Volume 685 Week 27 - Wednesday 7 November 2012 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Volume 685 Week 27 - Wednesday 7 November 2012 
[Sitting date: 07 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6345. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Wednesday 7 November 2012 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Business of the House 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Following discussions in the Business Committee yesterday I seek leave for Wednesday 14 November 2012 to be a members’ day despite Standing Order 74(1) and for any bills drawn from the ballot on Thursday 8 November to be set down for first reading on Wednesday 14 November despite Standing Order 281(2). 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none. 
Questions to Ministers 
Economy and Government Financial Position—Reports 
1. 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What reports has he received on the Government’s financial position? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 The Crown’s financial statements for the 3 months to 30 September were issued today. They confirm that the Government is keeping its spending under control but that revenue can be affected by the uncertain global economic situation and its impact on New Zealand. For example in the first 3 months of this fiscal year Crown tax revenue was $295 million below forecast and core Crown interest revenue was $147 million lower than expected. This was partially offset by Crown expenses being $200 million below forecast including slightly lower than forecast welfare expenses. The operating deficit before gains and losses was $2 billion for the 3-month period. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: What approach is the Government taking to ensure it continues to carefully manage its finances so it does return to surplus? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Government’s target is to return to surplus by 2014-15 so that we will then have choices about repaying debt resuming contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund or targeting more investment in priority public services. To achieve this we will need to keep on top of the factors we can control such as remaining prudent with any new spending and borrowing. We will also continue to focus very strongly on delivering more public services even where there is less money to ensure that we support those who need our services. This is important in a world where economic conditions are unpredictable and could have unpredictable impacts on New Zealand Government revenue. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: What reports has he received on the global economic situation and its likely impact on New Zealand and Government finances? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Earlier this week Treasury published its monthly  
Economic Indicators 
 for November focusing on global growth. It notes that more than 5 years after the onset of the financial crisis the world economy is performing again below expectation. World economic growth in the first half of 2012 was generally below IMF forecasts and the latest forecast for world output issued last month contained further downward revisions. If global growth does remain weaker than expected it would affect New Zealand’s growth and Government finances. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: How is New Zealand’s economy performing compared with most other developed economies and what policy prescription would put this performance at risk? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: We continue to perform at moderate levels but nevertheless better than most other developed countries. In the first half of this year New Zealand grew by 1.6 percent which is higher than growth rates in the US Japan Canada the UK and the euro area over the same period. Our quarterly growth rate is about the same as Australia’s. Policies that would put this at risk would include borrowing more spending more and printing money which would fuel costs for households and businesses and put jobs at risk. 
Hon David Parker 
: How can the Minister stand in this House and pretend that it is good news that the Government deficit of $2.1 billion is $490 million—or 27 percent—higher than he projected in his Budget just months ago? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I am not saying it is good news; I am just saying it is the news. It is the news and it is a snapshot in a long journey towards repairing the damage that the previous Labour Government did to the economy and to Government finances. 
Hon David Parker 
: Is it correct that in addition to an increasing Government deficit the New Zealand economy is running the second-worst current account deficit in the developed world this year and is projected by the IMF to have the worst current account deficit in the developed world next year; if it is correct does he agree with the Governor of the Reserve Bank Mr Wheeler that that is far too high? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: On the first issue of course we want to see the Government deficit coming back. It was $18 billion 2 years ago it was $9 billion last year and we are on the track towards about $7 billion for this year and a $2 billion deficit the following year. Quarterly figures are not pushing us off that track. In respect of the current account deficit I would take more notice of what the member said if it had not been the case that under his Government it doubled from 4 percent to 8 percent which were the worst levels New Zealand has ever had. That was from the party that is now preaching the loudest about fixing it. 
Schools Canterbury—Proposed Closures and Mergers and Confidence in Minister 
2. 
DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he have confidence in all his Ministers; if so why? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes; because they are working harder for a brighter future for all New Zealanders. 
David Shearer 
: Does he have confidence in his Minister of Education and her management of the future of education in Christchurch; if so why? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes; because she is committing $1 billion to new schooling in Christchurch. I think what we all need to understand in respect of Christchurch is that a major earthquake took place that has changed the patterns of where people live. But it has also presented an opportunity to deliver 21st century schools to Christchurch. I simply make this point: we are not rebuilding the central business district in Christchurch with exactly the same buildings; we are using the opportunity to deliver arguably the most liveable city in New Zealand and then maybe just maybe there will be an opportunity to deliver better schooling facilities for youngsters in Christchurch. I think that is a good thing. 
David Shearer 
: Does he stand by his undertaking that he will personally look through the response from each Christchurch school; if so why does he think it is necessary for a Prime Minister to personally review submissions from all these schools if he does in fact have confidence in his Minister? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes and I would point out that the Minister is personally visiting all of the schools. I understand that 35 of the 37 schools have agreed to that. Why am I personally doing that? Well I take a personal interest in Christchurch. It is one of the Government’s four key priorities and I gave that commitment to the people of Christchurch because they kept on reading nonsense from Chris Hipkins that was getting printed in the  
Press 
. 
David Shearer 
: Why will his Government not tell the communities affected by the closure and merger proposals what all the options identified by the ministry are? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: The purpose now is with those affected schools to go through all of the options for those clusters to talk about what the options might be and the reasons why and to potentially come up with some good solutions. What the Government is saying to the people of Christchurch to those parents who are affected and to those schools is that we are listening to you but we are also listening to the advice we are receiving about what is changing. We are going to spend a billion dollars over the next 10 years— 
David Shearer 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have been listening for quite a while. I actually asked why he will not tell us what the options are that were put forward by the Ministry of Education. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member is welcome to repeat his question. 
David Shearer 
: Why will his Government not tell the communities affected by closure and merger proposals what all the options identified by the ministry are? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I do not have all of that detail to hand. I know what is being proposed there. So you might do best to ask that question of the Minister herself. But the point is we are now engaging in a full communication process with those schools. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question was not what those options were. It was why the Minister would not tell us what those options were. The Minister has not addressed the question at all. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think the Prime Minister has in that he said he cannot tell the House what those options are because he does not have them. That kind of detail he recommended should be directed to the Minister of Education and that is not unreasonable. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. No one was asking the Prime Minister what the options were. The question was why his Minister is not releasing those options. She is the person who has refused under the Official Information Act— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member is getting into debate on the matter. The Prime Minister welcomed members to question the Minister of Education on the matter and that is not an unreasonable response from the Prime Minister. The member asked why he is not releasing that information. The Prime Minister said to address that to the Minister. He has obviously made it clear that there is no Government policy not to release that information. 
David Shearer 
: Will he instruct the Ministry of Education through his Minister to release the ministry’s advice on the future of Christchurch education which my office requested under the Official Information Act and which has been withheld by the ministry on the basis that there “does not appear to be overriding public-interest reasons” to support the release? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: No because I think the primary objective at the moment is to engage in good consultation with those schools and clusters and that is what the Government is doing. 
David Shearer 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That question was really about whether he will instruct the ministry. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: In fairness the Prime Minister did say that no he would not. 
David Shearer 
: Is it acceptable that the schools proposed to be closed or merged have not been advised as to whether they will be allowed additional time to respond to the proposals even though they have not yet received all the relevant information from the ministry? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I may stand to be corrected but my understanding is that the Minister is talking to the schools about giving them additional time in working their way through the process. I may be wrong but that was the last conversation I had with her. 
David Shearer 
: When did the Minister first make him aware of the data areas including data on roll numbers number of buildings presence of facilities and damage that were included in the documents issued to schools as part of the rationale for the proposals? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I was aware after the schools had the information and had identified that they were in the list of schools that could be either merged or closed or whatever it might be that there was some discrepancy between the schools’ data and the ministry’s. A lot of data is agreed and correct and some is not. Some of it is for very technical reasons in the way that they particularly count things. Some of it has been subsequently updated because there was a gap in one particular period. But again all of that is largely an irrelevance because in the end the schools the clusters and the Government are going to sit down on an agreed plan. They may disagree over time they may choose to disagree but the data will be agreed before we go forward. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am sorry Mr Speaker but it was a “when” question. I understand that the Minister went through and listed them. The question was when did he find out. We did not hear when. We heard a long list. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have already invited the Leader of the Opposition to repeat one question. I believe that the question was a little longer than that. I cannot remember now the detail of the question and the Prime Minister I believe responded. His answer was reasonable. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I think I made it quite clear. I said that sometime after the data had been released I was aware that there was a discrepancy between what the schools thought and what the ministry thought. That was the time when I was aware. Rusty open up your ears son. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! [ 
Interruption 
] No order! I must ask the Prime Minister to withdraw that last statement. That is not acceptable. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I withdraw. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Under a point of order that to me is not acceptable. 
Canterbury Recovery—Skills for Canterbury Programme Funding 
3. 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
 to the  
Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment 
: How is the Government helping Cantabrians upskill for the Christchurch rebuild? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment) 
: 
 Last week the Government announced that it has committed a further $28 million from the Skills for Canterbury contingency to maintain the extended training pipeline for tradespeople for the Canterbury rebuild. This ensures that in 2013 providers will be able to build on the additional 3500 trade training places and student support provided over the last 2 years. Christchurch will require thousands of builders plumbers landscapers electricians and engineers. It is crucial we have sufficient skilled tradespeople to meet this demand. The trade training funding under Skills for Canterbury is helping to ensure sufficient appropriately skilled people will be available. 
Colin King 
: How much has been invested to date in the Skills for Canterbury initiative? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The amount spent in total to date is now $65.2 million. This includes $16.7 million from Tertiary Education Commission baselines $11.7 million of reprioritisation from polytechs and institutes of technology and now $36.8 million from the Skills for Canterbury contingency. This money is invested in places this year and last year with similar numbers to be available in 2013. Initiatives include the Pacific trades initiative the Maori Trade Training initiative and funding for the new Canterbury Skills and Employment Hub. Can I say that there are places available right now for people to be involved in the Christchurch rebuild. The Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team for example is recruiting for around a thousand people to be trained and employed for the rebuild and I strongly encourage anyone who is interested in being part of it to contact their local training provider and find out the opportunities available to them. 
Colin King 
: Has he seen any other proposals about how the Government might have allocated the funding? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Indeed I have seen and received a number of suggestions over the last year advocating that the entire Skills for Canterbury contingency fund be spent immediately if not sooner irrespective of need rather than on an as-required basis. These proposals came from a group of people whose definition of success is entirely about how much money they can shove out the door as quickly as possible rather than what is required. These people have no concept of how to balance the books. I am of course referring to the New Zealand Labour Party. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The Minister was lucky that was the very last word he said. He should not attribute his summary of policies to another party especially in response to a question from his own colleague. 
Dr Megan Woods 
: Was he advised in March this year that in order to meet the demands of the rebuild there was a requirement for a thousand additional Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team places to be established in 2012; if so why was there an 8-month delay before Minister Brownlee launched the team’s training and employment programme on 1 November 2012? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: In response to the question of course it was required—it was needed in 2012 and it has been provided in 2012. 
Dr Megan Woods 
: I seek leave to table a document a briefing from the Tertiary Education Commission to Minister Joyce dated 28 March which shows a requirement for a thousand additional places made in 2012 made up of 500— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 









Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Unemployment—September 2012 Quarterly Employment Survey and Comparison of Forecasts 
4. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: In Budget 2011 which year was unemployment forecast to fall below 5 percent and when does Treasury now predict unemployment to fall below 5 percent? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 In Budget 2011 Treasury predicted unemployment would fall below 5 percent in the 2012-13 year. Right now it is updating its forecast for the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update which will be released in December. I would expect that it would be some years later that unemployment will fall below 5 percent. 
Hon David Parker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That question was on notice and it did not ask what Treasury’s future projections were. It asked what its current projection is—when it predicts unemployment to fall below 5 percent. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If the Minister has that information that would be helpful. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I am just checking the information further in the Budget. If by “now” the member means Budget 2012 which is the most recent Treasury projection back in May it forecast unemployment would go below 5 percent in 2015-16. 
Hon David Parker 
: Does he stand by his election promise to create 170000 more jobs by 2015; if so how many extra jobs have been created since that promise was made? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It was a forecast not a promise because unlike the Labour Party the Government does not actually create jobs directly. In fact Government jobs are shrinking. Government jobs are shrinking. It is businesses that create jobs and there have been tens of thousands of new jobs. There are more New Zealanders than ever in a job today. 
Hon David Parker 
: According to the quarterly employment survey did the number of filled full-time jobs increase or decrease in the September quarter? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I think the quarterly employment survey had the number of full-time jobs decreasing and the number of part-time jobs increasing. Part of the increase in those part-time jobs is likely to include people who are responding to the Government’s clear signals about changes in welfare policy and therefore are taking up part-time work where they were not before. We regard that as success. Of course we would like to see more full-time jobs but in the last quarter there were not more full-time jobs. 
Hon David Parker 
: According to yesterday’s quarterly employment survey are there more jobs or fewer jobs in the manufacturing industry than there were a year ago? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I think the survey shows there are fewer jobs in the manufacturing industry but they still have not been able to manufacture a crisis in the way that the Opposition is trying to. The fact is that we have grumpy growth. We are going to grow between 2 and 3 percent pretty consistently. Some sectors and some businesses are losing jobs; some sectors and some businesses are flat out trying to recruit people—in fact they cannot get the skills that they need. We would expect that this will be the pattern for the foreseeable future. 
Hon David Parker 
: In the history of the quarterly employment survey data series which goes back to 1989 has there ever been a quarter with fewer filled jobs in manufacturing than the September 2012 quarter? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I do not know the answer to that but I would warn the member that you cannot run economic policy off quarterly surveys particularly when quarterly figures are so volatile. 
Hon David Parker 
: I seek leave to table a document from the Parliamentary Library showing the number of filled jobs in the manufacturing sector is the lowest recorded since the data series began in 1989. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 









Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Tax Credits—Access to In-work Tax Credit 
5. 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Revenue 
: How many parents have lost access to the in-work tax credit in the past year because they have lost their jobs or no longer work enough hours to qualify? 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue) 
: 
 The member should not be surprised that my answer is exactly the same as I gave to her written question No. 8951 barely 3 weeks ago—namely the Inland Revenue Department does not specifically record why a recipient does not receive a particular component of Working for Families tax credits. Entitlement to each component can start and stop throughout the year depending on the family circumstances all of which cannot be accurately separated or identified to answer this question. 
Metiria Turei 
: Why is the Minister content to allow this financial support to be taken away from children whose parents lose their jobs through no fault of their own? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: What the member overlooks is that there are a range of other support mechanisms in place to help parents in that situation and as a consequence of those other support mechanisms the current practice introduced by the previous Government with regard to the operation of the in-work tax credit is appropriate. 
Metiria Turei 
: How can the Minister claim that the current support for those families who lose their jobs is adequate for children when the family tax credits and benefits combined still leave 70 percent of the children in those families in poverty the jobs do not exist for their parents and we know that the in-work tax credit amount alone can significantly relieve that poverty? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: There are two reasons for my comment. The first is that the OECD has made it very clear that in its judgment—and New Zealand is part of the OECD and generally respects its judgments in these respects—child poverty is best helped through workforce participation and encouraging workforce participation. The second part of my answer is that the member is selective in terms of the benefits that she makes reference to. In addition to those that she commented upon families in that situation would also be entitled to the unemployment benefit and they may be entitled to sole parent support an accommodation supplement an emergency benefit various training allowances a child disability allowance or disability allowance and possibly after-school allowances. So if she wants to make the comparison she should put the whole suite of measures on the table and not just a selected number of them. 
Metiria Turei 
: Is the Minister aware that every 3 months 75000 hard-working people including thousands of parents become unemployed under the Key-Dunne Government and how is it fair to take away the in-work tax credit from them and their children when they lose their jobs in those difficult times? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: I have got no idea where the member draws her figure from. I think it is a figment of her imagination. The point— 
Metiria Turei 
: From your own ministry. 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: The member says it is from my own ministry. In my original answer I made it very clear that because of the nature of the way in which these interactions occur it is impossible to identify the numbers involved. The member seems to deny that. But the point that I was making in my original supplementary answer—and I will make it again—is that the member is being very selective. She is drawing on a range of issues only. There are a number of mechanisms available to help families in that situation and the member should put all of those on the table when considering this question. 
