and we want to see remediation of those waterways that are already polluted. But that is not what this Government wants to do.So to compound it what the Government has decided is that we need sweeping Resource Management Act reforms. Apparently it is the Resource Management Act that is holding everything back. This is despite the fact that since 1991 our economy has grown 75 percent—since the Resource Management Act was implemented. It has hardly been held back by a piece of legislation that simply requires that the environmental impacts of economic activity are taken into consideration and managed. That is what the Resource Management Act does. That is what it is designed to do. It is not and was never meant to be an economic development Act yet that is what this Government wants to turn it into. The Minister says it is failing. That is despite the fact that our economy has grown by 75 percent since the Resource Management Act was introduced. Our population has grown by 25 percent since the Resource Management Act was introduced.I note the most recent survey of local authorities in terms of their performance on the Resource Management Act and bear in mind the Minister says this is a broken system that needs to be fixed. Do you know how many of the 34000 consents that were processed in the last financial year that was reviewed—and these reviews are done every 2 years—were processed on time? Ninety-seven percent were processed on time. Do you know how many were approved through this system that the Minister is trying to convince New Zealanders is holding our economy back? Ninety-five percent were approved. How many were appealed? It was 0.7 percent. How many were declined? It was 0.27 percent. I think you would struggle to find another piece of Government legislation that is working as well as the Resource Management Act.Labour agrees that process improvements can always be made to the Resource Management Act and we have no issue with that but we need to leave the basic fundamental values—the heart and soul of the Resource Management Act—alone. We have 20 years of case law that has been developed. If the Minister thinks that destroying 20 years of case law is going to provide certainty then she is absolutely off her rocker. It will do nothing more than provide huge uncertainty and environmental degradation. She has not actually shown or proved in any way that there is a problem that needs to be fixed.The Supreme Court has come to the rescue. In relation to the recent New Zealand King Salmon case the Minister had been saying: “Well the problem is you see the values and the hierarchy of principles in the Resource Management Act are being given a higher purpose in law than the national policy statements and planning documents like regional plans and district plans. That’s the problem so we need to amend Part 2 of the Resource Management Act.” Well Minister you do not need to because the Supreme Court has just completely turned that on its head and said that no that is not the case. In fact those planning documents where they use directive language do have precedence over Part 2 of the Resource Management Act. So rather than the Minister saying that these are technical changes that will bring the Resource Management Act into line with case law case law and the Minister are now heading very quickly in completely opposite directions—completely opposite directions.The Minister’s other argument is that the Resource Management Act is a sacred cow apparently—a sacred cow—that Opposition members are saying should never be touched. How ridiculous! I asked the Parliamentary Library to do a search. There is no other piece of legislation since 1991 that has been amended as many times as the Resource Management Act. Barely 18 months have gone by without a Resource Management Act amendment bill and that is appropriate. What we need however alongside it are the national policy statement and planning documents which can guide the Resource Management Act streamline processes and provide far more central government guidance. The Supreme Court has now given those planning documents a supremacy that is extremely helpful.I want to quickly come to the issue of climate change before my time runs out and just say I am so disappointed with this Government’s performance on climate change. This is actually about futureproofing our economy. We have to do this. This is not a “nice to have”; this is something that we have to do. We have to transition away from our heavy reliance on fossil fuels. The longer we leave it the more difficult it becomes the more expensive it becomes and we miss the amazing opportunities that are out there right now. There are countries around the world that are crying out for low-carbon solutions and crying out for low-carbon goods and services. This is our natural area. This is our natural strength and what are we doing? Nothing. In 2007 John Key said that we need to be ahead of the game on this that we need to realise that we will become trading pariahs if we do not bring agriculture into the scheme and that we need to capitalise on the enormous potential and opportunities for New Zealand as a country that has—or used to have—an enormously high reputation in this area. We are being overtaken by countries like Denmark which is seeing these opportunities and rapidly advancing towards it for the betterment of its economy.The National Government says that it wants an emissions trading scheme but it does not want a price on carbon. That is utterly ridiculous. Why would you have an emissions trading scheme the sole purpose of which is to price carbon if you did not want a price on carbon? Then the Government makes up some ridiculous figure that it will cost $500 extra a year to have a proper price on carbon. That is utter garbage that is being made up. Do you know what? If the Government had transparency around carbon pricing and stopped the price-gouging that it knows is going on by electricity and fuel companies which would drop the price of carbon actually the overall cost would not be that much to businesses and households at all. Of course what we are doing is incentivising low-carbon products by giving them a price advantage. That is the point of a price on carbon. The Government has allowed cheap units to flood into our emissions trading scheme collapsing the price of carbon and damaging our forestry sector. That is the one sector that did all the heavy lifting over the last 6 years. The only reason that we came out positive in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and did not face a massive bill was forestry. Our gross emissions kept going up. We were just planting enough forests to more than mitigate that.Well in 2020 those forests come down and because of the Government’s climate change policies we are not replanting the forests. We will face a massive massive bill. If there is a post-2020 agreement there is a real risk that it may be unaffordable for New Zealand to enter that agreement—that is if we do not do something about planting more forestry and reducing our gross greenhouse gas emissions right now. Can you imagine how devastating it would be for our reputation if the mess that this Government leaves is so bad that we have to equivocate on whether or not we are able to enter into a post-2020 agreement? The Government’s climate change plan is 0.4 percent difference from doing nothing at all.MAGGIE BARRY (Chairperson of the Local Government and Environment Committee):I rise to speak on Vote Environment in the Committee stage of the Appropriation (2014/15 Estimates) Bill and I speak with great enthusiasm about our environmental and conservation measures. The last speaker Moana Mackey outlined very clearly the great philosophical void and enormous divide that exists between our two parties. I am passionate about the environment. I work for a Government that is also passionate about the environment and does excellent and remarkable things to safeguard it. That is why I joined National. That is why I approve ultimately of all of the activities that our Minister for the Environment Amy Adams and our Minister of Conservation Dr Nick Smith have put in place.Let us take a few of the proposals and achievements that we are putting through over the next little while and there are a lot more to come. Expect some big announcement about fresh water and ensuring good water quality in the lead-up to this election because that is something of an absolute priority. I agree with what the Opposition members say—it is a priority. Where we absolutely disagree is the way we want to achieve it. We are not about rhetoric. We are not about mad words that promise lots and deliver nothing. We are not about peddling things that are absolutely impossible to deliver. You cannot manage what you cannot measure. We measure it we look it and we make policies that really do ensure that our freshwater resources which are precious are replenishable. They are not unlimited though; we need to look after them.There are no quick-fix solutions to the problems with our waterways. There is no magic Labour wand or Green wish-it-were-so policy that will change the inevitable. What we have done as a Government is to address the substance and to put together packages and clean-ups that will lead to a more productive and sustainable use of our freshwater resources not only for our farmers whom I am sick of hearing being demonised. Dirty dairying—really and truly you start to lose the will to live when you hear the way that people try with captions and slogans to demonise and vilify one group in society. People are trying extremely hard to come up with practical solutions. That is something that happens when you have a Minister for the Environment who is also a farmer because she understands and knows the practical day-to-day realities of actually running a farm and dealing with it.Let us look at some of the reforms that we have established to date. The Land and Water Forum—what an extraordinary thing. Imagine getting all the enemies of the environment climate change and conservation all in one room and that they talk together. In the 9 long years of the Labour Government it was considered to be an incredibly unlikely scenario and one not even worth trying. By 2009 we had formed the Land and Water Forum and as Dr Nick Smith has done and has put some extraordinarily good work into we have managed to maintain a level of collaboration where you do get together people who want the same thing which is the betterment of our environment. They come to the table and they give a little and they gain a little and they get the job done. That is what the Land and Water Forum has done.Let us look at the stakeholders and the way they have done the