Metiria Turei 
: How is it fair that the children of 40000 hard-working people who lost manufacturing jobs in the last 4 years of the Key-Dunne Government should also be financially punished by having their in-work tax credit taken away as well? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: My answer is the same as it has been to previous iterations of this type of example. But I would make one other point: what the member’s legislation proposes is creating a disincentive for low-income working families to remain in employment. One of the whole reasons why the Working for Families in-work tax credit was introduced in the first place was to actually make it more palatable and more attractive for those low-income families to be in employment. The member wants to actually turn that on its head and make more people reliant on the system as beneficiaries rather than do what every other country does and seek to encourage them into paid employment. 
Metiria Turei 
: If the Minister is so worried about incentivising people who work why does he then deny the tax credit to up to 40 percent of sole parent beneficiaries who are in part-time work whose children are very likely to suffer the worst effects of long-term poverty? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: I should point out to the member that there are a number of other tax credit mechanisms available to help families in the type of situation she refers to—for instance the family tax credit the minimum family tax credit and the parental tax credit. When you add all of those things together—and they are regularly adjusted for inflation—they provide a substantial uplift for families in that situation. They also ensure that low-income working families are recognised for their efforts and as a consequence encouraged and incentivised to remain in employment. 
Metiria Turei 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question was not about other kinds of tax credits. It was an explicit question about working people who are denied the in-work tax credit and I do not believe that the Minister answered that question properly. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If I recollect correctly the member started her question with “Given the Minister’s such-and-such how can it be fair …” or “How does he believe it is fair for something …” and the Minister answered that he believed it was fair because these people have other things available to them. 
Metiria Turei 
: Why did the Minister dismiss my compromise to him to extend the in-work tax credit for 6 months to those who lose their jobs—a compromise that would relieve some of the worst financial stress for children and for families at a very difficult and insecure time when their parents lose their work? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: Two reasons: firstly the point I made earlier about employment and encouraging people into workforce participation and secondly—again consistent with OECD strategy—employing policies that make work pay. What the member’s bill does is create a disincentive for people at that low-income margin to be in full-time employment. I think that is wrong. 
Metiria Turei 
: Does the Minister agree with economics professor Susan St John that extending the in-work tax credit to all children below the current income threshold even if their parents are looking for work are caring for grandchildren and receive superannuation or are studying would be an effective way to reduce poverty and income inequality? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: I seldom agree with Associate Professor St John. 
Metiria Turei 
: Does the Minister agree with the statement from United Future leader Peter Dunne when he pledged to Closer Together Whakatata Mai to “actively support policy measures that reduce income inequality”; if so why will he not support my bill which is just such a measure he pledged to support at least going to a select committee? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: I do agree with that statement. The fact that as Minister of Revenue over the last 7 years under both Governments I have been part of seeing the biggest shifts in personal tax rate reductions for the bottom two income steps is proof of the point that I make. 
Metiria Turei 
: It’s not relieved poverty for the worst. 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: The member says that does not relieve poverty. What that interjection proves is that this is a highly subjective rather than objective argument. My focus has been on ensuring that our tax system works fairly for those at the bottom of the income scale. The last thing I want to see is a disincentive created for low-income working people to remain in full-time employment as the member’s bill would do. 
Metiria Turei 
: Why will not the Minister support this potential solution at least being considered by a select committee when all the evidence suggests that it could make the crucial difference to a quarter of a million Kiwi kids and that he today could be the difference between an empty and a full plate for many of these children? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: I reject that assertion entirely. 
Metiria Turei 
: You reject those children entirely. 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: I am not rejecting those children. That is a ridiculous statement. What this is about is a good policy environment that the previous Government put in place called Working for Families. This Government is committed to it. It ensures that low-income working people are rewarded for the fact that they are in employment consistent with international standards. The best way to boost the incomes of those households is through full-time employment not through loading them up on the beneficiary train which the member wants to do. 
Offenders Rehabilitation—Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Court Launch 
6. 
MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: How is the Government reducing crime and reoffending by helping offenders to deal with their addictions? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 Last week I launched the new alcohol and other drug courts in Auckland. This pilot programme will enable 100 offenders each year who are facing prison sentences and who are prepared to acknowledge their offending to participate in addiction treatment programmes which will be actively overseen by the courts. Similar programmes in other jurisdictions have resulted in significant reductions in repeat offending. This Government is focused on reducing crime in New Zealand. 
Mike Sabin 
: What else is the Government doing to reduce reoffending? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: The justice sector has a target to reduce reoffending by 25 percent by 2017. The alcohol and other drug courts are part of a wider $10 million a year package funded by alcohol excise revenue and providing for early intervention screening a range of programmes for drink-drivers youth alcohol and drug services and more training and development within workplaces. The Department of Corrections has also invested heavily in drug and alcohol programmes in our prisons. This past year we have seen a 6 percent drop in reoffending. 
Hon Kate Wilkinson—Confidence 
7. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he have confidence in Hon Kate Wilkinson as a Minister in his Government? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: What in his opinion did Kate Wilkinson do wrong that lead to her resignation as Minister of Labour? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: As the Minister said she felt it was the honourable thing to do because the report of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy was effectively so damning of the department that she had responsibility for and because 29 men had lost their lives. She felt that that was the appropriate thing to do. I supported her view in doing that. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: Given that the Minister considers she has done no wrong is it not correct that some of the key responsibilities of Ministers are to monitor their department to demand accountability and to ask the right questions of their department to check that their department is actually doing its job and to act on appropriate advice such as the letter I wrote on 6 May 2010; if he does agree that these are key responsibilities are not these the very areas where Kate Wilkinson was derelict in her duty? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: No I do not believe that accurately characterises it. I have seen the letter that the honourable member wrote. I have also seen the response. Looking at the response it is quite clear that the Minister took the correspondence very seriously. She in the report actually relied on her officials’ advice that had come out of the 2009 review. She spent some time looking at the operational capability. She also indicated that the Department of Labour had said that there was no recent change in the pattern of mining serious-harm notifications that may give cause for concern. She has acted pretty much on all of the advice that I can see from the ministry with the one exception being where it did make a recommendation in relation to small mines but the reason she declined that is that as the ministry itself said: “There are currently no mines operating with fewer than 20 employees and existing operators already have systems so the above proposal would have no impact on any current mine operators.” 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: Given the rejection of advice on mine safety matters from the unions from her department’s internal review in 2008 and from my letter how can he be satisfied that this Minister has the level of judgment required to be a Minister in his Government? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Well if we want to get into the blame game let us just start having a look at a few of the facts. For a start-off Labour was elected in 1999—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! A question was asked and a question as to the Prime Minister’s confidence in Ministers is a fair question. I think it would be proper to answer it and not to get into the blame game. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Let me reverse the order then. In relation to the advice that the Minister had she received advice off the report that Trevor Mallard had received in 2008. She followed that advice. In the advice the Department of Labour said there were two issues. One was in relation to small mines where there was the highest risk. It said by the way I might add: “Generally the legislative and regulatory framework was sound. The operational capability of the mines inspectorate was sufficient.” and I might add that this was the advice that the Minister acted on. By the way this was on the back of the report that had been received by Trevor Mallard when he was the Minister in October 2008 and this is what Trevor Mallard said when he received this advice. It came in the form of a press release he put out in October of 2008. He said that the legislative and regulatory “framework was essentially sound” and “Both employer and employee submitters overwhelmingly supported the current legislative framework … They did not want to return to a more prescriptive regulatory framework.” This comes from a Labour Government that in 4 of the 9 years it was in office in its last term cut the amount of spending that went into health and safety. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! A point of order has been called. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I seek the leave of the House to table the media statement that the Prime Minister has just quoted from which says inter alia “the quality of employees’ participation in health and safety”— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! Order! The House will come to order. Unless some members on my right want an early shower the House will come to order. That is sufficient of that exchange. Members have the right to seek leave and other members have the right to refuse leave. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I seek leave to table the draft media release of 22 October on which the media release was based. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table—can we just check for the House. The draft media release was from the Minister’s office? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: No. It was from the department. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: From the department. Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I seek leave to table the communication plan which indicates the issue in relation to lack of workers’ voice. It is from the Department of Labour 22 October 2008. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 









Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: Does the Prime Minister—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I apologise to the member asking the question. I say to the Ministers on my right that I must be able to hear the question. I know my hearing is not brilliant but I have got to be able to hear the question. The Hon Damien O’Connor. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! 
Hon Christopher Finlayson 
: I’ll control her. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member can just resume his seat for the moment. I am very grateful to the Attorney-General for that offer. The Hon Damien O’Connor. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: That Minister will not be much better either. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member will just ask his supplementary question please. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: Does the Prime Minister consider the Minister’s resignation from one portfolio and keeping her Cabinet position on full pay is honourable when there are 29 miners—fathers sons and breadwinners—who are dead because of the incompetence in a department that she had full responsibility for? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I think all of this Parliament would acknowledge that no resignation of a Minister whether it be from one portfolio or the entire Cabinet would in any way come anywhere near giving the support that those 29 families actually deserve. But let us go back to the royal commission. The royal commission was quite clear: the primary responsibility for health and safety rested with the company. It utterly failed. The Government for 20 years relied on the same form and way of interpreting the law in 1992. Again I go back to the press release that Trevor Mallard put out. In that press release he himself said they do not want to return to a more prescriptive regulatory framework. I make the point as well that not only did Labour cut health and safety expenditure in 4 out of 9 years; it also cut— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! That is not necessary to answer the question. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Did the Department of Labour do as it undertook to me as the Minister to do: to develop in consultation with industry a programme of work to further strengthen health and safety management systems for underground mining and employee participation in that and report back by June 2009? If it did not why not and if it did why did the Minister reject that report? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I might stand to be corrected but my understanding is that that Minister received the advice sometime in 2008—I am not exactly sure whether it was July or September but he received it in 2008. In October of 2008 he put out a press release. He did not respond or do anything in that regard. In fact it was left unanswered by him as Minister. Then the incoming Minister Kate Wilkinson got from the department the advice that it would have also presented to that Minister had he remained the Minister because it had made it quite clear in the report that he had responded to in 2008 that the primary focus of concern was around small mines. The bottom line is nothing changed and there is no evidence that that member if he had been the Minister would have had check inspectors or the other claims he has been making. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was very specific: did the department develop the programme that I quoted from did it give it to the Minister and what did she do with it? He— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! [ 
Interruption 
] Order! I am on my feet. I cannot judge the accuracy of the Prime Minister’s answer but the Prime Minister did answer by saying he was unaware of any evidence of that or of any of that information being presented to the Minister. The only information he was aware of being presented to the Minister was the briefing to the incoming Minister which made certain recommendations. I cannot judge the answer. That is an answer. It seems to be rather contrary to the points the member made in his question but I cannot judge the accuracy of an answer. That seems a reasonable answer to the question asked. 
Prime Minister—Confidence 
8. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he have confidence in all his Ministers? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: How can he have confidence in a Minister whose role model for young New Zealanders includes making derogatory remarks about David Beckham and swearing in an educational environment? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Well I would reject one of those terms anyway. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Which one? I have asked him a very clear question on notice. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Prime Minister does not have to in his answer indicate which one. The member included more than one issue in his supplementary question and the Prime Minister answered and that is all he is obliged to do. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Let’s hear from “Precious”. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Well we do not want to hear from “Dopey” do we? How can he have confidence in a Minister who by making derogatory and insulting remarks about David Beckham an internationally renowned sportsman—perhaps the most well-known soccer player in the world—on 2 November in Dunedin has tarnished New Zealand’s international reputation and image? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: The member is relying on hearsay from someone in a private conversation I was in. I suspect actually that if Mr Beckham heard the entire length of the discussion I had he would actually feel quite good about it. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: How would Mr Beckham be expected to feel good about being called I think it was bat scatology—to use the polite term in this House—and having a Prime Minister treat him that way after he spent thousands of hours in charitable work including in New Zealand—[ 
Interruption 
] Mr Speaker can I actually ask this question rather than— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! [ 
Interruption 
] Order! The member will resume his seat. The National benches will come to order. It is unhelpful to make that amount of noise. The member is entitled to ask his question and I want to be able to hear it. The Rt Hon Winston Peters may start his question again. 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: I’m not sure he’s got one. Has he got one? 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Mr Speaker there you are. There is somebody leaking verbally more than her department. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! That is not helpful either. The member will resume his seat for a moment. Can I appeal to the Attorney-General to look after the Minister on his right please. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: What does it tell the Prime Minister about the character of that Minister that despite Beckham’s giving thousands of hours to charity work including in New Zealand and including to that Minister’s son he goes behind his back and says a thing like that? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: The member is making an assumption he just simply should not make. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Prime Minister—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I must be able to hear this question. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Yes or no did he not say at a meeting with schoolchildren that David Beckham was as thick as bat—and you know what the rest was. Is he denying it now? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Categorically I did not say that no. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Would—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I must be able to hear the—[ 
Interruption 
] No look I say this time to the benches on my left that the Speaker cannot arbitrate in these matters or chair the House if he cannot hear. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Would the Prime Minister not think it reasonable for the rest of the country and this House to conclude that someone who rises in this House and outside in the public and flat-out lies should be fired from being a Minister? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: As I have said on numerous occasions the quote was a hearsay comment. If you are asking me the exact words that that member said—did I say that David Beckham was as thick as bat-whatever—the answer is categorically I did not. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Supplementary question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I believe the right honourable gentleman has had all supplementary questions available today. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have asked then five supplementary questions. The Prime Minister has denied saying that— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Can I complete my point of order? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It is quite clear there is not a point of order coming here. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: How can you be clear about that? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member will resume his seat. The member must make clear what the issue of order is. The member has some options. He could seek leave of the House I guess to ask a further supplementary question but he cannot litigate the answers because he has run out of supplementary questions. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think if you or the clerk checks his notes you will see that you have allowed me to ask a question again. I think he has got the numbers wrong here. I am on my fifth question now. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Both my assistant who records the number of questions asked and I who also record the number of questions asked have separately recorded five supplementary questions. I apologise if we happen to be wrong—I most sincerely apologise to the member—but I cannot see how we could both be wrong on that. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know it is very late and you do not like this happening but the Labour Party will give one of its supplementary questions to the Rt Hon Winston Peters in order for him to ask the question about whether the “shit” word was used or not. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member did not help his case with that and he knows that is out of order—that he cannot do that at this stage. If questions are to be transferred it must be done properly and I am not going to have a point of order used in that way especially in that manner. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If it helps in terms of clarification—I am reluctant to swear in Parliament but if the member is asking me whether I used the word “batshit” I did not. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have been granted an extra question by another party and I am grateful to it. I wish now to put that question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member should know that under the Standing Orders members cannot be granted questions once question time has started. We must be advised prior to the commencement of question time if questions are transferred from one party to another. Those have been the standard procedures for some time. But if the member wants to seek leave to ask a further supplementary question the House is perfectly at liberty to grant that. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: In the interests of finding out what the Prime Minister did say against what everybody said he said I seek leave to ask the Prime Minister what he did say. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No no no. That is not the way it goes at all. The leave the member is seeking is to ask a further supplementary question. I take it the member is doing that. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is objection. Question No. 9 Melissa Lee. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! That matter has been dealt with. I have called Melissa Lee. 
Beneficiaries Canterbury—Effect of Rebuild on Numbers 
9. 
MELISSA LEE (National) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development 
: What impact has the Canterbury rebuild had on benefit numbers? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development) 
: 
 At the time of the February earthquake there were 5380 people receiving the unemployment benefit in Christchurch. These numbers peaked in April 2011 rising to 6326—not the 24000 that was often projected by Clayton Cosgrove. But today this number has halved to just 3231 people receiving the unemployment benefit in the Canterbury region. 