groundbreaking research. There probably is not actually time for me to go into the Land and Water Forum’s achievements in any great detail but look at the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management. That came in in 2011 and it gave councils a clear pathway and a national direction for the first time on how to set limits to achieve water management objectives. You need to be able to look at this sensibly and to take the emotion out of the argument and that is what has been done. The development of that National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management provided a robust scientifically backed set of attributes to help communities plan to meet their particular objectives. Hold the front page—it is not that difficult an idea but it is a concept that the Opposition parties seem unable to grasp. Maybe it is just politics but we put that to one side because the environment matters to us.We have put about $101 million recently on to water clean-ups and have committed a further $350 million which is a fivefold increase in funding and that is just for lake and river clean-ups. This is where it counts and this is where it matters. Put the empty rhetoric aside. In the latest Budget a further $12 million in extra funding will be spent over the next 4 years again to help councils and communities come together to plan and make decisions about their own problems—looking local and using local solutions and working together with that breadth of knowledge. I have seen it recently with the Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill. We had a collaborative approach there which has been done over—oh I do not know—15 years in total but very seriously for the past 7 years. That is a workable solution that was ultimately embraced by the Greens and by Labour and the Supplementary Order Papers and the debate I guess when the bill comes back to the House will settle any points of difference. We believe as a Government—this National John Key-led Government—in collaboration and it works with the environment.EUGENIE SAGE (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Chair. Vote Environment for 2014-15 totals over $313 million and 61 percent of that relates to the Ministry for the Environment’s climate change responsibilities and my colleague Kennedy Graham will comment on that. But 39 percent of the vote is for other aspects of environmental management and a significant chunk of that covers fresh water. The Ministry for the Environment gets $14 million to provide advice and implement tools for water management.We live in a country that is shaped by more than 180000 kilometres of rivers. Some of them are deep and swift and others like the Waimakariri have wide beds that spread into many strands on the plains. Some like the Tarawera start in lakes and others have their headwaters in the snowfields of the Southern Alps. We New Zealanders love our rivers. They inspire us with their beauty and power as places to go fishing and kayaking as a source of kai or for their own sake. Nine high-profile New Zealanders including musicians Tiki Taane Maisey Rika artist Grahame Sydney photographer Craig Potton and comedienne Michele A’Court and 2000 other New Zealanders have signed an open letter to the environment Minister calling on her to get tough on water pollution. New Zealanders want the Minister and her ministry to introduce strong standards to protect water quality and reduce the pollution load that intensive land use puts on our rivers.I understand that tomorrow the Minister will release the Government’s final decisions on the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management. That national policy statement is the major policy document under the Resource Management Act and it influences how our rivers streams lakes and aquifers are managed and how councils control land use that affects water quality. But National has no plan for clean rivers. Under this Minister and this National Government the Ministry for the Environment has proposed weak national bottom lines for water quality that will allow more water pollution. We have got high limits on pollutants such as nitrogen and faecal coliform. Why? So that irrigation and dairy intensification can continue to expand.Hon Christopher Finlayson: Why do you talk such nonsense?EUGENIE SAGE: Mr Finlayson is interjecting. Mr Finlayson last November when National released the proposed changes to the national policy statement they were widely criticised. The Fish and Game Council said the national bottom lines for water quality would allow New Zealand rivers to become some of the most polluted in the OECD. It described them as an abject failure that in its words legitimised the worst farm nitrate pollution we have in New Zealand now and allowed water pollution to increase by five to 15 times over current levels.Shane Ardern: Who said that?EUGENIE SAGE: It was not just the Fish and Game Council; it was also the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. She said that the National Objectives Framework did not go far enough to address the most widespread pervasive and immediate pressure which is the rapidly increasing nutrient loads from land use change.In the last 5 years the amount of irrigated land in New Zealand has increased by an area the size of Lake Taupō and Lake Te Ānau combined. An extra 60000 hectares in Canterbury have been irrigated covering an area the size of Lake Taupō. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Parliament’s environmental watchdog wants the Government to increase the measures in the national policy statement so that regional councils regulate land use change to prevent more nutrient leaching more faecal contamination and more water pollution. But National prioritises irrigation development and intensive land use over rivers that are clean enough to swim in. There is no limit to the novel food products and the jobs we can create if we use our intelligence if we focus on research and development and if we add value to the milk we currently produce but there is a limit on the number of dairy cows we can put on the land. The Green Party recognises this; National does not. In areas like Lake Taupō we have reached that limit.More than 90 percent of the 7000 submitters on the Government’s proposed changes to the national policy statement called for a health standard that ensured that rivers were clean enough to swim in. The Green Party would introduce standards that provided that. When the Minister announces her changes tomorrow I would love to see a change in that standard to ensure that our rivers are clean enough to swim in but given that National prioritises irrigation I doubt that we will see that.Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment):It is a great privilege to take a call on Vote Environment in the estimates debate for this year. I think that the National Government can stand here incredibly proud of what we have done in the environment space in the last year. I am happy to go toe to toe with anyone in this Parliament on our actual record. Leaving aside all the hand-wringing rhetoric and the tired old clichés and the thinly veiled hatred of farmers that those members hide under their rhetoric in actual action on the ground this is a Government that has delivered in every single component that makes up the environment portfolio.We have heard a lot about fresh water but what I can tell you is this. This is the Government that put in place a National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management. This is the Government that is going to introduce for the first time nationally required bottom lines. This is the Government that required regional councils to make sure that water quality is always maintained or improved. This is the Government that spent five times what the previous Government spent on water clean-ups. This is the Government that required for the first time metering of large irrigation consents. This is the Government that is putting this country on a path to cleaner better more sustainable fresh water.But here is the difference. This is also a Government that recognises that New Zealanders want jobs they want a high standard of living and they want all the things that the taxes from our productive sector pay for. So we are not going to do it in a way that kills the golden goose. We are not going to slam the door on business. We are not going to demonise anyone who commits the unforgiveable sin of actually running a business being profitable and creating a job. We are going to say: “Let’s do it in a way that achieves both.”Unlike the Labour speaker Moana Mackey who said that you absolutely could not have clean water and increase agriculture we do not accept that. We believe that you can. In fact we know you can. We have seen it happening. New Zealand farmers New Zealand business people and New Zealanders as a whole are the most innovative the most clever and the most creative people in the world and they are already adapting and they are already showing that you can absolutely farm in a way that is more profitable that is more successful and that significantly reduces their environmental impact. That is what we back and that is absolutely what we are going to see happen. [Interruption]The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Sorry to interrupt the Minister. It is happening again. Members who do not have the floor and who interject on each other because they have a disagreement—that is not permitted in the people’s House. If you want to interject then you can interject on the speaker on my right but not on each other.Hon AMY ADAMS: That same approach of talking one game and then not following through is seen throughout Labour’s approach. So let us look at the Resource Management Act. Again we heard Moana Mackey railing against this but here is what I would say. If the Labour Party wants to go to the electorate on a platform that there is nothing wrong with the Resource Management Act bring it on. Bring it on because I can tell you that every single public satisfaction survey that is done on how the public find our services across national and local government consistently rates the Resource Management Act not only as a fail but as having the lowest rating of every single service. So if Labour wants to campaign against us on the basis that the Resource Management Act is working really well and we are happy with it I welcome it.Again here is the difference. We understand that our planning laws absolutely have to protect our environment. They absolutely have to care about the water the soil and the air that we all enjoy and need in order to live. But also we recognise that people care about jobs houses and infrastructure. Labour