Melissa Lee 
: How many people have moved off benefits and into work in the Canterbury region? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Since January this year 7363 people in the Canterbury region have cancelled their benefit because they have secured work. In just the last 3 months 87 people have found work through our recently announced Job Streams package—44 of them in construction 24 in hospitality six in meat processing six in retail and seven in the agriculture sector. 
Melissa Lee 
: How is Work and Income ensuring that young people are taking up available work? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Work and Income is working more intensively to case-manage people at the moment with a particular focus on youth. For example there are 1400 fewer young people on the unemployment benefit than there were at the peak following the February 2011 quake. There are now just 976 young people on the unemployment benefit. 
State Housing—Housing Stock and Vacant Properties 
10. 
HONE HARAWIRA (Leader—Mana) 
 to the  
Minister of Housing 
: Why is he persisting with the reduction of State houses including in Glen Innes at a time when there is a growing need for decent affordable housing for low-income families? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction) 
 on behalf of the Minister of Housing: The member’s assertion is just simply not correct. As of 30 June this year there were 645 more State houses than when we came into Government. 
Hone Harawira 
: Does the Minister believe that the Government’s housing policy which is specifically designed around reducing the State housing stock in favour of private rentals and property options for the rich and forcing people to leave their homes and their communities will actually solve the current housing crisis for low-income families; if not what other policy options is his Government considering? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: That is an indication of a member who has written a supplementary question before he has heard the answer to the first question. I will repeat it again. As at 30 June this year there were 645 more State houses than when we came into Government. How can the member keep asserting that we are reducing the number of State houses? 
Hone Harawira 
: Do those figures include the reduction of State houses in Glen Innes the sale of those properties to property developers and the moving out of those State housing clients to other properties without returning those properties to State housing again? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: The 645 extra State houses include all of that. But can I tell the member that in Glen Innes the project will see 156 State housing properties redeveloped to create at least 260 new properties including 78 fit for purpose State rental properties and at least 40 market-based affordable homes. These new homes will be modern they will be safe they will be warm and they will be configured for people’s needs. In fact a number of people from Glen Innes are now complaining about protestors coming from outside of the area and mucking up their suburb. 
Hon Annette King 
: Can he confirm that there are currently 3358 vacant Housing New Zealand Corporation homes even though the waiting lists are growing month by month especially in Auckland and in Hawke’s Bay; and does he agree with his Associate Minister of Housing who said recently that having empty houses while New Zealanders are living in cars and garages is totally unacceptable? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: What I can tell that member is that there is always a problem of too many houses in a place where the demand is low and not enough houses in places where demand is high. But can I tell her that the current level of vacant stock in the Housing New Zealand Corporation portfolio is around 2 percent. This compares very favourably with the private sector. Historically this rate has always been around 1 to 2 percent even when that member’s party was in Government. 
Film Industry United States—Intellectual Property and Meetings with Prime Minister 
11. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Did he meet with Warner Brothers and New Line movie executives in Los Angeles and with US Trade Representative Ambassador Ron Kirk who is responsible for US intellectual property and piracy matters in the middle of last year; if so on what dates? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 I had dinner with Warner Bros and New Line Cinema movie executives on 18 July 2011 and met with the US Trade Representative Ambassador Ron Kirk on 22 July. It is a little misleading to suggest that the office of the US Trade Representative is “responsible for US intellectual property and piracy matters”. It is one of a significant number of US agencies that have input into intellectual property policy and enforcement in the United States. These include the United States Copyright Office the United States Patent and Trademark Office the United States Department of Commerce the Office of Intellectual Property Rights the United States Department of State the Office of International Intellectual Property Enforcement the National Intelligence— 
Charles Chauvel 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think the Prime Minister substantially answered the question. I am not interested in a list of other US agencies. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member would have been wise perhaps not to include an unnecessary phrase in his primary question. 
Charles Chauvel 
: The primary question ascribed responsibility to the US Trade Representative for a particular matter. There is no doubt that he has responsibility for that matter. The fact that other agencies also have that responsibility is neither here nor there. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Since the member does more or less challenge me if he checks the Standing Orders that phrase being allowed in the question was very marginal because it is absolutely unnecessary for the question—absolutely unnecessary for the meaning of the primary question—and that is why the Prime Minister I am sure latched on to it. It is just a lesson in why this Standing Order is worded the way it is. 
Charles Chauvel 
: At any of those meetings on either 18 or 22 July was there any discussion of the United States Government’s so-called review of notorious markets whose purpose is to identify economies that fail to deal adequately with intellectual property infringements? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I am almost certain that is no; it was certainly no in the case of the Warner Bros meeting. In terms of the meeting that we had with Ron Kirk there was a wide-ranging discussion. We did talk a little about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We did talk in relation to that agreement about upholding strong intellectual property frameworks. The only time the issue of piracy was raised it was actually raised by Ambassador Mike Moore who briefed Ambassador Kirk on the new copyright legislation that had been introduced in New Zealand. 
Clare Curran 
: Before he went on that trip did the Attorney-General discuss with him his recent trip to an Attorneys-General conference in Australia a conference that focused on cyber-crime and where the Attorney-General spoke specifically on extradition? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I am very saddened to say this: no he did not. It would have been a fascinating trip and I love my engagements with Chris as he talks to me about his international travels. I wish he had done it because I would have listened very carefully. 
Clare Curran 
: Did the then commerce and justice Minister Simon Power discuss intellectual property issues and his meeting with the Asia-Pacific head of the Motion Picture Association of America Mike Ellis with him before or after he went on his US trip? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: No and at the risk of offending a colleague who has now left can I say also that I thoroughly enjoyed my conversations I had with Simon Power on a range of issues but this was not one of them. 
Television Switch-over to Digital—TV TakeBack Programme 
12. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) 
 to the  
Minister for the Environment 
: How many televisions have been collected to date under the Government’s TV Takeback programme? 
Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 In just over 1 month 18145 televisions have so far been dropped off for recycling in the Hawke’s Bay and on the West Coast which as the first regions to make the switch to digital television are the first to be involved in the Government’s TV TakeBack Programme. Based on the average weight of a television this is the equivalent of over 435 tonnes of waste diverted from our landfills. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: What happens to the televisions once they are collected for recycling? 
Hon AMY ADAMS 
: Well that is a good question. Televisions dropped off for recycling are taken to national recycling facilities where they are taken apart. Components are recycled locally or sent overseas to specialist recycling facilities. The material extracted has a variety of uses. For example glass from the screens can be transformed into bunker sand for golf courses; copper around the electron gun can be recycled into new cabling; and degaussing wire which sits around the front of the screen is high-grade iron that can be recycled into metal goods. Televisions also contain materials that can be harmful if released into soil or waterways such as lead mercury and cadmium. Safe recycling takes away the risk of contamination and reduces the volume of waste going into our landfills. 
Question No. 10 to Minister 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 I seek leave to table an answer to a written question I have just received which is not publicly available I believe. It shows that the number of vacant State houses in New Zealand is 5 percent unlike the answer the Minister gave in the House just a few moments ago. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Leave has been sought and there should be no interjection. Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
General Debate 
DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. That seeking of leave just brings to attention the housing problem that we have in New Zealand. When you have 5 percent of our housing stock currently not being used—that is around 3300 homes that could actually house people on lower incomes—that is a disgrace. That is a disgrace because right now people in my electorate anyway are living in cars in caravans and two or three families to a home when they could actually be living in a State house instead. 
There is a real problem in New Zealand with housing and housing affordability. No longer is the Kiwi dream of owning your own home a real possibility for thousands and thousands of Kiwis. No longer can you get a chance to be on that bottom rung of the ladder. House prices have gone up in Auckland in particular in Christchurch in Tauranga and in a number of other places—in more than half of the country. 
So it was with great anticipation enormous anticipation that we wanted to hear what Bill English was going to announce to the Productivity Commission’s report on housing. We waited 7 months. We waited 7 months. The build-up was excruciating. What did we get? An extraordinary let-down—an extraordinary let-down. They weakened the Resource Management Act they lowered industry standards they pushed more responsibility on to councils and they tried to make land cheaper by expanding the boundaries of Auckland for example. So you have to get on to the motorway and drive for an hour rather than actually do something intelligent which is medium sized - scale housing inside of Auckland. 
That is it—that was it. That was to solve New Zealand’s housing problem. It fails utterly and that is what everybody said—not just us not just me and not just Annette King but for example the Mayor of Tauranga: “In my view it failed to take into account the reality of the situation” he said. Brian Fallow said: “It is fair to judge a policy package like the one on housing affordability announced this week by what they do to relieve those problems.”—those problems being housing affordability—“In short precious little.” John Armstrong wrote: “Package? What package? … The plan looks like a rough first draft”. In other words nobody is impressed with this Government’s performance on housing. It is woeful and it is disappointing. 
There is a real shortage of houses for younger people wanting to get that first chance on the ladder and this Government is determined not to do anything about it. It gives up on the most basic things to do. One thing it might want to look at for example is a capital gains tax or at least not allow the price of houses to go through the roof and at least put our investment into productive enterprises rather than into the Auckland property market. 
Even when there is a possibility of State housing and community housing as in the Hobsonville scheme the Government cancels it. The Prime Minister calls it economic vandalism—that is what he calls it economic vandalism—to put social housing into a housing development. Of the 3000 houses 1000 were going to be houses that would have been able to accommodate low-income families. The Government cut it from 1000 to 100. And guess what? Now it is down to 17—17. And the Government wonders why there is a housing affordability problem! That is why there is a housing affordability problem. It is because it is not doing anything about it. 
You have got Craig Heatley—Craig Heatley—who is completely asleep at the wheel completely asleep—[ 
Interruption 
] Sorry Phil Heatley. Phil Heatley. Even Phil—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
DAVID SHEARER 
: Phil Heatley says he agrees with everything and does absolutely nothing. He agreed with everything in the poverty report and what did he do? He cut funding to community housing. He cut funding for State house maintenance—[ 
Bell rung 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Before I call the Hon Bill English the level of interjection—actually the level of noise—was discourteous. I hate interrupting members speaking but it is so discourteous to have a high level of background noise. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 Well I have not yet met the housing Minister Craig Heatley but I am looking forward to meeting the leader of the Labour Party Ian Shearer! At least he might get listened to by his front bench when he gives a speech. It is absolutely clear that even if Charles Chauvel was here yesterday he should have been at the barbecue with the Davids who were not here because he did not start listening until the 4th minute of the speech. No doubt half of that caucus are sitting there thinking it is almost the second or third to last general debate speech that the current leader of the Labour Party will give. 
Yesterday they were away plotting. What else would David Parker David Cunliffe and Grant Robertson be doing if they were not in the House on a Tuesday? [ 
Interruption 
] Well Grant Robertson was probably on Skype—I will give you that—from New York or wherever he was. I will tell you what they were talking about: the same things that New Zealand’s union leadership is talking about in the Koru lounge and that is who it is going to be to follow on from David Shearer. 
The Labour Party should do what it did with Helen Clark. Helen Clark was polling very poorly making no impact on politics and Labour stuck with her. In fact it stuck with her for 2½ years until the 1996 election campaign when she finally came through to show her political capacities in that campaign. She still lost the election polling only 28 percent but Labour kept backing her. That is when the Labour Party used to understand middle New Zealand because it knew that in the long run it had a leader who could take it to victory. This Labour Party does not understand middle New Zealand and that is why Labour members are looking to jump ship. The rats are leaving the ship because David Shearer does not look like he has beaten the Government this year. In just a matter of a few months since he has been the leader they are ready to slit his throat stab him in the back and throw him to the wolves. But that is the easy bit. The hard bit is deciding who would replace him. My advice is that that fight will be so divisive that they should stick with David Shearer like they did with Helen Clark because he has not all of the same qualities but some of the same qualities. 
I would say that he alone of those on the front bench of Labour has an instinct for middle New Zealand. There are other people there who do not like the Hon David Cunliffe who has said publicly—and I think this is honest—in the  
Listener 
: “I think I am sincere.” I think I am sincere! Well ask anybody who has listened to this man—he is not sincere. He has perfected the art as Mike Moore said—when you can fake sincerity you have really got them. But at least David Cunliffe recognises his inner troubles—and this is not an inner struggle that David Shearer has—when he says that he has to keep reminding himself that it is not about him every day: “Every day I look in the mirror and I tell myself it is not about me.” Well the leadership of what used to one of New Zealand’s fine political parties cannot be about an ego that big. 
Hon Annette King 
: Bill knows a lot about leadership! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I do know. I have been there. I know what it feels like. I know how David Shearer feels today when he can hear them baying for his blood knowing he is going to be cut down. It is just a matter of when because this is the Labour Party at its best. The discipline it had under Helen Clark is gone; now it is egos now it is each man for himself and now Labour members spend a lot more time talking about themselves than they do— 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 Of course Bill English knows a lot about leadership because he was “Mr 22 Percent” who took the National Party to one of the worst defeats that it ever had. He is still bitter about it he is still whinging about it and he is still plotting at every moment how he can get back into the Prime Minister’s seat. 
Last week the long-awaited affordable housing package from the Government was announced. You know it reminded me of that old Peggy Lee song from the late 1960s “Is That All There is?”. If you remember Mr Speaker—and I am sure you do—it was a song about disillusionment. I have to say that New Zealanders who have been waiting and wishing and hoping for a response to the growing housing crisis in New Zealand have every right to feel disillusioned. Seven months ago the Government received a report from the Productivity Commission on affordable housing. What did that report do? It set out the issues it highlighted areas for action and it gave the Government 33 recommendations. For 7 months we had to wait for the Government’s response. For 7 months we got the old political striptease from the Minister of Finance: a little speech here a little hint of action over there a patsy question or two in Parliament and some pathetic comments like “We clearly have a problem in Auckland with a lack of supply of housing particularly for low-income people. We are determined to get a better deal for people.” 
I say to Bill English that he is either not determined enough or he is a spent force in the National Cabinet because he has been overtaken by the ideas man the apparatchik of the National Party Steven Joyce. The affordable housing package is toothless and it is gutless. As John Armstrong wrote in the  
New Zealand Herald  
last week “Package? What package?”. I have to agree with him. He said that the Government’s plan looks like a first draft. Duncan Garner on his blog wrote that “There is nothing bold in here at all.” [ 
Interruption 
] Oh so they are now laughing at Duncan Garner. This is a man they all suck up to most of the time. They do not like it when he writes the truth. He said that “it is tinkering while Auckland burns in the face of unsustainable house prices.” He said that National “has shied away from getting hands on or even getting its hands dirty.” He said that there was one word for it: underwhelming. 
What I say is that it is tinkering by muddled thinkers devoid of ideas paralysed by ideology lacking in vision and innovation and into a whole lot of blame shifting. Local government they say must stump up or else. We do not know what the “or else” is but local government is being told it must stump up and address affordable housing in New Zealand. Of course the irony of that is that at the same time that Bill English is saying that Nick Smith and his would-be Minister of Local Government David Carter are saying “No no local government you must get out of anything the private sector could do.” Well I can say that this is a pathetic response to a very serious problem in New Zealand. We have been told that there will have to be more inquiries more work done and more evaluations. 
There is a choice the Government can make. There are two paths a Government can go down. One is where it is hands-off with an approach of “Business knows best” and letting the market rule; a deregulated economy deregulated safety and deregulated everything. We are seeing the results in New Zealand after two decades or more of that approach with some of the worst health and safety records around the world with leaky buildings and with a deregulated electricity market that they said would give us cheaper prices but which means we are paying more. Then there is the other path a Government could go down; a Government that is more hands-on that is supporting its exporters that is protecting New Zealand jobs and that is leading our building of affordable homes in New Zealand. The Government should be leading by example. An example was in Hobsonville. What did it do? It cancelled affordable housing and it cancelled State housing. It is devoid of ideas and nothing in housing will happen under this Government as long as it occupies the Treasury benches. 
Hon TIM GROSER (Minister of Trade) 
: 
 We all know the clichés about being in Opposition and they all add up to one and the same thing—it is not a pretty place to be. It is particularly difficult when you are in Opposition when you are clearly facing an internal leadership crisis of the type that Mr English has just outlined—when the Green Party is eating your lunch at the same time. 