suggests that our planning laws are not even allowed to make reference to the importance of land for housing or the importance of creating new economic growth opportunities and it then has the audacity to come to this Committee and say: “Where are the jobs and what are you doing about housing?” when it has blocked every single opportunity in this House to back us on sensible reform that would put things like housing infrastructure and natural hazard management—that is all we want to put in it—right at the heart of the Resource Management Act. But according to the Opposition you are allowed to ask only whether there will be any negative impact. That is all you are allowed to ask. Never mind that people actually need houses to live in. They need houses to live in and this Government recognises it.Let us have a look at the exclusive economic zone. Here is another great example right? The exclusive economic zone. What happened under Labour and the Greens? They drilled as many holes as they wanted out there and do you know what the process was? Their energy Minister signed it off. That is it. That was the entire economic and environmental assessment—one energy Minister signed it in his office. Under the National-led Government we have for the first time a strong environmental impact assessment before anything can happen in our exclusive economic zone. And for all the people on the Opposition benches who screamed that this was some sham rubber-stamp process how is that looking now? We have a strong independent very detailed oversight of anyone who wants to operate in our exclusive economic zone. Yes we do want to see development but only if they can meet that very high threshold. It is a high bar—Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Chairman. This is a Government whose 2014 estimates contain a time bomb of fiscal deficit over the next two decades through a failure in carbon budgeting. This is a Government whose climate change policy is a mess. It has paltry targets with no plan to attain them. It has weak policy settings so emitters have no incentive to change and that I say to the Minister for the Environment will kill the golden goose. But even worse is the failure to convey to the taxpayer the fiscal costs that its climate policy will impose on future generations. The emissions trading scheme under current settings aspires to manage fiscal risk primarily through forestry and the harvesting of trees is therefore fully priced. But the impact of the emissions trading scheme on other sectors is softened by compensation the gifting of units and the exclusion of an entire sector that makes up half of our emissions.In 1992 New Zealand undertook to reduce emissions. Since then its emissions have soared and are projected to continue to do so out to 2050. What is the fiscal effect of that? New Zealand has committed to three emission targets: 2008-12 2020 and 2050. By drawing straight lines between these targets the Government sets a primitive kind of national carbon budget. It calculates the annual emissions within those lines and then compares the limits with the projected emissions to find the excess. For the period 2013-50 Treasury projects that under current policy settings excess emissions will total around about 1 billion tonnes of emissions. Net emissions will more than double the Government’s target in 2050.One way or another this excess has to be paid for. This Government refused to enter a binding commitment under Kyoto II so we face no financial penalty if we fail and exceed our 2020 target but after 2020 there will certainly be an international carbon price of some kind and it will rise fast. It cannot be otherwise. The British climate commission assumes that international prices will rise from about US$50 to US$150 a tonne during that decade. There will be a binding obligation on emission limits by then and a financial penalty of some kind for exceeding them. At US$25 a tonne the external carbon budget deficit for New Zealand will amount to maybe US$30 billion. Imagine the fiscal hurdles for the next generation when we might be paying up to six times that price.In 2 months voters choose which party will govern for the next 3 years. They have two considerations: security for themselves and a future for their kids. This is a Government that flaunts a reduction of current account deficit next year and ignores the future. But the fiscal debt from current climate change policy will be simply horrendous—a major financial haemorrhage in the 2020s. Because our accounting methods are inadequate this is hidden from the taxpayer and the voter. The principle of carbon responsibility is lost on this Government. The Public Finance Act requires the Government to manage fiscal risk with prudence. How is the public going to judge the Government on that basis?This is a Government that misrepresents the facts to the public. Over the past month it has derided the Green Party’s proposal for a carbon tax claiming that our tax would be five times the global price. What pure rubbish! There is no single global price; there is a range of international prices. So how does the Green price level compare? The Green proposal is for US$22 a tonne for carbon dioxide and US$11 for biological emissions. So how does this compare with international prices? Well there is China Quebec California and France at US$10 then there is the UK at US$16 Australia at US$22 Finland at US$48 Switzerland at US$68 Tokyo at US$95 and Sweden at US$168. So our proposal sits very comfortably within the carbon price range overseas. This is a Government whose estimates along with its spin are misleading tendentious and dangerous.Vote agreed to.Vote Primary IndustriesHon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries):It is great to take a call in this debate on the appropriations. I want to say what a fantastic year it has been for primary industries. Just in the last couple of weeks we have released a document the Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries 2014 which records that our primary sector is in boom times—a nearly $38 billion return. Is that not fantastic?Andrew Little: Why are you ripping off farm workers?Hon NATHAN GUY: Andrew Little chips in. He would not know one end of a cow from the other even though he is standing in the New Plymouth electorate. Labour does not care about the rural communities. I want to take Andrew Little and Labour and the Green Party through why the primary sector is so vitally important to the New Zealand economy. As I was saying $38 billion was returned from our exporters in our primary industries this year. Is that not fantastic? Dairy is up to around $17 billion. Meat and wool are up to and through $8 billion which is fantastic and is forecast to return 22 percent out to 2018. Then of course we have the forestry sector. There are boom record times for it—$5.1 billion. Horticulture is going strongly with $3.6 billion in terms of its exports. It is forecast to go to $4 billion by 2016. And we should not forget about our seafood exporters who do a fantastic job of producing a quality product that goes all around the world at $1.45 billion.But of course we cannot have a big-growth target of doubling our exports to $64 billion by 2025 without focusing on protecting our primary industries and that is why I am excited about Vote Primary Industries. It is strengthening the core systems for biosecurity and for food safety. We are putting more resources into our overseas footprint. I want to talk specifically about biosecurity because it is my No. 1 priority as Minister for Primary Industries. We have doubled the funding since 2000 in biosecurity and there is more funding in this Budget. What we have also done is roll out 12 new X-ray machines. We have trained more front-line quarantine inspectors—125 were trained in the last 18 months including new dog detector teams. What we have also done is introduce Government-industry agreements and we have had the first signing of the deed with the kiwifruit industry.What we have also done in just the last few weeks is announce $65 million for a new biocontainment facility at Wallaceville in the Hutt Valley. It has gone down fantastically well with those in the primary sector because they know that we need to have our testing regime up to international best practice. They know that $20 billion worth of animals and animal product exports is the result of our farmers and the fantastic work that they do. This is the insurance premium and policy for the next 30 years for our primary sector—to know that we have world-leading and best-practice scientists doing the testing for exotic animal diseases.The other important thing is of course that we have the opportunity to grow Māori agribusiness in New Zealand. We did a study about a year and a half ago that confirmed that 1.5 million hectares in New Zealand is Māori freehold land and the opportunity for Māori to work closely with the Government to lift their overall performance is huge. We are talking about $8 billion in terms of export returns and we are talking about 3600 jobs.The Green Party and Labour do not like talking about irrigation because they do not believe in it. They do not believe in rural communities. They do not believe in jobs and exports but we on this side of the Chamber do. We believe that irrigation is good.David Shearer: Subsidies.Hon NATHAN GUY: We believe that irrigation is good and I will tell you why. Mr Shearer might be interested in this because he would not understand rural communities. There are 400000 hectares of land that could be under irrigation that is not under it currently and the size of the prize here is $4 billion. The other important thing about irrigation is that it is good for the environment and the reason it is good for the environment is that you take the pressure off the aquifers. You can store water—we collect and store only 2 percent of the water in this country; the other 98 percent goes into the streams and rivers and heads out to sea—and we have got numerous cases up and down the country particularly in the South Island where as a result of irrigation rural towns have been repopulated and schools have benefited as have businesses and the New Zealand economy.SHANE ARDERN (Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee):Thank you for the opportunity to contribute in this debate. It is interesting to follow on from the Minister for Primary Industries who talked about the opportunities coming from irrigation. If you had been listening earlier to the debate on the estimates for environmental portfolios you would have thought that this was going to be the end of the environment in New Zealand when in fact the opposite could not be more the case if you look at science and of course we are asking people to look at science—which is a step too far for more or less two-thirds of the Opposition as far as I can tell.We are asking people to look at actual scientific evidence and the reality is this. When irrigation was developed in the upper part of the South Island in the Kaikōura and Nelson regions during the late 1970s and early 1980s large amounts of land were developed for viticulture. So I guess what we are saying is that those grapevines should go and that land should revert back to what was there prior to the pinot and the sauvignon blanc being planted and then we would be in a much better position because the automatic presumption is that if you irrigate land it is all going to go into dairying. That in itself would not be a bad thing because there is plenty of technology now to mitigate the types of environmental effects that they talk about. In fact if they had gone to the Fieldays—and I invite the Green Party to look at this technology—and had a look at some of the new innovation that was on display there in regard to environmentally sustainable use of land and water they would not hold this Luddite position that they have.So let us just have a look at what actually has been achieved in the dairy sector in the primary industries area in the last wee while. The Dairying and Clean Streams Accord—87 percent of the streams rivers and lakes and 90 percent of the races or access ways for cattle have now been fenced and bridged. No other industry has achieved that in that time. Ninety-nine percent of dairy farms have nutrient budgets. I am not asking those who are in the Chamber to understand what that means but what it basically means is that all nutrients that are applied are budgeted for and calculated against what is used. It is not very hard to understand. There is a warrant of fitness system for dairy effluent management which is controlled both by the regional councils and the dairy companies that they supply. Dairy effluent non-compliance is less than 10 percent nationally and coming down. It is substantially reducing each year.There is research for reducing greenhouse gas emissions based on science once again and New Zealand’s investment in this area is world-leading. Why do we not hear the Greens or Labour touching on that from time to time? Dairy companies are implementing stringent criteria in terms of their supply regimes.Why do we not hear from the Labour members who I know are passionate about increasing wages about what has actually happened in terms of dairy worker wage limits or wage rises in recent times? Why do we not hear about the stories of young couples now in that sector who are earning $130000—what they call the total value package? Why do we not hear about that? The majority of them in the larger operations in a mid-management position are earning that money and more and some are earning up to $300000 and $400000. When do we hear about that? When does the Green Party talk about that?Why do we not hear about the massive investment that is going on in local communities in philanthropic ways through the likes of milk in schools for example—that is one starting point—as well as all the local investment that goes on in small towns and communities in regard to philanthropic activity? It is all driven on the back of investment in our primary sectors.Why is it that we constantly hear the negative carping in the background from our Opposition? Why do we not start celebrating the areas that we are good in? Why do we not get over the fact that we are an agricultural nation and we depend on our agricultural sector? Seventy-two percent of our export earnings come from the agricultural sector. I cannot help it if two-thirds of the members in this House do not like that—I cannot help it—but it does not change the fact. If they do want to develop something else to replace it please do. But let us not pretend there is some silver bullet. This is a sector that will grow the New Zealand economy faster than any other sector.DAVID SHEARER (Labour - Mt Albert):I want to say that this is the first year I have not been to Fieldays. I have been to it for the past 4 years. I can tell you that the same thing happens to me every time I go there. Somebody will come up to me and say: “You know we in the rural sector always do better under Labour.” They always say that. I am telling you this is what people say. I say to them: “Well why don’t you vote Labour?”. “No no I still vote National.” I do not get it but anyway that is what they tell us.There are a lot of people who have been sitting here if they have not gone to sleep listening to the last two speakers and who are in front of their TVs waiting for that cold spell to come up New Zealand. They are thinking about whether they will have to turn up their heaters a little bit more in order to stay warm. A lot of them are thinking: “I’m not sure whether I can afford to do that.” The power prices they know have gone up 20 percent—20 percent—in the last 4 years under a Government that said it was going to bring those power prices down. That is four times faster than inflation—four times faster than inflation—that power prices have been going up.Here is the interesting thing about that. When Labour was in power—and yes I agree that power prices went up then—the demand for power was rising at an ever-increasing—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We are actually on Vote Primary Industries.DAVID SHEARER: Are we? I thought he was talking about energy.Hon Nathan Guy: We use electricity though.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!DAVID SHEARER: So you want to put the motion do you?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes so the member has just lost a call unfortunately because we are on Vote Primary Industries and I think the member was—DAVID SHEARER: Can I carry on on primary industries in relation to energy?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): You can talk about primary industries. Otherwise you have just lost the call because what you have done is you have actually taken a call. I am happy for you to continue but you must relate it to primary industries.DAVID SHEARER: The thing about these power prices going up is that it is affecting farmers right across the country. In every dairy shed in every processing plant these farmers are being affected by electricity prices going up at four times the rate of inflation. It is not just the urban areas; it is the rural areas. It is affecting the farmers who are the backbone of this country. They are being hit harder than anybody else. This is Economics 101. When demand falls prices should fall but instead farmers all across New Zealand throughout the rural sector are paying more for their electricity than they ever have before.Hon Simon Bridges: Let’s be honest. You wouldn’t have a clue.DAVID SHEARER: Do not interrupt me Mr Bridges.Hon Simon Bridges: Let’s be honest.DAVID SHEARER: Let us be honest? That would be a change—that would be a change—because today all we have heard is the exact opposite of that. Your Minister of Foreign Affairs stood up and told a whole lot of rubbish about what has been going on.I come back to the rural community. Farmers deserve to have transparency around their power bills. They want to know how much of their power being delivered is being charged to them from the electricity companies and how much is being charged to them from the lines companies. In that member’s area many of those lines companies are coming to people and saying that they are paying too much when it is actually the electricity companies in those members’ electorates in those rural areas that depend so heavily on funding.What have we got? We have got falling demand and rising prices that are hitting the farming community right across New Zealand. Sixty percent of our power is coming from hydroelectricity generated in some of those farming and rural areas—60 percent of power is coming from there. We have paid for those dams over and over and yet we are still paying far more for our electricity than just about anywhere else in the Western World.We are just asking for a fair deal—we are just asking for a fair deal. People are sitting at home right now watching this debate on television thinking twice about turning up their heater in order to stay warm and knowing that if they do their power bill will be through the roof. I feel for them because this Government has raised those prices four times faster than inflation at a time when demand for electricity is falling. If you know anything about economics that is absolutely wrong. Thank you.STEFFAN BROWNING (Green):I rise to speak on Vote Primary Industries mostly in response to hearing what seemed to be waffle from the Government side. I was going to speak on food safety because of the shortfalls in food safety and the many things that that Minister for Food Safety is not doing—and should be doing—in her role but we will come back to that.The Minister spoke clearly about his priority in biosecurity and I commend him for having that as a priority. But what I am not seeing is real delivery in biosecurity. What we are seeing are things that make us still very very nervous in terms of incursions into this country. Inspections are way way too low. Containers once were inspected right round them. Containers are now maybe inspected on four sides of them and then it is random enough at that although it is based on an improving system through the joint work of the Customs Service and Ministry for Primary Industries.The problem is that we then allow retailers wholesalers and importers to inspect their own containers and how crazy is that when those same people have a conflict of interest? They have got a vested interest in having the goods out of that container and out on to the shelves in shops and things. If they see something are they going to report it to the Ministry for Primary Industries? And even then is the Ministry for Primary Industries going to do a decent job?I have mentioned to the Minister before about theileria a particular strain of theileria. This Government allowed this cattle disease to get loose which is costing millions and it will cost millions for ever because it allowed the disease to get loose and to spread. At the same time Government members were chortling that they are ready for foot-and-mouth disease should it come here. That was a prime example of what they might have used to actually test their systems. They have no reason to be confident. New Zealanders have no reason to be confident that they can really control foot-and-mouth disease should it come here.I am pleased there is more and more work being done on it and the report expresses