It is perfectly clear what has happened. There has been some type of strategy meeting and somebody has come up with a “bright idea”. The bright idea is “Let’s declare there is an economic crisis—a crisis in manufacturing” and everyone who is desperate for something other than another silly proposal to print money has said “What a brilliant idea! We’ll hold a conference we’ll paper over our cracks and we’ll declare there’s a crisis.” 
The only problem is that you cannot declare a crisis. You cannot create a crisis by political fiat. It is particularly difficult to say that New Zealand is facing a crisis when you are facing the following economic realities. No. 1 is the cost of living. The rate of inflation has fallen from 5.1 percent in November 2008 to the lowest rate this century taking pressure off New Zealand families New Zealand households and New Zealand companies trying to compete everywhere. It is very difficult to say you are facing a crisis. 
It is very difficult to say you are facing a crisis in manufacturing when you have just seen a Government oversee the creation of 60000 net jobs in the last 2 years. It is very difficult to say that you are facing a crisis when the Government that replaced you was facing forecast unemployment going up to 10 percent and it is now—still higher than we all want it to be and it is a very challenging situation—around 6.8 percent. It is very difficult to say that there is a crisis facing middle New Zealand when the average New Zealand household with a $200000 mortgage is facing a mortgage bill that is $200 a week after tax lower than they were paying in April 2008. That is $200 in the hand. It is very difficult to persuade those folks that they are facing a crisis. The superannuation married rate is 22 percent higher than it was in April 2008. 
It is very difficult—if we move to the macroeconomic front—to say that New Zealand is facing a crisis when the current annual growth rate is 2.6 percent and when you look across the developed world and look at that in comparison with what other countries that also enjoy a high standard of living are facing at the moment. Net Crown debt which was forecast when we came to Government to rise above 60 percent and deficits thereafter is now forecast to around 30 percent. That is when the UK itself is looking at net Crown debt of 85 percent of GDP. 
It is very difficult to sustain a manufactured crisis in the face of economic facts like those. Let me try to illustrate what would represent a real crisis—a real crisis. We do not have to invent one unfortunately. We have only to look at eurozone countries and to some extent see what emerges in the United States to understand what a real crisis is. A real crisis is when you are sitting on eurozone unemployment of over 11 percent—almost just a tad short of twice New Zealand’s unemployment rate. A real crisis is when you have got within the eurozone a 25-plus percent general level of unemployment in the fourth-largest economy in the eurozone and you have got 50 percent youth unemployment—people between 15 and 24. One in two of them is unable to find a future for themselves. That is not just an economic crisis that is not even just a social crisis; that could have long-term extraordinarily serious political consequences for the stability of those places. 
That is what a real crisis looks like not this manufactured crisis designed to paper over the Opposition’s internal difficulties. A real crisis is when the Government is not following the sorts of policies that this Government is following—steady disciplined control over public expenditure nothing extreme designed to help hard-pressed New Zealanders take the edges off the recession and manage us all through this extremely difficult patch internationally which is facing all countries in the world. When you are looking at massive cuts in welfare and health services and 500000 jobs in the UK public sector to be slashed in the next 4 years that is a real crisis not the phoney crisis that the Opposition is trying to paper over. 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Later tonight my bill to almost halve child poverty the Income Tax (Universalisation of In-work Tax Credit) Amendment Bill will have its vote in the House. I want to thank all those community organisations Every Child Counts the Child Poverty Action Group Champions for Children and many other groups and individuals who have written and emailed tweeted and facebooked marched rallied and otherwise worked to have this bill pass its first reading tonight. 
It is with genuine sorrow that I report that we are still yet to find the one more vote we need to send this bill to the Social Services Committee. All those parties supporting the bill tonight have been given a pair of infant socks—baby socks—as a small gesture from me to acknowledge their commitment to finding a real solution to the poverty that is suffered by a quarter of a million children in New Zealand today. I have one pair of baby socks left because we need only one vote from one party to pass the bill. That one vote will bring the family income of an estimated 100000 New Zealand children above the poverty line. That one vote will ensure that these children have a warm dry home shoes on their feet and food in their bellies. 
Many organisations have expressed their distress at Peter Dunne’s decision to oppose my bill. During the 2011 election he signed a pledge with a group called Closer Together Whakatata Mai. That pledge says: “As a politician I choose to commit to building a fairer New Zealand and will actively support policy measures that reduce income inequality and bring people closer together.” At the time Peter Dunne wrote: “I very much support your call for more detailed debate around the possible ways to reduce poverty and income inequality.” I ask Peter Dunne to honour tonight that pledge he made. In a Facebook post in response to my bill Peter Dunne has said: “I believe there needs to be recognition of the hard-working efforts of low income families and the existing In-work Tax Credit is a way of achieving that.” It is a way but it is a way that discriminates against the poorest families. My bill will remove that injustice and reduce poverty and income inequality which he said he wants to achieve. 
I have offered Peter Dunne and the National Government two compromises on my bill in order to meet their concerns. The first offer was to retain the hours worked criteria so that all parents who work would receive the in-work tax credit. At the moment if you work and you receive a benefit superannuation or a student allowance that work goes unrecognised. Mr Dunne has said that he believes in recognising the hard-working efforts of low-income families but he has refused to recognise the hard-working efforts of this group of low-income families—some 40000 DPB recipients who work and another 20000 who will be expected to work at least 15 hours a week next year. They all go unrecognised by Peter Dunne. 
I have also offered an amendment to the Government and Peter Dunne that would allow a family to retain the in-work tax credit for 6 months after they lose a job or have insufficient paid hours. The working adults would then still be incentivised to find a job or more hours within the 6-month time frame but they and their children would not suffer such a severe financial disaster at the time they lose their job because families who lose their jobs also lose this tax credit. When the job loss has resulted from a factory closing like in Mataura or a workplace accident which affects thousands of New Zealanders every year or a natural disaster as we have seen in this country the personal and financial strain for those hard-working families is enormous. One vote is all that those families need. 
But I must confess that these compromises I offered to Peter Dunne to meet his—what I consider to be somewhat irrational—needs were hard to stomach in the offering because the Green Party believes that hard-working families are also those who care for their kids whether in paid work or not. Hard-working parents are those who are deserving of dignity and decent treatment because they care for their kids. One vote is all that these families need. One vote is all that their children need. Thank you. 
Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Commerce) 
: 
 Well we know something is up because Mr Cunliffe is growing his beard again and Mr Jones has had a fresh new haircut. The last time that happened there was some movement over on the other side. Have a look Mr Speaker. Mr Jones has had another haircut and Mr Cunliffe is once again growing his beard. Something is up. 
Of course I do not know what is going on in the Opposition because a couple of weeks ago there was a manufacturing crisis apparently. Then we showed the Opposition the numbers and it realised there was not a manufacturing crisis. Today Opposition members are talking about a supposed housing crisis and the Acting Minister of Housing pointed out today that there are 634-odd more State houses than there were when we came in to Government in 2008. I am not sure what the next crisis is but apparently I do suspect happily that it is there to try to cast a shadow or avoid the leadership crisis under David Shearer. To be fair to him he has had a bit of a rough year. His 1 year is not quite up—I think he has got 20 or so days to go—but the knives are being sharpened. We watched the leader’s lead-off debate at general debate time and it was very revealing to see those who were not paying any attention whatsoever. 
I will move on to the coalition of the unwilling presenting its solutions recently—Labour and the Greens. Future Minister of Finance apparently Russel Norman will be casting aside Mr Cunliffe and casting aside Mr Parker perhaps. Who would be the Minister of Finance under the coalition of the unwilling over there? But that team has given us some insights into Labour’s deep thinking. Mr Parker Mr Cunliffe and Mr Norman want to fix our exchange rate. They want to fix it at a certain rate. No one has actually asked them what rate is the correct rate. No one has actually asked them how much capital should be put at risk to defend the exchange rate at a certain level and for how long. No one has asked them how much capital should be diverted from schools hospitals health and superannuation to be used to defend some artificial exchange rate that they think is correct. Those questions will be asked and they will be very revealing because once again those members’ rhetoric and their grabbing for headlines do not actually match reality. 
The only other solution they have got out there that they have told us about is that they just want to print money. It is a fair enough response I suppose which they keep coming out with day after day when we challenge them—“How will you pay for your promises?”—that they are just going to get the xerox out and the printing press out. What a solution! I do not know why after hundreds of years we did not think of that—why standard normal economics did not think of that. But incidentally there are examples around the world where they have tried that and our Prime Minister Key pulled out some Zimbabwe money the other day to demonstrate that to us. 
There is no crisis. New Zealand is performing in growth statistics better than anyone else in the OECD right now—better than anyone else—so there is no crisis. The dream or the nightmare team over there want to abandon our inflation vigilance. Abandoning our inflation vigilance which has been stable for so many years is like throwing the sprinklers out or turning the sprinklers off because there has not been a fire in the house. It is the vigilance the prudence of our Public Finance Act and of our Reserve Bank and its independence that have served this country so well and have essentially created so many jobs. 
I want to quickly bring us to Hawke’s Bay. Hawke’s Bay has great proposals in front of it—a huge storage dam to help our economy and to create jobs for our families. I challenge the Labour Party to put on record whether it supports that proposal because its potential coalition partners are doing all they can to disrupt that proposal. That is about 3 percent or 4 percent growth for Hawke’s Bay if the dam goes ahead. Eugenie Sage from the Green Party was sacked after 19 years of not having a water plan in Canterbury and is trying to disrupt the water plan of Hawke’s Bay. I challenge the Labour Party to say where it stands because Damien O’Connor said when he was in the Hawke’s Bay that he supported it yet one of its candidates is now saying that they do not support it. 
Hon Annette King 
: What candidate? We don’t have candidates. 
Hon CRAIG FOSS 
: Former candidate former MP Ms King. The Opposition party—it says no to everything. It says no to every initiative to create jobs that grow real growth and real after-tax incomes. It says no to every Better Public Services announcement or change we try to put in place. It says no to families’ aspirations of a brighter future. I am so surprised we have to fight for so many of the initiatives that we try to put in place for a much better brighter future for all of our families in Hawke’s Bay and beyond. 
ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) 
: 
 There is only one thing worse as Oscar Wilde said than being talked about and that is not being talked about. All the Government can do today is talk about the Opposition talk about the Labour Party. Actually it is only the Opposition coming up with new ideas to deal with the very serious problems that this country is facing. The Government has no ideas. Worse than having no ideas it is out of touch. This is the Government of Jim Callaghans—the new Jim Callaghans. “What crisis? There is no crisis.” There is a crisis. There is a crisis in manufacturing. In the last 5 years 40000 jobs have gone and export capacity is reduced. Gone. Fewer of them. That is why we are struggling. There is a crisis in manufacturing and this Government has got no answer to it. 
But the other big crisis in this country—which even Tim Groser cannot see because he spends far too much time out of this country—is in housing. The Government’s own report the Government’s own Productivity Commission said there is a crisis in housing an affordability crisis. Housing is absolutely essential to a healthy community and a healthy life. Everybody needs a roof over their heads and this Government has got no answer to the growing number the thousands of people who are increasingly finding it difficult not even to buy a house but to rent one because the prices are going through the roof. The Government is out of touch and housing is out of reach to a growing number of New Zealanders. The issue is about affordability. It is about affordability but also it is about access to housing—to social housing to rental housing—because there has been a run down in rental stock. 
You see I was in New Plymouth just a few days ago with our housing spokesperson Annette King and we went up to the site of a Labour project there to develop housing—State housing rental housing affordable housing. It was a project all ready to go in 2008 and no sooner did this Government get in it shelved it. It is in an area called Discovery Place. You know there is a song that goes along the lines of: “Can we do what they do on the Discovery Channel?”. Well in New Plymouth the song is: “Can you not do what they do on Discovery Place?” because it is doing absolutely nothing. It took all the houses away because it told people it was going to redevelop them. It let what housing was there run down. There are only a few tenants there. They live in substandard housing. They have no idea what is going on because nobody tells them. Nobody tells them what is going on in Discovery Place and they need to know. 
What is the Government’s answer? The Productivity Commission tells it that there is an affordability problem. The Government’s own department tells it that there is a housing problem and what is the Government’s answer? Nothing. No plan. No answer. Fiddle a bit around the edges of planning. Tell the local authorities that they have got to pull up their act but what is it doing to the local authorities? It is trying to take away their powers because local government under this Government will have no responsibility for social issues for broader economic issues or anything else. What the left hand wants to do the right hand says it is not going to do. That is the problem with this Government: no coherence no consistency and no plan. 
Actually a lot more needs to be done. It is not just about the builders; it is about those who want to get into housing too—those who want to rent at an affordable level those who want to buy at an affordable level those people whose dreams and aspirations young people in particular are built on getting on the first rung on the ladder of housing and they cannot get there. The average price of a house now in Auckland is $600000. The average nationally is $360000. It is impossible for people to get in a house. What is this Government’s plan for housing? There is not one—there is not one. 
There is a lot more that we could be doing. What about intervening in the lending market? What about the State playing a role as we used to with the old State Advances Corporation? Why do we not assist young people? 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: For goodness’ sake. 
ANDREW LITTLE 
: Mr Joyce says: “For goodness’ sake.” because he does not want to because those members have no plan. They will talk about the Labour Party and they will talk about the Greens and everybody else. They have to because they have got no plan of their own because they do not want to help people. They do not want to help people. They have never cared about people who are finding it tough and who just want to get ahead. They do not want to help them; they want to help their rich mates. That is what this Government is about. That is why it does not care about housing and it does not care about the jobs people are in. It does not even see a problem in manufacturing because that is the nature of it. That is the nature of it. It does not see a problem when there is one. More has to be done. This Government is doing nothing and this country is crying out for an action plan. A decent housing plan would create jobs and would stimulate the economy but this Government will not do it because it has run out of ideas it has run out of steam and all it can do is point the finger at other people. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 A couple of weeks ago I had cause to go to the dictionary after an interjection by David Parker on the Prime Minister when the Prime Minister was talking about jobs in manufacturing. Mr Parker interjected that the figure that the Prime Minister was using included agriculture and therefore it somehow did not count as manufacturing. So I went to Wikipedia and I found that indeed manufacturing is the production of goods or services. It could be handicraft to high tech but it is certainly not limited to steel construction. But that seems to be the attitude of a certain member from Dunedin—the negative down in the mouth glass half-empty member for South Dunedin—because when we went to Dunedin last week she issued a press release before we had even done anything actually saying that Key had front to go down to Dunedin and suggest that there was no manufacturing crisis. In fact he never said any such thing in all of that trip but what we did do I think was acknowledge that there are challenges in manufacturing. 
But the Government does not have the luxury of focusing on just the negative things. It actually has that tough job of focusing on the positive things that are going on in the manufacturing industry. On Tuesday with David Carter I met with some exporters in Dunedin and also the owner of Cowell’s Genuine Pavlova. This is a great little organisation in Dunedin that I claim makes the best pavlovas in the country. My colleague Craig Foss— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: That’s true. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: Well my colleague Craig Foss actually disagrees with me but I would suggest that Cowell’s is the No. 1 and it would normally employ about eight people. At the moment to manage the Christmas rush it has 21 staff madly filling the orders and most of those pavlovas are going to end up in Australia. Talk about selling coals to Newcastle! This great little company is now exporting pavlova to Australia. 
The Prime Minister and I started our trip last week at a great wee company in North Taieri the New Zealand Honey Co. Faced with competition from bulk commodity product coming in from China it had a choice. It could either compete add value or fold and it decided to compete. It is a Deloitte Fast 50 winner from 2009 or 2010 and it is now exporting millions of dollars’ worth of value-added honey products into the UK and China. 
We then went on and visited Speights Brewery that great brewery in Dunedin. While the Canterbury earthquake rebuild posed some serious challenges for the Dunedin workforce in losing its workers at Speights it is going the other way. There are actually workers coming down from Canterbury Draught and millions of dollars being invested in the production line at Speights Brewery and I understand it has announced just today the takeover of Emerson’s Brewery a fantastic boutique brewery in Dunedin. That could create export opportunities. What it will certainly do is put capital into the city for those fantastic people the Emersons to look at other investment opportunities. And we did go to some steel manufacturing. We went to Farra’s a 140-year-old company— 
Hon Craig Foss 
: Are they busy? 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: Yes they are. They are struggling but they are growing in revenue they are growing jobs and they are growing new markets. When the PM asked them: “If the challenges faced by the Hillside workshops resulted in further job losses would they and the engineering cluster in Dunedin be able to pick them up?” the simple answer was: “Absolutely yes.” So manufacturing is not just about steel and certainly in Dunedin it is not just about what is done in Hillside Road. 
But I will say this about the member for Dunedin South. She has come out in support of responsible oil and gas exploration in the southern Canterbury Bight off the coast of Dunedin. 
Hon Craig Foss 
: Really? 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: Well it is not surprising that you would say “Really?” because she has been very quiet about it. No ads in the paper the way the rest of the chamber of commerce members were doing welcoming Anadarko. No bold statements that say yes there could be challenges at Hillside but there are also opportunities in the city. None of that but she has quietly said that yes she does support oil and gas exploration. I think she needs to be braver about that and do what the other city leaders in Dunedin and the other MPs—certainly the National MPs in the south Jacqui Dean and myself—are doing and say to Anadarko and Shell: “Bring it on. Explore. Do it responsibly do it safely but certainly contribute to the manufacturing and export opportunities that do exist in Dunedin despite the challenges.” 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 The people who created a society of equals in New Zealand would be sickened and disgusted at what sort of country we now live in. New Zealand is now a land of the haves and the have-nots. We are on the path towards creating a State-sponsored slave colony. 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: Oh for goodness’ sake! Ha ha! You clown. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: The number of people at the bottom of the heap is growing. The Hon Steven Joyce can smile and laugh but the number of people at the bottom of the heap is growing. Those at the top are getting richer and richer helped by huge tax cuts from this National Government. This is a low-wage high-price economy. That is what National and its big business backers want. They want queues of workers standing in the cold begging for jobs. They want a minimum wage economy and even less for the youth of this country—even less than the minimum wage. 
Many New Zealanders are leaving the country as the Government continues its job eradication programme. Recently at Victoria University some 200 students were asked the question “What are you planning to do when you finish your degree?” and some 170 of the 200 in the group said “We’re going to go and live overseas. There is no future in this country with the qualifications that we have.” Is that not sad when 170 out of 200 young people feel that the future for them is not in this country? Yet National and its friends are bringing in thousands of immigrants to keep pushing down the wages—advertising in the likes of the UK for workers to come to Christchurch while we have people unemployed and while we have something like 6.8 percent unemployment. It is interesting that Tim Groser mentioned before that in Europe unemployment is at 11 percent and we are not even halfway there at 6.8 percent. Well that particular Minister really cannot do his maths very well because he said we were virtually half of Europe. Well 6.8 percent is not half of 11 percent Minister. 
The wages at the top keep soaring as evidenced this week in the headline “Rise of the $1m salaries: top boss says enough”. More than 41 senior executives are getting more than $1 million in this country many of whom are simply not worth that sort of money. The real wages at the bottom and the benefits keep falling. Rampant capitalism is now a disease and it has infected many countries throughout the world. Greedy financiers and bankers have destroyed entire economies many of whom have been bankers in the likes of Merrill Lynch in New York in their previous lives. The Government’s own figures released today show that its tired old slash-and-burn-and-sell-out policies are not working. The tax take is down. The deficit is growing. Every day there is a sad story of another failure. 
The Government’s only solution is to sell our precious assets overseas and to make us a colony of China and everywhere else where the economy is controlled. This is a disaster. We cannot afford another 2 years of a National Government. After another 2 years there will be nothing left. New Zealand First asks why the Government does not take its courage in its hands and go back to ordinary New Zealanders and ask them what to do at the polls. 
NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
: 
 I am very pleased to speak in this general debate. I want to speak about not only National’s economic plan but also the situation that we were handed in 2008 and about how we have turned it round. I want to contrast that to the Labour Opposition which is in absolute crisis. We saw that today in that those members could not even bear listening to David Shearer or Ian Shearer who could not even get the name right of one of our most senior Ministers. 
Under this Government we have turned the situation round. Where inflation was running at 5.1 percent exports had flattened out completely Government expenditure was out of control back-office bureaucracy was booming and the Treasury books showed never-ending deficits we are now in a situation where we are seeing steady increases in average after-tax wages. Inflation is lower mortgages at $200000 are half of what they used to be and we have seen a creation of jobs. We have done this because we actually have an economic plan on this side of the House. We have a plan around labour market reform. We have a plan around innovation infrastructure the Advanced Technology Institute. We have a plan around affordable housing. We have a plan around investment in broadband of $1.5 billion. 
This side of the House has a plan and we contrast that to the economic policy of the Labour Party which I think can best be described as emergency management: “stop drop and roll”. Let us have a little look at that. Labour’s plan is to stop a whole lot of things that National is doing. Let us name just a few things. Labour will stop greater intensification and development of the agricultural sector. It will stop the 90-day trial period. It will stop the 3000 jobs for  
The Hobbit 
 movies. It will stop public sector reform. And then it will drop a whole lot of policies that it campaigned on in 2011. We saw that in David Shearer’s foreign ownership bill. We saw that pulled. We saw the confused position around the Kapiti Expressway. 
So we have the “stop” and the “drop” and what is the final part of its economic plan? It is called “roll”. Anyone who has been in Copperfields lately can see that the Labour Party is completely divided. The rumour has it that the numbers are 19 to Grant Robertson and 15 to David Shearer. What does that mean folks? It means that Rajen Prasad and Raymond Huo if you are listening you are the kingmakers. And we can see today that when the Opposition cannot even be bothered to listen to David Shearer’s speech when Grant has just popped by New York to see Helen and when clauses are being inserted by random members of the Labour Party to buy the union votes there is a serious situation. You contrast that to a Government that has serious economic policies in terms of innovation capital markets and infrastructure reform and investment to a party that is divided and in my view about to undertake the final part of its economic policy of “stop drop and roll”. 
There is a clear choice for New Zealanders. You have a party that has turned things round from a dire situation of spiralling debt and a lack of investment in infrastructure to a party that is in complete disarray that wants to put up smoke and mirrors because it does not have any economic policy. There is a clear choice for New Zealanders. I am very proud to be a member of the National Party. 
Debate interrupted. 
Amended Answers to Oral Questions 
Question No. 10 to Minister 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 I seek leave to clarify an answer provided on my behalf to question No. 10 today. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is the member seeking leave to correct an answer? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: Yes. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: During an answer provided to the House today in response to a supplementary question the Minister for Building and Construction on my behalf informed the House that vacant stock is about 2 percent of all Housing New Zealand Corporation stock. I want to clarify that the roughly 2 percent refers to vacant Housing New Zealand Corporation stock that is available to let. Other categories are of course “vacant pending development due to fire damage” “vacant under sale” “vacant under repair” and “vacant under offer”. There are many in the Christchurch red zone and outside the red zone they are clearly being rebuilt. So there are lots of reasons for vacancy but around 2 percent at that time which I believe the Minister said was about 1 July of this year were vacant to let. 
Tabling of Documents 
Mine Safety—Summary of Public Submissions on Discussion Paper 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I was going to wait until the end of the general debate but I seek leave to table the summary of public submissions on the discussion paper  
Improving health and safety hazard management in the Underground Mining Industry 
. This used to be available on the internet but the link is broken. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 






Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
General Debate 
Debate resumed. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 That correction from the Minister of Housing just proves how all at sea this Government is when it comes to housing and housing affordability. Every single electorate member of Parliament knows that right now the Housing New Zealand Corporation stock is dwindling not because the buildings are not there but because they are being shut up and people are being locked out of Housing New Zealand Corporation homes all up and down the country. 
In my own electorate we have recently had families shifted out of their homes on frankly spurious grounds. They have been moved into other properties—that is great—but that means that the people who have been desperately waiting for months and months and months to get into a Housing New Zealand Corporation home have been pushed further down the list. There is an entire block of housing that has been empty for more than 2 years. What are the Government members going to do with it? Are they going to leave it there rotting and empty? Are they going to bowl it over? Are they going to redevelop it? Nobody knows. The Government cannot answer that question and meanwhile people go without decent housing. It is an abomination that this situation is allowed to go on. There is another site in Palmerston North—I am talking about only my own city—where houses were removed more than 3 years ago. What is being done to replace that housing stock? Nothing. What is being done to develop that site? Nothing. There are fewer and fewer houses available for New Zealanders up and down this country because this Government has no plan. It cares not for the most vulnerable who need to put a roof over their heads. 
David Shearer was absolutely right today when he said that this Government is ripping away the Kiwi dream of homeownership. It is part of the New Zealand way of life that people can aspire to owning their own homes and this Government is ripping that right away from New Zealanders. The outlook looks extremely bleak because this Government has no plan. For months and months and months we waited in anticipation to see what the Government’s response would be to the housing affordability crisis in New Zealand. We waited to see what its plan was. And what did it turn out to be? Free up some land forge ahead with deregulation and leave it to the market. That is not a plan. That is not good enough. 
More deregulation is not what this country needs right now. Deregulation led to leaky homes the grounding of the  
Rena 
 the global financial crisis and the Pike River disaster—the list goes on and on and on. It is a litany of disaster from deregulation. That is not what we need more of in this country. Do not just take my word for it. Do not take the Labour Party’s word for it. In today’s  
National Business Review 
 Colliers researcher Alan McMahon on the  
National Business Review 
 website today said that “The land supply argument rests on the contention that developers will sell their product more cheaply if the cost to develop is reduced and there is more competition from other developers. Currently the most commonly sold dwelling”—and the most commonly rented dwelling—“… is a three-bedroom stand-alone dwelling. But the predominant type being built for sale is a four-bedroom stand-alone dwelling.” 
Why? Because that is what the developers can make their money out of. And because there is so much demand in Auckland even though the wrong types of buildings to respond to the housing crisis are being built there is enough of a market out there for people to buy them up. So the market has no solution. The market has no solution to the housing crisis or the affordability crisis. “Single-storey construction is cheapest …” says Alan McMahon and that is why we continue to see single-storey building on the outskirts of urban centres far from where people work so that they have to travel long distances every day even though that is not what we need. That is what the market will continue to deliver if we continue to rely solely on the market. And as Alan McMahon said today on the  
National Business Review 
 website “Developers will not reduce their prices unless they have to.” 
It is not for the private sector to respond to the housing affordability crisis. This is something that central government and local government have to work together on and there has to be a plan. But as always from this Government we see no plan no ideas and no desire to deal with the issues that are affecting the most vulnerable people in our country. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 Those final comments from Iain Lees-Galloway were incredibly wrong. I am just so proud to be part of a National-led Government that is not getting distracted by sideshows like the leadership struggles in the Opposition or an invented manufacturing crisis. We are just getting on with the job—straight and true on with the job. 
Integral with getting on with the job is getting our economy back on track and we are doing that exactly. My admiration goes to Bill English as the Minister of Finance for doing just that. I just cannot think of another Minister of Finance who has had the same set of problems that he has dealt with to get our economy back on track. We are doing just that. It is getting back on track no doubt about it. 
In 2008 we inherited a rate of unemployment that had risen by almost 30000. It was predicted that unemployment would go to 10 percent but in actual fact we stopped it and it has stayed at around 6.8 percent. We know that it should be lower—it is still on the high side and we are not happy about that—but it is forecast to drop and that is pleasing. It is certainly a lot better than it is in some underdeveloped countries—it certainly is. 
We have helped New Zealanders by growing the after-tax wage by 20 percent. That is more than double the rate of inflation. Personal income tax cuts across the board mean that the average family gains $25 per week. Three-quarters of income earners pay no more than 17.5 percent tax. We have one of the lowest inflation rates since 1999 and that means that the cost of living is increasing at the slowest rate in 12 years. That can only help families. Interest rates are at their lowest in 45 years—that is unbelievable. So a family with a mortgage of $200000 is saving about $200 a week—that is massive. That is huge compared with say 4 years ago. A $200-a-week saving compared with 4 years ago is a massive help to that family. All rates of superannuation have increased since 2008. The married rate of superannuation has gone up by almost $200 which is 22 percent higher than in April 2008. New Zealanders are saving more. There are positive household savings rates for the first time in a decade. We have adjusted Working for Families payments by 5 percent from 1 April this year. 
Creating high-paying jobs is one of the Government’s top priorities. We know that when businesses feel confident when they succeed and want to invest and expand jobs will open up. It is not rocket science; it is that simple. When businesses have the confidence jobs will follow. That is why the National Government is putting in the right levers to business—so it can grow have that confidence increase its workforce and compete successfully internationally. It is happening. 
As a country we are on the move. Our economy is growing and it is forecast to keep on growing. Despite the toughest of times—the global financial crisis the recession and the Christchurch earthquakes—we are on track. Real jobs are being created. The household labour force survey shows that almost 60000 more Kiwis have jobs now than 2 years ago. More than 13000 jobs were created by the 90-day trial for new employees. That is a fantastic initiative brought through by the former Minister of Labour Kate Wilkinson. I have welcomed that wholeheartedly. It is a great policy for women who are returning to the workforce. It is a great policy for youth and for migrants who do not have the work record but want that first step into the workforce. It is a fantastic policy and it is here to stay. 
I work in an electorate where there is a high number of migrants and refugees. Having a job is the quickest way to integrate into a new society. We know that having a job is good on so many levels. It is good for a person’s well-being self-respect and health. It is good for families. It is good for children to have parents in work. That is why I applaud the Government’s focus on creating jobs. We hear about lay-offs but not actually about the jobs being created so I will just run through a few statistics. There are 1000 new jobs on the Waterview motorway and in my own electorate around the corner a new Warehouse is opening up and it will open up several hundred jobs. 
Dr David Clark 
: How about the prisons? Building prisons. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE 
: There are 1000 new jobs at Wiri Prison. Thank you for reminding me—1000 new jobs at Wiri Prison. That is great for Auckland. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed. 
Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill 
Third Reading 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker ka nui te mihi ki a koe otira tatau katoa i tenei ra. 
[ 
Thank you Mr Speaker. I acknowledge you greatly and indeed all of us today 
.] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Kai te pai ahau. 
[ 
I am fine. 
] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: Ka pai. Ka nui te mihi ki a koe. Me huri te titiro ki runga ake nei ki a korua kua tae mai e whakakanohi nei i te ahuatanga o Te Tahuna o Rangataua a tena korua i hara mai ai i te ra nei me te ahuatanga o nga mate e kawe haerehia nei e tatau i te ra nei. Waiho ratau kia moe ko korua e whakakanohi nei i a raua. Tena korua haere mai haere mai haere mai. 
[ 
Wonderful. I acknowledge you greatly. 
Allow me to look upwards to you two who have arrived here and are putting a face to the Rangataua Sandbank situation. Acknowledgments to you two who came and to the deaths that we bear with us today. Allow the dead to rest there. So welcome to you two the face of those two situations welcome welcome welcome here. 
] 
I move  
That the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill be now read a third time 
. I want to firstly acknowledge the members around this House who supported the recommendation at the Business Committee that the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill does not require consideration in Committee and that it be set down for third reading as permissible under Standing Order 295. Coming to that decision is in itself an important endorsement of the power of community ownership. I also want to point out that from whoa to go this process has been wrapped up in 5 months which is pretty commendable and I acknowledge the outstanding work done by the Local Government and Environment Committee in this regard. I thank those members very much. 
This is a bill that represents a significant collaboration between Tauranga City Council working with the relevant iwi to have land that was confiscated returned back to the people. Of course I refer in this case to Nga Potiki who are present in the gallery this afternoon. I want to also acknowledge those who have not been able to come down and who may well be listening back home in Tauranga Moana. This legislation will pass through the House today as a significant milestone for the people of Tauranga Moana and particularly Nga Potiki who have borne the insult and the offence of actions taken 40 years ago. 