that. But there was a prime opportunity to jump on a very—how shall I say—effective protozoan parasite in cattle and use that as an example. What have we got the National Animal Identification and Tracing system for if you could not use that for animal controls and to get on top of that pest? That happened within this Parliament and this Minister has to share some of the blame for that. That one is just one.But one that also concerns me is another part—the genetic engineering in some laboratories. That is where we think genetic engineering should be but there was a breach—and the breach was back in early 2013—of a genetically modified fungus out of Lincoln University. But it is the Ministry for Primary Industries that has the responsibility for monitoring and making sure these facilities are working within the constraints of their conditions. We have been chasing the information on the report of the investigation on that for so so long and the Minister has ducked and dived and tried not to supply it. I wonder why? The report showed that for 3 years Lincoln University had inadvertently got GE fungus and was even potentially putting it out into apple orchards and Pinus radiata nurseries in this country because it has been poorly supplied by AgResearch.It is the Ministry for Primary Industries that has failed in monitoring and keeping an eye on that. Can we trust the Ministry for Primary Industries and the current Minister and this current Government to be doing better than this? We still have not got the final report on this released. Have we got confidence? No we have not got confidence because they have not been able to supply the report to the people who are caring about it the people who are very very concerned. The research was fine. The research had good intent.Vote agreed to.Vote Commerce and Consumer Affairs agreed to.Vote Energy agreed to.Vote LabourANDREW LITTLE (Labour):It is a great pleasure to take a call on this very important part of the estimates. It was frankly a bit rich when the various farming or former farming members opposite stood before the Committee under a different vote a short while ago to boast about the great achievements in the farming sector and the great wealth being generated in that sector for this great country of ours. But they did not mention one thing about the role that the Minister of Labour played in ensuring that farm workers on the minimum wage now get paid less than the minimum wage for 1 week out of every fortnight on their “12 and 2” work roster.What a disgraceful action by the Minister of Labour. What a shameful thing by this Government. Government members say they like the rural sector. They say they look after people in the rural sector and in the provinces. They do not give a damn about the hard-working people—the hard-working people who are out there early in the morning doing the milking doing the hard graft on the farms putting up the fences getting a tractor out doing the feeding-out in the bitter cold weather that we have at the moment. This Government does not care a toss about those people and it quite happily reduces their wages because it wants to please the big wealthy rich farm owners. Well it is shocking. It is shocking and it is the farm labourers who are turning up to the offices of Labour MPs saying: “What gives? What’s going on?”. What possible law could there be that allows a Minister at the stroke of a pen to take $100 a fortnight off hard-working farm labourers? What a shocking thing.Well the truth is this. We might have a Minister of Labour but we have an appallingly dysfunctional labour market at the moment—46 percent of hard-working New Zealanders cannot get a pay rise in a single year alone and 49 percent of employers in a survey last week said they will not give a pay rise to their staff this year. And yet members opposite sit in the chair they stand opposite and they crow about the great economic growth. It was 3.2 percent a year about 3 months ago. Now it is up to 3.8 percent. Who knows how big it will be in a couple of months’ time when they are on the hustings.But here is the catch. We have a great growing economy—some people are doing well; some people are doing extraordinarily well—but 46 percent of hard-working New Zealanders cannot get a pay rise and the Minister does not care. The Minister does not care. He is the Minister of Labour. One of his prime responsibilities is to make sure that we have a wage-setting system and that people are fairly rewarded. That is what we expect in a properly functioning labour market. But we have a Minister who does not care that half the workforce cannot get a decent pay rise and that half of employers are saying they are not going to pay any more. So we are in a pretty diabolical situation.We know that the income gap is getting worse. We know that inequality is getting worse in this country. We now have the lowest level of homeownership since 1951 because people cannot afford houses. Housing affordability is not just an issue about house pricing; it is about wages and incomes and wages and incomes in this country have been getting worse and worse for a larger and larger number of people. It is getting worse.We have a labour inspectorate under this Minister that with this Budget is stretched to breaking point trying to keep up with the breaches and the non-compliance amongst employers in this country. It tried to do a blitz on farms. It was a random blitz on various farms and do you know what it found? There was 93 percent non-compliance with the basic minimum statutory standards of employment—93 percent. Then we have a Minister who bends over backwards to encourage farming employers to pay $100 a fortnight less than they would otherwise have to pay. No wonder the farmers think they have got carte blanche to not comply with the basic minimum standards of our employment law. That is the culture of employment standards in this country today. We have a Government that cuddles up to that licks up and down farmers who want nothing more than to pay their farm labourers less and the Government wonders why it gets 93 percent non-compliance amongst the farming community.Everything this Government has done when it comes to employment and labour market regulation makes it harder and makes it worse for working people to get ahead and to get a decent pay rise. Every law that this Government has promoted and passed in the last 6 years has made it harder for working people to get ahead and to get a pay rise. It started with the silly 90-day law. One-third of employers have now signed up to it two-thirds cannot be bothered with it because they know it is bad law they know it is bad practice and they know it is dumb and there is no employer who can point to the fact as this Government claims that they have created a job as a result of it—not a one.Law changes like that do not create jobs; all they do is make life harder. There are good responsible and sensible employers saying: “Of course we want to be able to take people on a trial basis but we know that to do that responsibly we should do it under the probationary law that is still on our statute book.” We know that that law requires the employer—a responsible fair and sensible employer—to provide feedback to treat the worker as if they are actually a human being and to treat them with respect unlike the 90-day law which does not.When the Government surveyed workers who had been employed under the 90-day law it could not find a single one who said that they had got any feedback at all on their so-called trial period because what was blatantly obvious is that those workers were not being trialled in the job. They were not being trialled; they were just being manipulated and exploited and kicked out the door as soon as the employer decided they no longer wanted them or needed them. That is the standard that employment law has come to in this country.The Minister bends over backwards to make it easy for employers to rip off their workers. He is a Minister who does not care frankly about basic employment standards. He is a Minister who does not care about freedom of association. He is a Minister who does not care about freedom of choice—which workers are meant to have according to the international agreements we have signed up to—to belong to or form a trade union. This Minister and this Government do not care.So that is why things are getting worse for workers in this country. That is why they are looking around saying: “How on earth is it that this Government could get here and be allowed to mistreat so many workers for so long?”. It is time to bring that to an end.I want to turn briefly to health and safety because that is very important to this country as we all know. We have all learnt a terrible and tragic lesson with Pike River and this Government has taken on the task to reform and revamp our health and safety laws. It is a pity however that in the spirit of this Government bending over backwards to help employers it could not bring itself to make WorkSafe New Zealand a tripartite organisation. It is meant to be modelled on the similar organisation in the UK which is truly tripartite but this Government could not bring itself to do that. It was just one step too far. So when we look at WorkSafe New Zealand we know that it needs to be properly supported. It will need more inspectors if it is to do its job properly and it will need to work pretty hard to get employers on board to deal with worker participation making sure that workers have a proper and fulsome say on health and safety issues in the workplace. That is the only way they are going to get safe—working collaboratively cooperatively and sensibly with their employers even though some employers are resistant to it. Even though some employers do not want workers to have a real say on workplace health and safety we know that the only way to reduce the atrocious record that has built up in this country is to make sure that workers can have a say with impunity and without fear and have a real say on how health and safety is managed in their workplace and in their environs. That is absolutely essential.If there is any shortcoming in that regard then we will have to fix that up. The shorter answer is this: when it comes to labour market regulation and the institutions responsible for overseeing it we can do better—we can do better. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately; I do not know—it will not be with this Government. It will not be with this Government if we want to improve our performance lift wages for all New Zealanders and make sure that all people get treated fairly and properly at work so that they can have a good constructive relationship with their employer based on true collaboration and cooperation and on a genuine mutual respect so that their choices and the way they choose to bargain and negotiate with their employer have to be respected by that employer.That is what the legal framework must deliver so that we have a good fair system which fairly rewards and treats people fairly. New Zealanders expect nothing less neither do we and that is why we on this side of the Chamber will be delivering that. New Zealanders have been waiting 6 years for it.Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Labour):What a speech of petty point-scoring from the Opposition member Andrew Little. It absolutely missed the big picture and the great reforms that this Government has taken forward for workers and employers alike over the last several years. Talk about the language we are hearing from Labour people at the moment. Talk about not giving a damn or a toss. It was not as bad as David Shearer who swore on national radio this morning. My delicate ears could not take the kind of language we are getting from these members. It is clearly showing the stress that they are under.This Government is doing a whole lot of good in this area and it has a very proud record. Let us go through some of the things that we have just heard from Andrew Little about the minimum wage—[Interruption] Well yes. Actually if we had not done that we would be casualising and condemning the workers he says he cares about. We were returning things to the status quo and making sure that workers on farms got the fair go that he says he cares about. I say “petty point-scoring” because we have seen press releases on some really good things that this Government has done for workers from those members and from the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and it is very disappointing indeed to see that kind of attitude. We have seen a lift in the number of labour inspectors through the Budget so it is hard again to know why Andrew Little is saying the kinds of things he is saying. We have seen minimum employment standards—a discussion document gone out—where we are seeking to significantly lift things so that there are criminal penalties where there is exploitation of workers and so on.What did we see from Labour and the unions? Petty point-scoring. They could not focus on the absolute good despite the fact I might say that the Council of Trade Unions came into my office with the Employers and Manufacturers Association calling for the very changes I then made. They went on Radio New Zealand National and criticised me. Well I say that is petty and it would be great to see the Labour Party stand up for some good reforms that this Government is doing which if Labour was honest with itself it would support.Look at the Employment Relations Amendment Bill and the changes that this Government wants to make. It has gone through the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. There were moderate changes and yet all we get is the scaremongering from that side. We heard about the 90-day trial periods. Well what we did not hear Andrew Little say was that a third of employers—small-business owners in this country which is what this country is made up of—said that they took on people whom they would not have otherwise and they gave people a go. That is real change. That is real difference. A third of employers gave a job to people who would not have otherwise got one and I say that that is pro-employers and it is pro-workers.Frankly it is very disappointing to see the sort of left-wing attitude we get from the Labour Party and the Green Party—oppose oppose oppose rather than be constructive on these issues. Again they try to find any angle on the health and safety reform to criticise it. “Well it is not tripartite and it is not this.” Well it is and I differ on that matter from Andrew Little. But let us all agree on this: this is the biggest health and safety reform this country has seen in at least 20 years. There is significantly more funding into a well-resourced regulator. There are significant law changes coming. If I was to be cruel to the Darien Fentons and the Andrew Littles I would say that we have seen serious reform from this Government when actually over 9 years of Labour nothing happened—nothing happened. I think we actually need to face the facts on that on some of these issues.To Mr Little I say: “Well if you care about workers Mr Little what do you say to the 7000 oil and gas workers in Taranaki with a party that flip-flops on issues without a skerrick of evidence like the Māui’s dolphins?”. We expect to see scaremongering over there from the Green Party on that but to his credit David Cunliffe finally got to the position—the right position—that there has not been a single Māui’s dolphin harmed from oil and gas exploration over the 40 years that that has been going on in Taranaki. We have seen protests and we have seen calls from Labour candidates for me to be sacked. David Cunliffe to his credit finally got to the right position. Well I wonder whether Tāmati Coffey is going to be calling for him to be sacked. We in this party care about workers. We have done really good reforms. It is just a shame that Labour and the Greens cannot bring themselves to support them.DENISE ROCHE (Green):I rise to take a call on the Vote Labour appropriation. It is kind of appropriate that I do that today given that yesterday there was a major celebration from The Living Wage Aotearoa New Zealand Campaign which celebrated the 20 businesses that have signed up to pay their workers a living wage of $18.80. I think that is something that we should celebrate because the only way that workers are going to be lifted out of poverty is through decent wages and through employers modelling the behaviour that we would like to see other employers adopt.I note that the Vote Labour appropriation outlines the target for the number of interventions aimed at ensuring the minimum standards of the employment legislation are adhered to and the Minister of Labour referred to that. It is a crucial task and although he may say that the Government is reviewing the minimum standards the fact is that they are being breached all the time. Previous speakers have referred to this as well. What is happening is that the labour inspectors are managing to get some inspections done but they are woefully underfunded. We do need more of them because there is a lot more they could be doing. The majority of inspections that they did in the agricultural sector which they reported on in April showed that most of the minimum employment standards were not being met.I looked at the “Fencepost Jobs” page on the Fonterra website today which actually is still advertising for jobs of 65 hours a week with 3 days off in 10 days. These are not the sorts of jobs that we want people to have. We want people to have jobs where they can actually afford to live and where they can afford to provide for their families without having to rely on the taxpayer to increase their ability to provide for their families through Working for Families which just acts as a subsidy to employers to keep wages low. That is what Working for Families has become. I have also seen jobs on “Fencepost Jobs” for 55 hours a week and when I looked at the salary that works out to be $13.66 per hour.This is unacceptable. This is absolutely unacceptable. The Government’s response to this kind of thing was actually to introduce and change the regulations under the Minimum Wage Act which meant that workers could work long hours under the minimum wage and have it spread out over 2 weeks. It is shocking. The Government’s regulatory regime is shocking. What we have seen from this Government is the exploitation of young people through the introduction of youth rates. We have seen the introduction of less job security than ever before through the introduction of the 90-day trials where workers can be sacked for absolutely no reason whatsoever in their first 3 months in a job.I remind the Committee that the bill that was set to reduce and undermine collective bargaining and take away minimum job security the Employment Relations Amendment Bill has now stalled. That was a miserly bill. It was not a moderate change as was suggested by the Minister of Labour; it was an attempt to undermine workers’ rights to the nth degree. It does not create jobs Mr Bridges because it does not create jobs when you force wages down. There was of course full employment under slavery because the pay was so low.The fact that the Employment Relations Amendment Bill has been stalled is a great thing. It is great that we will be able to change the Government and ditch that legislation away from the Order Paper after September. In the meantime it is the only thing I will probably ever thank the Hon John Banks for.The reason we support the living wage is because we believe that workers should be able to provide for their families and live in dignity. There are 285000 children living in poverty in New Zealand. Two out of five of those children have a parent who is working. More parents than ever before are working several jobs just to make ends meet. The cost of keeping wages low and of not lifting those 285000 kids out of poverty is $6 billion to $8 billion a year. We the taxpayers all pay for that as well but it is not recorded in a budget line anywhere.It is unreasonable that while there have been overall—Vote agreed to.Vote Food Safety agreed to.Vote ImmigrationDr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour):Thanks for the opportunity to take a call on Vote Immigration. I ask the question: is our immigration system working well? I ask whether the system is working well in the case of Sanil Kumar. Sanil Kumar was a young man from Fiji who came here on a work permit. He was diagnosed as having end-stage renal failure was given dialysis and was waiting for a kidney transplant. He was forced to leave and go to Fiji and he died within a very short time of returning there.The Associate Minister of Immigration has conveniently refused to answer questions in this House on this particular case. What she has been citing is that she did not have a privacy waiver and therefore she could not possibly talk about this case at all. But she knows very well that a privacy waiver does not apply to a deceased natural person. That is excluded from the Privacy Act. In any case if the Associate Minister and the immigration system in New Zealand had done their work diligently they would have reached a different decision given the facts as any Labour Minister of Immigration would have done. A Labour Minister of Immigration would have reached a compassionate decision on this particular case and this young man would be alive today—but he is not.So why is the system under this particular Minister working in such a flawed way? Let us look at the facts. The facts are that this young man as I said was working here he had end-stage kidney failure and he started receiving dialysis. His family—two first cousins—began the process of being donors the family began raising the funds and they raised the $130000 required to receive—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Dr Prasad this is an estimates debate on immigration. The member must tie that back to the estimates on immigration. It is not a debate about a medical condition or what has happened to a person. You must tie it back to immigration.Dr RAJEN PRASAD: Well there is something happening in the funding of the immigration system that does not allow it to actually make the kinds of decisions it should be making. The Minister is hiding behind the privacy waiver. In this particular case were the agencies funded well enough to provide her with the right kind of advice? The Minister is hiding behind this fake notion that she wrote to me to talk about the funding of this particular case. She says that she took the unusual step in this case of writing to me and saying that I was making inaccurate statements.The Minister did not write to me. The Minister cannot produce any evidence. However the Minister did send me a copy of a letter that she had sent to David Cunliffe which says that there was a $36000 debt that Mr Sanil Kumar had for the dialysis treatment he was receiving. So I guess the funding of health and immigration is so bad that $36000 is the price of a life for this particular Government. The Minister did not write to me about that. In fact what I did say about the funding in this particular case was that there was no cost to the immigration system.I knew that this family had come to a payment agreement and had said they would pay the debt. Indeed they started paying this debt. The uncle had taken over this debt—a New Zealand citizen with a good job a good family and a good home in west Auckland. That family would have paid this particular debt but indeed the Minister still made the decision on the basis of that. That was the first basis for the decision. Yet the statement about there being no cost to the State was absolutely true in this particular case.This particular immigration decision was made based on a report that was received by immigration about dialysis being available in Fiji. Well that report is also worth considering in its detail. What is it about the funding of the immigration system that it does not give this Minister enough resources to actually work out the risk that is in her own report—a report provided to her by experts in health about an immigration decision she has made? The report writes very clearly about dialysis available in Fiji. It says that—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!Dr RAJEN PRASAD: Yes it is about the costing about the funding of immigration and the decisions about this—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We are not interested in actual procedures in Fiji.Dr RAJEN PRASAD: Well I am trying to bring it within this particular area. I am certainly suggesting that the funding of immigration is not good enough. It is not adequate to allow this Minister to make these decisions. That particular report made it very clear that this young man risked death if he went to Fiji. Three months would be funded. Then he would find a donor. If he did not find a donor in 3 months he would be taken off dialysis. It says here that he would have a few weeks to prepare for his death. This Minister did not have the expertise did not take the time to have a look at the decision and did not analyse the risks and yet she made the decision that this young man had to return. The decision was made on two bases. One was the amount of resources the funding this was going to take—that it would cost our system too much—and the other was that dialysis was available in Fiji.The cost was being met by the family in New Zealand and that is a fact. They had signed up to it. As far as dialysis in Fiji was concerned there was no analysis of where it was available or how he would get it and yet the decision was made. So here is this young man who went to Fiji. The last thing he said to me as he was leaving the airport—and it is reported on television—was: “I believe this is a death sentence.” This was a 30-year-old man who was in all other aspects fine—a kidney transplant would have fixed him. He could have returned to Fiji and lived with his family but this Minister made this particular decision for reasons that are unknown. Now the Minister is saying she does not have a privacy waiver—she is hiding behind that.Well a privacy waiver is on its way to the Minister. It will be available and I want to see what else the Minister will bring out for this particular case. The privacy waiver is on its way. There is nothing else to be released. This decision was made on the basis of $36000 worth of debt which was being paid for and on the basis that dialysis was available in Fiji. All the risks were mentioned in the report but the Minister refused to consider that.Where was the harm? Where would have been the harm to New Zealand if we had allowed this young person to stay if our system had been generous enough to let him stay? There is blood on the hands of those who made this decision and they ought to actually come out and explain at least to the family. So far they have hidden. They have hidden under this notion that we do not have a privacy waiver. Well a young man need not have died. At least we would have given him a fair crack at it with a kidney transplant in New Zealand. Believing that there was a kidney transplant available in Fiji or that Fijians might send him to India was such a long shot and the Minister knew that. It was absolutely a long shot.Even the report produced by the Ministry of Health was a report based on a paper somebody gave at a conference. They did not even speak to anybody about what was available. It was a paper somebody had given at a conference some months ago. There are so many holes in this particular decision made by this Minister that the Minister ought to explain. It is typical of the kinds of problems there are in the immigration system today.People tell me that the system is aimless. Decisions are not being made consistently in the immigration system. Two people applying with exactly the same background and even having gone to the same school for the same kinds of job offers are receiving very different decisions. There are many many cases now of the immigration system being so culturally idiotic that they will go and do interviews of families of partners trying to come to New Zealand—this is New Zealanders going overseas marrying coming back and their partners applying—and such a monocultural approach is being taken to assess them that they are being denied access to New Zealand.Decisions in the immigration system are being made by people who are driven on the basis of numbers—the numbers of decisions they have to make. This system is broken. This system needs fixing and this Minister ought to take responsibility for this case and for the system and indeed try to redress many of the problems that are there. Thank you.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration):Dr Prasad commenced his intervention on Vote Immigration in the Committee stage of the Appropriation (2014/15 Estimates) Bill questioning whether our immigration system is working well. Well I can advise him and the Committee that it is working a heck of a lot better than it did when that member’s party was in power. When we came into office in 2008 the immigration system was in an absolute shambles. There were thousands of applications pending. The timeliness and quality of the decision making was poor. The Pacific division was in complete disarray. The Christchurch office was making its own rules and then changing them.I find it quite disgraceful for that member to politicise the tragedy of the Kumar family in the way that he just did. He accuses the Associate Minister of Immigration of hiding behind a privacy waiver. That member got a privacy waiver and then put selective and incorrect data out into the public arena but refused—refused—to intervene and get the Associate Minister to the position where she could tell the whole story about that case. It is disgraceful that that member would continue to politicise that tragic situation when he knows that under the Labour Government from 1999 to 2008 the decision-making landscape was replete with inappropriate decisions that unfortunately had negative outcomes for Pacific residents with health issues. To come into this Chamber and say that this Government has blood on its hands is an absolute disgrace. I challenge that member to be very careful what he wishes for because if that privacy waiver is ever given to the Associate Minister and the full story of that case is told he will be very very embarrassed indeed and will probably be quite pleased to be leaving this House. But I say this: the privacy waiver is a long way too late for that family. I do not believe even if it is now given that it is in anybody’s interests least of all the Kumar family’s to continue to litigate the facts of that case after Mr Kumar’s passing. It is a disgrace and that member should be ashamed.It is not surprising that immigration policy has been very much at the forefront of the discussions around this Budget. I am very proud of this Government’s track record on immigration. The Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman came and spent 3 years cleaning up the mess that was left and Nathan Guy and I have inherited a much much sounder Immigration New Zealand with better timeliness with a better quality of decision making and—what is very important to me—very good feedback from its clients about the quality of that service. It is important to note that immigration is quite ubiquitous. It extends into all areas of Government policy. I think that when one looks at the National Government’s four priorities of responsibly managing our finances delivering better public services building a more competitive economy and rebuilding Canterbury immigration has an underpinning role to play in all four of those goals.There is no doubt that we are in a global contest. We are in a contest for skills for foreign investment for international students and for tourists and the degree to which we succeed in that contest is very much a part of the policies processes and technologies that we use to deliver a good immigration service. Under Vision 2015 which is very much underpinned by successive Budgets including this one there has been quite a transformation away from bricks and mortar and a branch-based structure. When the service and the application processes are put online we will see what I am confident will be a much much more efficient application process where case officers can concentrate more on the quality of the application than on chasing around after paperwork. I think that is an important difference and it will also achieve the Government’s goal to have at least 70 percent of transactions with the Government online.But I want to move to two specific areas and indeed the main one does underpin the Government’s objective for the rebuild of Canterbury. The Minister of Labour Simon Bridges and I have jointly announced over $7 million of new funding to support the Canterbury rebuild by protecting vulnerable workers and ensuring safe workplaces and fair workplaces. I think this is very important. I have become somewhat concerned at the risk that migrant exploitation although low could grow particularly in the Canterbury region as the rebuild commences. There is no doubt that we are going to need to rely very heavily on migrant labour to assist in the rebuild. The Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment has invested heavily in skills and training and we will see our young New Zealanders becoming qualified and being at the front of the queue.Carol Beaumont: Obviously not enough given the reliance on migrant workers.