The history we have heard during the passage of this bill takes us back to 1975 when the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act allowed the Bay of Plenty Harbour Board the authority to transfer authority for part of the seabed to the Mount Maunganui Borough Council which then used it for sewerage and other purposes. I have also said in the House that local leaders of Tauranga Moana at the time were very vocal in their protest and made their concerns very very apparent. Through the submission of the Nga Potiki-a-Tamapahore Trust we learnt about the close relationship that Nga Potiki felt to Te Tahuna o Rangataua also known as the Rangataua Estuary. This relationship is expressed through the many rich pepeha whakatauaki and waiata of the people of the land the mana whenua and is demonstrated by the location of the marae in close proximity to the shoreline. It is now up to this House to see that this bill is passed into law giving mana and kaitiaki back to mana whenua and influencing greater power-sharing with Maori. 
I want to mention the insight and initiative of the Nga Potiki-a-Tamapahore Trust which entered into the process with two key platforms as a part of its long-term and local vision. It is committed to doing what it can to support strong healthy and sustainable Maori communities and secondly to participate in a regional workforce development plan with a view to improving Maori economic status. That vision overlaps with the ambition of the Tauranga City Council as cited in its whakatauaki: “Rapua te huarahi whanui hei ara whakapiri i nga iwi e rua i te whakaaro kotahi.”—seek the broad highway that will unite the two peoples towards a common goal. I have to say that the dealings between some Tauranga iwi and the Tauranga District Council have not necessarily always been of a positive flavour but this is a sign that the times are moving to change and indeed the melding of the two visions is an important sign of that. 
It is important to note that legislative provisions for Maori involvement at a local government level exist to a certain extent yet the reality of how local authorities carry out the implicit balancing act required say by the resource management system indicates that legislative provision is not in and of itself a sufficient mechanism to protect Maori interests. It needs commitment and it needs common will and that is what we are seeing with this particular bill: a unique collaboration between the Tauranga City Council and the Nga Potiki-a-Tamapahore Trust. This bill is the embodiment of that relationship. 
I want to just contextualise this bill in  
Tauranga Moana 1886-2006 
 a report on the post-raupatu claims published by the Waitangi Tribunal in 2010. In that report it says: “The general provisions of the Resource Management Act 1991 are Treaty-compliant. The sting is in the detail: kaitiakitanga for example can be narrowed to those resources where the two cultures have a common mind; relationships to wahi tapu can be weighed up against other matters and set aside; the principles of the Treaty can be taken into account and then outweighed by other criteria.” I think what the Waitangi Tribunal has alluded to is that local government must do what it can to maximise participation and engagement of relevant Maori groups and representatives. A clear policy agenda on the role of Maori who may be collectivised as I suppose iwi hapu whanau or mana whenua from pre-planning through to the planning and implementation phases of the system is absolutely essential. 
The  
Rena 
 disaster taught us a number of lessons. There is a certain resilience I believe in Aotearoa when our lands are threatened by disaster. People come together for a common cause and Maori played an important part in the clean-up and the recovery of communities following this disaster. That is a natural reaction because of the close relationship we have with Papatuanuku and Tangaroa. 
Within the rohe of Tauranga Moana we learnt particularly that having mana whenua involved in decision making is a major plus as we have the resources the know-how and the people power to make a significant contribution. But it was at the decision-making level that it really counted. I am very pleased in this regard to be sponsoring this bill because I really do believe that it is demonstrating an effective example of collaboration that is worked at the local authority level and we can learn a lot of lessons from that. 
The Maori Party believes that any growth in the formal recognition of iwi in local decision-making has come about as a result of those particular Maori groups involved having the necessary capability and capacities to maximise their own involvement at that strategic level. We are mindful that much work and collaboration are needed to implement the required changes for improved Maori involvement at a local government level. If the foundations are laid properly the construction that stands upon these foundations will for ever remain stronger and for much longer. In the context of our country’s natural resources it is imperative that we do work together now to ensure the health and wealth of those resources into the future. 
The Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill is establishing a new environment for the relationship based on mutual respect. We are hopeful that in establishing a new legal understanding this bill will help to strengthen the relationship between Tauranga City Council and Nga Potiki. It also represents the vindication of the many Nga Potiki kaumatua who upheld protection of the ancestral landscape and cultural values including the late Paraone Reweti MP for Eastern Maori and Wiremu Ohia chairman of the Tauranga Moana Maori Executive. 
Finally for Nga Potiki the reclamation of the foreshore and seabed the existence of the oxidation ponds and the discharge of effluent all represent a failure by the Crown to protect Nga Potiki and the ancestral heritage. This bill protects the pataka kai it preserves ancient Nga Potiki urupa and it upholds the sacred respect the people hold in their wahi tapu. 
For all of these reasons the Maori Party is proud to support the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill. Can I thank as I stand all of those from the Tauranga City Council who led this initiative with Nga Potiki people—as I say some of whom are in the gallery today. I could mention names but I fear that I may miss people out who worked behind the scenes and they may not have their names read out. Some are however as I say in the gallery and I thank them for being here today and for coming down from Tauranga Moana. It has indeed been an honour for me to usher this bill through the House and the Maori Party commends this bill for its passing. Kia ora tatou. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I want to begin by paying a tribute to the sponsor of this local bill the Maori Party MP for Waiariki Te Ururoa Flavell. It is very easy when you are dealing with natural resource issues and particularly some of the tensions and the history with Maori to play a game of divide and rule and to cause tensions. Te Ururoa Flavell is a member who not just on this bill the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill but on others while being a very strong advocate for his Maori constituents is also one who is out to find solutions. I worked with him closely when dealing with the worst environmental tragedy of the  
Rena 
 and want to commend both him and the local iwi of the Bay of Plenty for the constructive way in which they worked on that issue that caused huge hurt. We see exactly the same approach with this member’s dealings in having this longstanding grievance over natural resource issues resolved with the repeal of the old Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act. 
The second point I wish to make is that this repeal reflects a change in attitude quite appropriately by New Zealand in the way in which it manages its estuaries and the more general foreshore areas on our coast. For a long part of our history we had very definitive land law that put great value on the land bits of New Zealand but took a view of estuaries and the coast that they were worthless and treated them as such. It is a crying shame when you travel around New Zealand and you see the number of tips or landfills that were created in coastal areas. The predominant culture was that those areas of estuaries were wasteland and were not to be valued. Equally so whenever we look at putting sewerage schemes in place where do we put them? We put them on the coast and we put them in estuaries. 
In the last 30 to 40 years there has been a significant revolution in our attitude towards our estuaries and coastal areas seeing them as highly valued areas for recreation for the environment for fishing kai moana and the like and this repeal reflects that change of putting a greater value on our coastal and estuarine areas. I particularly say that of all the areas in which you could put landfills for instance or rubbish dumps the coastal areas are actually some of the worst and cause the greatest environmental woes and that is why it is appropriate that this old Act be repealed. 
I want to commend the cooperative way this bill was dealt with at the select committee with Nicky Wagner as the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee and the submissions that we received from the local councils and local iwi. There was a consensus in the committee that Te Ururoa Flavell’s bill was the right thing to do. It repeals this Act. It will improve iwi relations in the Bay of Plenty around the management of that pretty magnificent coast. 
I note the only change the select committee made to the bill was to ensure that in the process we do not leave another stranded bill on the books. I also commend this bill for reducing the number of statutes. We spend a lot of time in this Parliament passing new laws. It is actually good that we review some of the old laws and repeal them when they are no longer appropriate. This is a good bill. I again commend the member. The House should pass it. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 Labour has supported and will continue to support the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell. We too once again want to congratulate him on bringing this bill to the House and on supporting the people in his area in advocating for them for the repeal of an out-of-date and unnecessary Act. I know that he has put a lot of work into it and has a lot of support from his area to bring the bill to the House and to see its passage. It is not very often unless you are a Minister in a Government that you do get to see a bill in your name that then goes onto the statute book and you are there hopefully for many years to come. 
This bill is about repealing the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act of 1975. It was an Act that gave the Bay of Plenty Harbour Board the authority to transfer part of the seabed of Tauranga Harbour to the Mount Maunganui Borough Council and authorise the council to undertake reclamation of that part of the harbour for sewerage and other municipal purposes. We are told that the council reclaimed less than half of the area and the authority to undertake the reclamation of the balance was repealed by the enactment of the Foreshore and Seabed Endowment Revesting Act. 
So what it actually means now is that the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act has no substantive legal effect. In other words we do not need it. I agree with the comments made by Nick Smith. I do not often agree with him but I do agree that we ought to get rid of unnecessary Acts that do not serve any purpose. If Sir Geoffrey Palmer was here he would be applauding because one of the things that he firmly believed in was going through many of our old statutes tidying them up rewriting them and getting rid of out-of-date statutes. 
I was interested to hear of the history that surrounded this particular piece of legislation. I realised when I listened to Te Ururoa Flavell—who gave us a very comprehensive history of what had happened in this Tauranga area—and also to Nanaia Mahuta and Shane Jones that what had happened in the harbour of Tauranga is of great importance to Maori and has had great effect on Maori. They have long advocated for there to be a change in what was going on within the harbour. This is a very very sacred area for them. 
I thought it was interesting to hear Shane Jones’ speech at the time. He did say that it is very important to acknowledge the place of iwi in this and the importance to Maori but he said there are two things to be borne in mind: you need to be sensitive to the claims and concerns for ancestral land but you had to bear in mind that no city no country and no nation can advance itself in the absence of an evolving improving civil infrastructure which is what will arise out of what is going on between Tauranga and iwi. 
So that collaboration that Te Ururoa Flavell talked about between iwi and local government is I think really important. I would like to see more of this sort of collaboration around New Zealand with local governments. I know there are many very very good local governments that are prepared to work collaboratively and closely with Maori and they have benefited from that. They get to make good decisions. They get to examine decisions where if they had not consulted with iwi it could have led to greater problems for them and greater cost. But when they have involved iwi and they have collaborated and worked through issues—often issues that they were not necessarily aware of; they may not have been aware of the history of an area—they have found that it has been to the benefit not only of iwi but their whole local government area and the people who live in it. 
We do not wish to prolong this bill. We support it we congratulate the member who has brought it here and we wish for its speedy passage. 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 I also rise as do other members in this House to support the third reading of the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill. I want to also congratulate the local member the Maori Party MP for Waiariki Te Ururoa Flavell on bringing this bill to the House. 
Previous speakers have noted how in previous years local infrastructure particularly sewerage works have been sited on what is now recognised as being pretty fragile and special parts of New Zealand. In my own area of the South Island when I am flying into places like Queenstown or turning the corner into Moeraki and I go past a waste-water treatment or a sewerage treatment settling ponds site I think oh gosh if we had thought about it a little harder some time ago we might have sited these facilities somewhere that was not a place that is so special to the local community and in this case to the local iwi. 
National does support this bill at its third reading and I also want to recognise Nicky Wagner the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee and indeed all the members of that committee for working in a collegial fashion on this bill. The bill in fact made good sense. The committee made only one small change and that was to insert a sunset clause into it so that we do not have such a statute left hanging around on the statute book. That was the only change we made. 
We received very few submissions but we did receive a joint submission from Nga Potiki and the Tauranga City Council. In their submission in which they give background and context to the bill they finally said to the committee the reasons to support the bill. So I think it is worth going back to them for their reasons as to why they support and promote this bill. Nga Potiki-a-Tamapahore Trust and the Tauranga City Council support the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill in its current form. They support it and they told us why they support it. It was for several reasons. First of all—quite a prosaic reason I guess—the Tauranga City Council has no intention to further reclaim land in Te Tahuna o Rangataua. 
Secondly the repeal of the bill will provide some vindication and I think that is a very important point that has been raised by a number of speakers throughout the passage of this bill. It will provide some satisfaction I hope and vindication for the position taken by those Nga Potiki kaumatua and other members of the community who protested against the original Act from the point of view that this land to them was a pretty special place.  
Although it was needed by the Mount Maunganui Borough Council of the day and it was taken by the borough council of the day it was land that was very special to them for all sorts of reasons. It was taken because it was needed and now of course these many years later not all of that land—some 73.5 hectares—was transferred under the original Act. The council reclaimed approximately only 23.5 hectares of that land. So the authority to reclaim the balance of the area—what would that be; some 40-something hectares—was revoked by subsequent legislation.  
That happened in 1991 so the principal Act therefore has no legal effect. It has become redundant and therefore this repeal bill is before us. In repealing that original Act I think the local iwi and council can effectively put some of the past behind them and as other members in this House have noted can now have the opportunity to work cooperatively in the future.  
The third reason which this joint submission does note is that the repeal of the bill will help to heal past conflicts and strengthen an already positive relationship between Nga Potiki and the Tauranga City Council. How can this House argue with that? It is a good bill it enjoys the support of the House and I commend its passing at its third reading. 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. I am pleased to rise and take a short call on the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill. The Green Party like others supports the bill and congratulates Te Ururoa Flavell on bringing the bill to the House. The bill is going to repeal the principal 1975 Act that gave authority for the transfer of part of the bed of the Tauranga Moana the Tauranga Harbour to what was then the Mount Maunganui Borough Council and what is now the Tauranga City Council for its sewerage scheme and other municipal purposes. 
The improvements in sewage treatment and discharge in Aotearoa New Zealand over the last 100 years are due in no small measure to iwi such as Nga Potiki and many others who have championed clean water and the health of our harbours our rivers and our inshore coast and sought to safeguard these areas from the indifference of local authorities. As the Waitangi Tribunal said in its report on the Tauranga Moana claim: “for decades local councils regarded Tauranga Harbour as the obvious repository for sewage.” It was as late as the 1950s at Mount Maunganui that the sewerage system was still very primitive. Sewage effluent there could end up in an open drain. Residents relied on septic tanks right through until the 1970s with the associated risk of effluent leakage into the harbour and waterways. So it was this reclamation within the south-eastern arm of Tauranga Harbour the Rangataua estuary that the principal Act and this bill deal with. That was in response to the inadequacies of a growing population relying on septic tanks. So in 1972 the borough council’s scheme involved this reclamation within the estuary and the construction of oxidation ponds and effluent was proposed to be discharged directly into the estuary until an ocean outfall was built at Omanu. 
It was Tauranga Maori including the kaumatua of Nga Potiki who strongly opposed this reclamation and the oxidation ponds because of their effects on the estuary the destruction of a flourishing ecosystem on the tidal flats and their whole desire to protect their ancestral landscape their taonga of the harbour and to protect their shellfish beds. When you read through the Waitangi Tribunal report and its description of the intense efforts that Nga Potiki made to try to protect the health of this landscape it is very interesting to compare those efforts with the efforts of iwi now to protect the health of our beloved awa and roto our rivers and lakes. Back in 1972 Tauranga Maori convinced the Pollution Advisory Council of the time to reclassify the harbour waters to a standard that would prevent the oxidation pond discharges and then in the next year the classification was changed back again. There was an early claim to the Waitangi Tribunal and a whole series of appeals. The Act which this bill repeals cut across those local tensions and challenges and it gave the Mount Maunganui Borough Council the authority to proceed with this destructive reclamation and to construct the ponds. Although we now have wetlands that filter the discharge before it goes into the ocean the way in which the land was taken remains enormously hurtful to Nga Potiki and because of the hurt to their ancestral landscape. This bill is a small step in settling the claim and recognising the hurt that was caused. 
Just as that principal Act cut across the local challenges to the Mount Maunganui Borough Council’s proposed scheme today we hear that the Minister for Primary Industries and this Government intend to change the Resource Management Act to make it much more difficult for those councils which are belatedly trying to deal with the impacts on our rivers aquifers and lakes of the heavy nutrient burden that intensive agriculture is putting on these waterways. Changing the Resource Management Act to impose a more onerous cost-benefit test on councils when they are considering policies and rules to control the impacts of agricultural intensification would be creating an obstacle to the protection of our rivers and lakes just in the same way that the principal Act created the enormous hurt on this ancestral landscape by giving the council the authority to do this reclamation. Just as in this bill we are recognising the much greater value that we put on our estuaries and inshore coasts now we need to better value our roto and our awa and we need to remove that pollution burden that is happening now—not because of human sewage so much but more because of animal effluent. 