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: That is right. It is not going to be enough. We understand that. I think both sides of the Committee accept that although there were great opportunities for young New Zealanders—job seekers and trades trainees—to participate in the Canterbury rebuild given the pace and scale of the work that is required we are already and will in the future increasingly rely on foreign migrant labour to assist with the rebuild. So it is important to me that those workers understand their rights and obligations and that employers also understand that they need to treat their workers fairly and that there are sanctions for not doing so. That is why the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) before the House will significantly increase the penalties for the exploitation of lawful migrant workers and I am disappointed to note that the Labour Party and the Green Party are not going to support that bill. The important thing about migrant exploitation is prevention. I have been working hard in the migrant community to ensure that people have the confidence to speak up knowing that in this country the rule of law can be obeyed. I am confident that with the extra resources that we are putting in through Budget 2014 we will be able to do that.The other part of the new money that came out of Budget 2014 was for the refugee resettlement programme. It has not had an increase in funding for some years. It is important to me that we ensure that the settlement outcomes for our refugees are as good as they can be. The review in 2012 that led to the refugee resettlement strategy identified that just 43 percent of quota refugees are in full-time paid employment 5 years after they arrive in New Zealand. That is just not good enough and that is why we reframed the settlement strategy around work as an important indicator of good settlement outcomes. I think with this extra funding we will certainly be able to do that.One of the most disappointing parts of Budget 2014 was the oblique reference in Treasury documents to strongly positive permanent and long-term migration being misunderstood by the media and by certain elements in this House as somehow an immigration bow wave coming through into New Zealand. Nothing could be further from the truth. Positive net migration is being largely driven by New Zealanders not leaving and more New Zealanders coming back. Indeed the residence programme has seen a reduction of over 20 percent in resident visas in the last 6 or 7 years. But it is important for people to understand the difference between net migration and immigration and even members of this House still do not with some of their confusing interventions.I think we have dramatically turned round the performance of Immigration New Zealand. I am very pleased with the way in which that department operates. It is important that we have policies that are not too loose—nor too tight for that matter—and that are skills-focused but fulfil our humanitarian and family reunification obligations. I think they do that and I am very pleased with their performance.Vote agreed to.Vote Lands agreed to.Vote Senior Citizens agreed to.Vote Women’s Affairs agreed to.Vote Courts agreed to.Vote Revenue agreed to.Vote Pacific Island AffairsHon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister of Pacific Island Affairs):It is a pleasure to take a call in the estimates debate as the Minister of Pacific Island Affairs. It is a pleasure because I am excited about the future of Pacific people in New Zealand. The Opposition continues to talk down to our people. It continues to focus on the negative. It continues to treat us with utter disdain. But I have more faith in Pacific people because I know what their aspirations are and so does this National Government. I recently did a tour of the country holding fono across this great land to take the pulse of Pacific people. From Invercargill to Ōtāhuhu from Levin to Dunedin from Porirua to Avondale without exception the response is that we as Pacific people are aspirational for ourselves our families and our communities. We want high-paying jobs. We want achievement in education. We want accessible quality health care. We want to live in communities where we feel safe and secure. These aspirations have not changed since my dad migrated to this country in the 1950s. These aspirations likely will not change when my children start their families in the future.So how do we measure up as a Government to these aspirations? Members opposite ask how and I am going to detail exactly what this Government has done. There are currently 105900 people Pacific employed. That is up 7900 or 8 percent in the last 12 months. We know we can achieve those aspirations when we are in higher-paying jobs. Average weekly earnings have gone up 14 percent in the last 5 years. Treasury also estimates that there will be 170000 more jobs by mid-2018 and Pacific people will be taking a large chunk of those jobs. We also know that our aspirations are better served when we are educated. This Government invests $1.5 billion into early childhood education each year. Early childhood education participation was up to almost 90 percent in 2013. The number of Pacific teachers in early childhood education has increased 30 percent under this National Government and—Kris Faafoi: What’s your unemployment percentage? No we won’t hear that will we?Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: —total enrolments in early childhood education Mr Faafoi providing Pacific services is up 12 percent since our National Government took hold of the Treasury benches. This is a fact that Mr Faafoi will like: Pacific achievement in National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 has gone up 16 percent since National took power. He should be ashamed of the 55 percent level that Labour members were stewards over in 2008. And how about the 75 percent who are now completing their tertiary studies? Labour should be ashamed of the fact that it was 60 percent when it was in power. The number of Pacific students gaining tertiary qualifications under National has risen 65 percent Mr Faafoi—65 percent. There were over 12000 in 2012.We know that this Government is committed to Pacific families and that is why our Government released Pacific materials for Incredible Years. It is why our Government has increased paid parental leave to 18 weeks. It is why our Government has given free general practitioner visits for under-13s. The Pacific people I talk to are pleased about the investment in front-line services. They are pleased about the investment in police. It is no surprise therefore that we have the lowest crime rate in 35 years.Finally it gives me great pride that the budget of the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs has gone up 16 percent in the last year.Alfred Ngaro: 16 percent.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Sixteen percent—that is right Mr Ngaro. It is now over $10 million. Mr Sio will be interested because it is 28 percent higher than what it was under the Labour Government. Labour should be ashamed of its record on Pacific people. It should be ashamed of its stewardship of the Treasury benches—Su’a William Sio: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am just wondering—the Minister is making a lot of assertions and claims—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): That is not a point of order. [Interruption] Order! No no this is a debate. They are debating points. [Interruption] Look I will handle this. Point of order—I will take Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am happy to table my speech. It is all the facts—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No no that is not—[Interruption] The Minister will sit. That is not a point of order either.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Yes and it is a very serious point of order. I noted that as you stood to rule on the point of order the Minister in the chair Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga held on to your arm in an attempt to get you to sit down. That is absolutely outrageous and unparliamentary. I know you would take no notice of him even if he is a slightly larger man and taking a bullying demeanour but I think the Minister needs to be told that that sort of behaviour is just not appropriate.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I thank the member. I did not notice the Minister holding my arm—[Interruption] Order! I am making some comments here. I did not notice the Minister holding on to my arm and I am sure it was not intentional but you never know. The time for this debate has actually expired so we now move to the votes.The question was put that Vote Pacific Island Affairs Vote Customs Vote Statistics Vote Māori Affairs Vote Internal Affairs clauses 1 to 10 and schedules 1 to 5 be agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the votes clauses 1 to 10 and schedules 1 to 5 be agreed to.Ayes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; United Future 1.Noes52New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 9; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Votes clauses 1 to 10 and schedules 1 to 5 agreed to.Bill to be reported without amendment presently.