This bill is a step forward. I acknowledge the Tauranga City Council and the partnership that it is developing with Nga Potiki. Certainly at the Local Government and Environment Committee the joint submission from Nga Potiki and the city council wanted this bill to repeal the Act in a timely manner and I think the House is doing that. We are very pleased as the Green Party to support the bill. 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora ano tatou. Mo te wahanga tuatahi o tenei korero maku to taua Reo Maori e whakamahi kia puta ai oku whakaaro. Tautoko i te tu o Te Ururoa Flavell nana i pikau mai tenei pire hei amene ma te Whare nei. Mihi atu hoki ki a ia mo tana haukerikeri i te ngako o nga nawe kei waenga tonu i tena hapu e meinga nei ko Nga Potiki. I te Kaharoa ratou e matakitaki ana i ena taonga o ratou e pokepokengia ana na roto i te tukunga o te para weta me te hamuti ki te moana katahi ka whakakinongia haeretia wa ratou mataitai. Na me te haunga katoa. Na reira me tino whai kupu ahau ki te tautoko i te tu a Te Ururoa ahakoa taku tata i a ia i runga i te pouaka whakaata i te po o te Mane me tana tangiweto i te kore nona i pai ki oku korero na reira haunga ano tera. Me te mahara hoki te whakakorikori i a tatou te ao Maori ara noa atu nga moana nga awa me etahi atu o nga whenua i mua i whakamahia wera taonga kia pai ai te tupu te noho o te tangata. Na kua huri te ao i naianei. Kua kite tatou me kaua rawa tatou e whakapirau tonu whakakino tonu i nga taonga i roto i nga kainga e noho nei tatou i o tatou tahataha. Engari me mohio te ao Maori ehara i te mea ka oti te katoa o wa ratou hiahia o ratou whakaaro i te korenga o ratou e pai ki te kite i nga taonga e whakamahia peneitia ana. He wa ano ko nga taonga o te hapori he nui atu he hohonu atu i nga panga o tetahi hapu kotahi anakenake. Engari kaua e waiho i te hapu kia whakatahangia me waiho ratou kia whiwhi kupu ai kia whai reo ai engari te mutunga kaua tatou e akapohehe i a tatou e oti nga whakaaro o tetahi wahi hapu ka mutu ka kore oti nga whakaaro o te whanuitanga o te hapori. 
[ 
Greetings to us once again. In respect to the first part of this address I will express my views in our Maori language. I endorse Te Ururoa Flavell’s position. He is the one who has brought this bill here for this House to affirm. I acknowledge his efforts in digging out the gist of the concerns that remain there still among that sub-tribe of Nga Potiki. They witnessed their resources at Kaharoa being polluted through the release of animal wastes and excrement into the ocean and the continual contamination upon their seafood resources and the total stench as well. Therefore I really have to express my support for the position taken by Te Ururoa despite the fact that I contradicted him on television on Monday night and he was a sooky bubba because my remarks did not appeal to him but put that to the side. We must remember as well to rouse ourselves of the Maori world to the fact that there are several oceans rivers and some lands out there previously where such resources were utilised to sustain the growth and lifestyle of the people. The world has changed now. We have seen that the contamination and pollution of resources in places where we are still living and nearby must be discontinued. However even if we do not like to see resources being treated in this manner Maoridom must understand that not all they want and hope for will be met. There are times when community resources will be much greater and more extensive than the interests of one solitary sub-tribe. But the sub-tribe must never be put to one side. It must have an opportunity to speak and to be represented but at the end of it all we must not delude ourselves into thinking that the views of one solitary sub-tribe should be dealt with at the expense of those of the greater community. 
] 
I support along with my fellow speakers the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill. It will be a characteristically pithy contribution where brevity will shine through. A halo has come on the head of my senior colleague Mr Mallard upon hearing those words. 
Somewhat uncharacteristically for me I actually agreed with the previous speaker from the Green Party but that is another matter. We need to remind ourselves that Nga Potiki— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Me got a halo? 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: I understand that my other colleague from Auckland has aspirations of being my senior colleague but that fate awaits him. So he has organised for me to stand “soldier to soldier” with the Green Party about some kaupapa in Auckland but that is for another day. 
The Nga Potiki hapu were not unlike other Tauranga hapu. They have watched their taonga etc. grievously affected. Although this bill does advance the interests of a more rational approach from local government to dealing with these issues in that area the sad reality is that those tangata whenua voices in the past have been blocked. They have been given a voice in this case but it is a salient reminder to those of us who do advocate for our Maori causes that in many cases the overarching interests of “New Zealand Inc.” or the broader community will eclipse our interests as Maori and that we win some we lose some. 
It is good to see that my former colleague Mita Ririnui is back working with his people. He would have shown a tremendous level of interest in this. He is advancing along with the very council we are referring to the interests of the tangata whenua in the broader Tauranga Moana area. It is an area that is growing rapidly. Its port is in a stoush at the moment because another hapu fears that it wants to do dredging that is unnecessarily large and they have yet to see a reasonable level of relationship come between the port and the hapu. So it is a salient reminder also for all the burghers of Mount Maunganui and Tauranga that unless they address this and maintain a high-quality relationship with the tangata whenua small in number they may be but prodigious is the drama they can develop. Kia ora tatou katoa. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I take a call on behalf of New Zealand for the third reading of the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill. As all members in the House have already said this has the full support of all parties in the House. I am on the Local Government and Environment Committee. It was very pleasing that the committee was able to receive the few submissions that came in on this bill which was fully supported by all members of our committee. 
I would like to also pass New Zealand First’s congratulations to those involved particularly to Nga Potiki in terms of their commitment to following this process through; to the member Te Ururoa Flavell on his attention to this process as well and ensuring that it came through the House in a prompt and speedy manner; to the local authority the Tauranga City Council and local people in that area on supporting and also championing this bill; and also to the people who were affected by this over 50 years in that there were 73.5 hectares of land and sea area taken under the former Mount Maunganui borough reclamation of which only 23.5 hectares were required to be used for their sewerage project leaving 50 hectares basically in limbo. So it is good that this is being returned and that the repeal of this Act will ensure that those 50 hectares are taken out of that encumbrance. 
I was in Tauranga last week for a couple of days. Flying in to the airport there where you fly over Tauranga Harbour—it is a most impressive harbour. It is a lovely harbour in terms of harbours within an urban area in what is quite a sizable city environment now with Tauranga City including the former Mount Maunganui borough. It is a wonderful harbour and therefore it is very very good that this bill provides for that important aspect in terms of local iwi local hapu and the local city sorting out this piece of legislation that no longer applies. 
We are very pleased to support this bill and we are glad that this is now the third reading and that it will go through. This is another good bill in that the statute that will be done away with in terms of no longer being required. Thank you. 
NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
: 
 I am very pleased to be speaking on this piece of legislation the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill in the third reading. Can I acknowledge Te Ururoa Flavell Maori Party MP for Waiariki. Can I also acknowledge Nicky Wagner the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee. 
As has already been mentioned by my colleague the Hon Nick Smith I think this House should pay tribute when a local member comes to this Parliament with a bill because often there has been a huge amount of work which we do not see behind the scenes to liaise with groups—in this particular instance obviously local iwi. We have heard right throughout the select committee process but also in the advice from the Department of Internal Affairs on a submission by Nga Potiki that although for some members this might seem a tidying-up of the statute book for other members in the community for iwi there is actually quite a bit in this bill that is of cultural significance. 
I want to briefly touch on how much I understand particularly when it comes to the importance to water as being of cultural significance. Obviously we are dealing with waste water but as a member responsible for a large part of the Hauraki Gulf I know the issues that often come up both in terms of the community but also with local iwi around recognising that cultural significance of some of our conservation areas particularly when it comes to water. 
So as has already been mentioned it is fairly straightforward. The select committee recommended that we repeal the Act but that we also insert a new clause 5 which is a sunset clause. We know the history. The Act transferred part of the seabed of the Tauranga Harbour to the Mount Maunganui Borough Council. We know that the area authorised to be transferred under the Act was 73.5 hectares but actually the council reclaimed approximately only 23.5 hectares. 
I again have gone back through my research and I think Nga Potiki summed it up with the reasons that my colleague Jacqui Dean mentioned in terms of supporting this bill. I think firstly the Tauranga City Council has no intention to further reclaim the land. Secondly the repeal of this Act will provide in the term that is used in the Nga Potiki submission vindication for some of the members of the community who did protest against the original Act. And then the third thing is around that cultural significance and the healing of the wounds of past conflicts between Nga Potiki and the Tauranga City Council. 
Again as well I would just mention that on this side of the House in terms of local government we have a view that if we want to have good harmonious relationships between central government and local government then there does need to be a greater focus on shared infrastructure and also in terms of reducing debt so that there are better relationships in the community in general. 
Just coming back to the bill—I think it has been a really collaborative process on the Local Government and Environment Committee. I think the chair has done an outstanding job. I think the local member has done a huge amount of work behind the scenes in terms of the research—and we have seen it through the Department of Internal Affairs and its work on this bill. I commend this bill to the House because I think not only does the Tauranga City Council have no intention to reclaim the land but actually there is a cultural significance to passing this legislation in the House. So I just end my speech by saying that I acknowledge Nga Potiki I acknowledge the Tauranga City Council and I acknowledge the select committee for its work on this bill. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I call the—is the member calling? I call the honourable member Catherine Delahunty. I understand that this is a split call so the member will get a bell with 1 minute to go. 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. I am reluctant to speak before the Hon Parekura Horomia who has very graciously given me the call. I was wondering whether there was going to be anyone else speaking. 
I think it is interesting that this Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill is being described as a tidying-up bill. Tidying-up in my experience is sometimes a euphemism for some of the most profound things that we do. It is really great that we are getting to the third reading because it is long overdue. It is a bill that everybody supports a bill that the Local Government and Environment Committee supported unanimously and a bill that for once there is no dispute over—apart from the fact that it has taken so long. 
I think it is a bill that also symbolises the importance of the role of protest. Often those of us who have stood up and protested against things have been vilified—on a regular basis in fact—but without protest by people like Nga Potiki the changes do not stay in front of the people who have power and privilege. So it is necessary sometimes to draw a line in the sand literally over these issues take that stand and be vilified in order to get change. Change happens. The beast of power and the beast of authority particularly local authority I have to say can move very slowly particularly on issues to do with culture Te Tiriti o Waitangi and—one of my passions and the Green Party’s passions—sewage. It is an important issue. We can put man on the moon but we cannot deal with the most fundamental issues about how to deal with our own waste. We are great at celebrating our marvellous technological achievements but we are still pumping a lot of human waste into water and that of course is a profound cultural offence in many places in this country. In fact the origins of this bill come from a reclamation that was about where waste water was being sited and about the creation of a cultural offence which this bill will go a long way to deal with. 
So I would like to acknowledge the select committee and Te Ururoa Flavell but primarily the Tauranga City Council and Nga Potiki and primarily Nga Potiki themselves for their persistent and courageous challenge through protest through lobbying and eventually through dialogue and negotiation to get to this point to deal with what I heard was laid down a long time ago. If we are going to find solutions to the issue around sewage and waste water we actually need to involve all the parties particularly those whose land it is on whose waters are affected and whose cultural relationships have been trampled on. In the experience of the Green Party all over the country there are iwi and hapu that have for a long time asked us not to site waste water pipelines sewerage pipes waste-water ponds and all the rest of the paraphernalia of our current unsophisticated way of dealing with waste water on their sacred sites. 
So this is progress indeed but it is still an issue that many many people around the country who are not in power are struggling to be heard on because we still have those pipelines we still have those discharge pipes and we still have those ponds that leach into waterways and rivers. That is why you will hear not only from me but from many groups around the country constant calls for a more modern approach towards this very fundamental issue of human waste. 
This bill is about saying that it is no longer acceptable to ignore the views of tangata whenua. So it is a Treaty issue. I would just like to point out that we often have bills in the House to do with a land settlement and we have Te Tiriti o Waitangi bills—in fact I have heard it eloquently said in this House that we should have Tiriti o Waitangi days where we deal with those—but actually Te Tiriti o Waitangi which lives on well beyond the end of settlement is about all of these matters. It is about water it is about sewage and it is about taonga katoa; it is about all of those things—how we deal with those with honour and respect towards each other. And ultimately it is about relationships. This bill for us is about a relationship that was breached through an abusive practice and an abusive treatment not only of the environment but of the people of the place who have the whakapapa the ancestral whakapapa to their turangawaewae in terms of the way they were treated the land was treated and the water was treated. It is about saying that we are not going to do that any more. 
The Tauranga City Council and Nga Potiki have moved to a new era and that is something we should support and celebrate. So I commend the bill to the House. Kia ora. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rawhiti) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. E whakaaro atu mo te pire nei mo te tu o te Maunga o Mauao me me nga awa katoa i reira me te takutai moana. E mohio atu tatou mai ra no a te tuku tiko ki roto i te wai e kare e whakaae atu ratou Nga Potiki. E mihi kau ana ki a ratou te iwi e whaiwhai tonu atu mo te take nei. E mihi kau ana ki te kaunihera e whakahuri atu to ratou whakaaro e whakaae atu te pirangi o te hau kainga. No reira mihi atu ki a ratou na te mea i roto i aku e mohio atu tatou e rereke atu tera mahi te tae atu o te paru tangata ki roto i te wai. I reira ke nga taonga nga kai o tatou mai ra no. He aha ai e whakaae atu? Te tino pohehe a te mahi nei e te Kaiwhakahaere o te Whare; e pirangi atu te kaunihera ki te tuku atu i te whenua i te wahi ki a ratou hei whakamahi atu i te mahi e kare e whakaaea te katoa. No reira e tino mihi atu ki te Whare nei ki te kaunihera e mahi atu i to ratou mahi. 
[ 
Thank you Mr Speaker. I am thinking about this bill and Mount Maunganui with all its rivers and coastal waters placed there. We know that the release of excrement into the water has been going on for a very long time and they Nga Potiki have never approved of it. I commend them the people who have continued to fight this matter. I acknowledge the council who have changed their minds and have agreed to the wishes of the local people. So I congratulate them because within me we all know that releasing human effluent into the water is really abnormal. Our treasures and food have always been there since time immemorial. Why has it been allowed to happen? Mr Speaker of the House this action is really perplexing; the council want to give them the land the place for them to utilise but it will not allow the majority. So I really commend this House and the council for playing their part. 
] 
There are two words in society that people get mixed up: tiko and teka. Tiko is about excrement; teka is about embellished fibs. Maurice Williamson is gazing at me with real concentration because sometimes a lot of it flows from over there and we need to ensure that we can differentiate. It is difficult at times. 
It is difficult at times to differentiate between tiko and teka coming from over there. But this bill has put a surety into it. It ensures that we appreciate that excrement going into the sea is not a good thing and it does not matter who tikos—it is the same Pakeha tiko Maori tiko. But when Pakeha law tries to take away from the haukainga more than lore it is a bad thing and the council needs to be recognised for their efforts in turning this legislation round. 
I know my colleague Trevor Mallard would agree with me in relation to that even though sometimes he expounds on things in great language that are hard to differentiate. But it is important. It is important that we do not continue to dirty the water with the human water waste and allow it to carry on. God forbid if I were out there trying to get paua or kina and something that came from Maurice Williamson’s body was floating past there. That is how dastardly—that is how dastardly and reprehensible this excrement is. 
We have turned a blind eye. What has come down from the bottom has passed into the waters and it has taken the Maori people to object to it. It is great that the council has had the courage to not give the land to not let the development go ahead and to recognise what the tangata whenua are crying out for because this is a great thing. They are talking representatively of what all the people care about in Tauranga. It is no good sitting in your great pastel confines gazing out at the sea and saying: “Cor this is a beautiful sight” yet knowing that that creepy-crawly tiko is floating around in the water. That some people have used the idiom of teka to say that it is all right is not well. Maurice knows that he wants to listen to this because he believes in it. He is really a greenie at heart. He is not the extreme right masochist person that people think he is. He is a greenie at heart. 
This is more than the Greens. This is about human common sense. Do not pollute the waters. Do not put your foul management out there. Is it not great that we should celebrate that a few brave Maoris who live under the gaze of their mountain Mauao have decided to try to turn round history? This country is bad for it. Even over in Petone even around the foreshore you see it still coming out. So at least the Maoris and the Pakehas and especially that iwi there have stood together to defeat this korero teka about puta te tiko. We need to do it more in this country and make sure that we do not carry on with embellished fibs—that is teka—trying to ignore and deny that tiko goes into the domain that we all love and want to cherish and keep clean. Kia ora. 
MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I rise with pleasure to speak on the third reading of the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill. I would like to lead us away from that dark place where the member who has just resumed his seat the Hon Parekura Horomia has taken us. Thank you—you know a member and indeed a party well-qualified to speak at length about such matters—for that lesson in tiko. But let us move on from this movement and go instead to the substance of the issue. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes we will be passionate about it Maurice. 
I was on the Local Government and Environment Committee that heard the submission on this when Colin Reeder the chairperson came to us on behalf of Nga Potiki-a-Tamapahore Trust and Christine Jones as well the deputy chief executive on behalf of the Tauranga City Council. When they came to speak to us about it it became very apparent why the sponsoring member for this bill Te Ururoa Flavell is to be commended and I join the chorus of approval for the member of Parliament who brought this bill because this Government is certainly in the business of repealing legislation that has no use and this is a classic piece of that but it is also putting to right a very great wrong. 
As my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith said earlier in the days back in 1972 when this whole project was conceived those were different days when we had a different attitude towards the waterways and the estuaries. We did not acknowledge or understand in the way that the tangata whenua do that these are precious places that need to be protected. Instead we treated landfill sewage and so forth as something that we had a right to discharge and expel into our precious waterways. I feel that we have learnt as a nation a lot from what Nga Potiki have told us about this because when they talked about the kai moana and when they talked about the need to have these pristine waters preserved they were ahead of their time in terms of the Pakeha listening to them. 
In 1972 when the Mount Maunganui Borough Council proposed this wastewater scheme it did not really think too carefully about the ramifications of it—the construction of the oxidation ponds. They were the ponds of course from where the effluent was to be discharged and it was discharged directly into the Rangataua River. That was a very bad thing to do and the council continued to do that for a length of time. The ocean outfall was constructed at Papamoa. That is a wonderful pristine part of the world—or it used to be. This discharge was supposedly going to occur only until the ocean outfall was constructed but as it was always going to be a temporary measure it dragged on for rather a lot longer than that. 
The kaumatua are to be commended for their persistence and their integrity. Many of them who are not able to be here today are to be congratulated on and commended for their forward thinking and their tenacious move to continue to encourage people to see that the kai moana and the waters need to be preserved and protected. I think we have all learnt a lesson. I understand that they are here in the gallery somewhere. I think this is a commendable time for you to come. Please pass on our thanks for your contribution to New Zealand having a better attitude towards our environment and the way we need to treat it. We have learnt a lot from you and I know that it has come at a considerable cost. When I heard the submission from Colin Reeder on behalf of Nga Potiki I understood how difficult it would have been for that fight to continue. The council was not always so open to the things that you said to them but I think this bill is the embodiment of a better attitude and a higher tolerance that is now present between the tribe and the council and I hope that when the Act is repealed—as it will be today—that will go into a brighter future. 
I commend you on the stand you have taken because it took courage it took a lot of time and effort and I think that we as a nation have benefited from it. Certainly in your own area things will now be restored and returned. I hope that the repeal of this now useless piece of legislation will go some way to healing the hurt. I commend you for all the work you have done and the sponsoring Minister of this—or the sponsoring member I should say Te Ururoa Flavell— 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: Make him a Minister. 
MAGGIE BARRY 
: —for bringing it here. Yes “Make the man a Minister.” said Parekura. It may happen one day. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you. 
MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) 
: 
 It seems incumbent on me to give a brief summary of this particular bill the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill. Something that is a matter we should all reflect on is that it is not just the role of this place to make laws and look to make changes that add value to our country but also it is the role of this place to ensure that laws that exist that have no good and have no place any longer are repealed. More law is not necessarily good for this country. More law is not necessarily good law. 
This Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill now in its third reading stage will repeal the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act which no longer has any legal effect. The repeal of the Act is a requirement of the Tauranga waste-water comprehensive discharge resource consent. The bill returns the legal status of the land to what it was before the Act took effect in 1975. 
There have been some interesting contributions across the House today. The Hon Parekura Horomia certainly made a contribution that I am sure raised a few eyebrows here and among the many thousands of viewers who I am sure were watching from home with great interest. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: You’re not allowed to address them. 
MIKE SABIN 
: The incomprehensible nature of that contribution would seek to confuse some people but that is not uncommon coming from that side of the House as I am sure Mr Mallard will attest to. He constantly hears it coming from both of his ears. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: That’s teka coming out. 
MIKE SABIN 
: Teka? I am not sure we should delve back into that. 
Can I just commend Mr Flavell for bringing this bill forward and for ensuring that this piece of legislation can run its course. Can I commend the Tauranga City Council for resolving the matter in the way that it has. I am sure that the beautiful Bay of Plenty will continue to be beautiful in the face of this bill. I am happy to commend this bill to the House. 
Bill read a third time. 
Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill 
Third Reading 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 I am very pleased to speak on this last stage of the Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill. Throughout the stages— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Order! The member must move it first before he moves to the third reading. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I so move. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: And the title. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I move  
That the Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. 
Hon Annette King 
: How long have you been here Gerry? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I tell you what Parliament is one of those places where you learn something every day. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: We could give you a list to start on. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: You could give me a list Ruth but if you were to write out what I do not know then you would be writing for the rest of your life and would therefore—for perhaps the first time in your life—be gainfully employed. 
Can I just say that one of the features of this particular bill has been the speeches that members have made throughout its passage to date. Riccarton Bush is the sort of place that evokes a lot of good feelings from people because it is unique. The story that goes with it is quite touching in many ways. 
Riccarton Bush is a small remnant of the podocarp forest that used to cover most of the Canterbury Plains. It exists because one of the first families to settle in Canterbury post-European times were the two Deans brothers James and John Deans. They came to Canterbury having previously been in the Wairarapa to look for some land that was suitable for a sheep farming operation. Sadly James Deans died in a drowning accident trying to move some sheep to shore fairly soon after the brothers had come to Canterbury. John laboured on for about another 10 years I think setting up the property before he returned to his native Scotland to marry his fiancée whom we know as Jane Deans but who was Jane McIlraith. They then came back to New Zealand. He caught what is described as a chill while crossing the isthmus of Panama and died within about 6 months of them arriving back at Riccarton. So it was really Jane Deans—Jane McIlraith—who did such a splendid job in developing that estate over a period of time and then her son John Deans II after her.  
The other point that is useful to note in this is that the Deans brothers became fairly fluent in Te Reo Maori and the lease they had is to this day recognised by Ngai Tahu as being a very genuine document. It gave them a leasehold over a radius of 6 miles from the site of Riccarton House today. It was when the European settlement was begun in a big way in 1850 that the property began to be split up and they eventually took up some holdings in the Malvern Hills. The contribution of that family to Canterbury has been enormous and it will continue to be so. 
The trust today is chaired by Charles Deans a descendant of the family. The real gem that is there is not the splendid house which has survived the earthquakes nor is it the first house which was built on the Canterbury Plains nor the oaks that were planted from seed provided by Governor George Grey but in fact the perhaps 1000-year-old or 1500-year-old bush that grows there today just as it once did across most of the Canterbury Plains. 
This piece of legislation updates several previous Acts of Parliament that have seen the trust survive since 1914 when the Deans family first gifted the bush to the city; from 1947 when the property was sold at a very reasonable rate—that is the remaining property—to the city; and then of course through the amalgamation period of 1989 when it was put inside Christchurch City but remained as a separate trust entity. This bill protects that. The Christchurch City Council has done a great deal of work in ensuring that that does happen. My association was as a trustee and then chair of the trust for quite some years. We had a good relationship with the Christchurch City Council which saw proposals to turn the very historic home there into a sort of wine bar and nightclub instead of the wonderful restored home that it is today. It is a piece of Canterbury’s history a piece of Canterbury’s heritage and very well protected because of the work of the trust. So I wish the trust well in the future commend this bill to the House thank all MPs who have taken such an interest in it and look forward to its passage very shortly. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 It gives me a lot of pleasure to speak in support of the motion. I want to begin by acknowledging the Hon Gerry Brownlee the member of Parliament at the current time for Ilam and commend his passion for this Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill for this area and indeed for his own electorate. I wish to repeat the expression that I used in an earlier part of this debate which is that I just wish that the Minister the member of Parliament for Ilam shared that same passion for heritage buildings in our city and was able to exude the sort of amazing ability to not only bring this legislation through but ensure that it has support I think unanimously across the House. I wish he was able to use those skills in turning his attention to what we have been seeing in Christchurch: the cranes and the bulldozers rolling over beautiful heritage buildings which according to engineers’ reports could be saved. They are being demolished for lack of money and commitment and vision and leadership. I just wish the Minister would turn his attention to that. Perhaps now that this bill is reaching its final stages he might have some spare opportunities to look around our city and help preserve what is left. 
I also want to acknowledge as the Hon Nick Smith did in his prior contribution to this debate the people who originally looked at Riccarton Bush and said that it is worthy of special protection the people who first put this into a legislative protective measure and said that it is the sort of vision that they would like to see more of particularly in Canterbury at the moment. The trustees of Riccarton Bush who prepared this bill alongside the legal services team of the Christchurch City Council also should be acknowledged. 
In the scheme of things this bill is quite small for Parliament to consider. It is not a bill that has had hours and hours and hours of debate or that has had hundreds of submissions. But actually for the people who prepared it—the trustees the legal services team and others who are interested and supportive of the cause—they certainly have put a huge amount of effort into it and I want to acknowledge them. 
I also want to thank the Local Government and Environment Committee which not only considered this bill but quite properly at its own effort came to Christchurch to hear the submissions on the bill. I am very pleased that it did that. There were only two submissions heard. They were both in support but that is not the point. The committee made the effort to come to Christchurch and I am very pleased that it gave this bill and the member who has introduced it the respect they deserve by doing that. 
There have been some very minor amendments made to this bill through that select committee process and I think that is a bit of a reflection on the rigour that probably went into its preparation. It is interesting to note that alongside this bill the Local Government and Environment Committee is also looking at the changes that the current Government is pushing on to local authorities by taking out the “four well-beings” in the Local Government Act and how upset and distressed every single local authority around the country has been at that gutting of the mandate of local authorities. I have sat at the select committee and watched in amazement at the embarrassment of National Party members as mayor after mayor after mayor has come in and complained about it. It is surprising that under the regime of a local authority the management of a very special piece of bush is sitting alongside the gutting of what local authorities are able to do in terms of the overall economic and social well-being of their district. I wonder how this bill would fit alongside it if it was being considered in terms of the well-beings being taken away from local authorities. I am sure that that has occurred to the select committee as it has considered both of these pieces of legislation. 
But the fact remains that this bill is going to be supported by this Parliament and I am very pleased to have my name put alongside it. I just want to reiterate the point I made earlier that as we are watching protection deservedly of a very important part of Canterbury we are at the very same time seeing the wholesale destruction of much of the heritage of our city of our region. It is heritage that could be saved if the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery demonstrated the same sort of passion that he has demonstrated in regard to this bush. I know that he has that ability because he has demonstrated it through this process. I actually think he has probably got the passion for those heritage buildings as well. Perhaps now he will have the time to see that done. 
It is particularly frustrating when you see that about $196 million was spent on making Eden Park in Auckland a place that was fit to host the Rugby World Cup. What a great sporting event that was last year. But in Christchurch we have seen less than $10 million from the Government put into supporting the retention making safe and repairing of our heritage buildings. It just does not weigh up in my view. Once those heritage buildings are lost we cannot recapture them. We cannot suddenly recreate the decades and decades of architectural commitment that we have seen from them over that past time let alone the emotional commitment that people have to their buildings. We have many that are going. The Lyttelton Tunnel control building is the latest one to have the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority sign-off for demolition. It is one of Peter Beaven’s buildings one that is not particularly attractive actually but that is not the point of architecture; it is what it represents in our time-scale of architectural design and ability and commitment in our region. That is another building that is going to be lost for the sake of just a couple of million dollars. 
I am very supportive of this bill. I look forward to that vision and that time now being made by the member for the rest of the historic structures in our region which are worthy of that same support. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 There is much of what Ruth Dyson said about the importance of Riccarton Bush to the heritage of Christchurch and Canterbury with which I agree. That is why the Local Government and Environment Committee unanimously recommended that this Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill in the name of the Hon Gerry Brownlee the member of Parliament for Ilam have broad support. 
I think we should at this stage of the bill’s debate in the third reading acknowledge the huge heritage that goes with the Deans family 169 years ago in building the initial buildings that are part of that which is protected and the step 98 years ago back in 1914 when it was gifted for the benefit of the people of Christchurch and Canterbury. It is truly a national icon and a treasured area. This bill quite sensibly updates the governance arrangements for that Riccarton Bush area. 
I want to join with other members and acknowledge the work of the trustees of Riccarton Bush and the work that they have put into this bill. I acknowledge that the member of Parliament for Ilam Gerry Brownlee is actually a former trustee of Riccarton Bush. I think the— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: And former chairman. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: A chair I am told of Riccarton Bush. I correct that. I also want to acknowledge that the stand of kahikatea trees that is in Riccarton Bush is a reminder of the forest that once covered the bulk of the Canterbury plains. It is of huge significance as part of the natural heritage. I think that at a time when tragically so many Christchurch buildings have been damaged we all are relieved that those buildings that go back to 1843 in Riccarton Bush including the homestead which was built in the 1850s and parts of it in 1900 have been able to survive the earthquake. On those things I agree and there is consensus. 
I do though find some of Ruth Dyson’s comments about the broader heritage issues in Christchurch in respect of the enormous challenge for my colleague Gerry Brownlee around the earthquake recovery a bit off beam. You see like so many areas that we see from the Opposition you would think that the New Zealand Government has a blank cheque. If Labour’s position truly is as Ruth Dyson expresses and that is that every heritage building in Christchurch is going to be protected and built then I say—[ 
Interruption 
] I see the Greens are interjecting. Every single debate we hear in this House you literally would think that money grows on trees. In fact I say to the Green Party—the Green Party actually proposed to print money. I am just pleased that the Hon Gerry Brownlee is not in that camp that he is realistic and realises there are balancing— 
Metiria Turei 
: You are wrong wrong wrong. Wrong. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: You are not going to print money? 
Hon Members 
: Wrong. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: They are not going to print money. Well I actually specifically heard the members—the leader of the party—say that they are going to print money to be able to rebuild all the heritage in Christchurch. I would simply say to the Green Party if the proposals that I have heard that every single piece of heritage in Christchurch can simply be protected by printing money are not— 
Phil Twyford 
: Is that what Ruth Dyson said? Is that what she said? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: No I was referring to the interjection from the Green Party. What I would say to Ruth Dyson and to the member who has just interjected is show us the money. Show us the money. If you are going to go around the people of Christchurch and say that you are going to protect—and the latest we have had is the tunnel building at Lyttelton—I simply challenge members opposite show us how you are going to pay for it. The last thing the people of Christchurch and Canterbury need is the hollow promises from Labour members around heritage. 
I want to simply commend the very realistic and practical approach that Gerry Brownlee has taken around that hugely difficult issue of the heritage that we are going to protect to making buildings safe and the $6 billion of public money that Gerry Brownlee has secured for the people of Christchurch in the rebuild of that great city. This bill is a sensible bill which will mean that generations of the people of Christchurch and Canterbury will be able to enjoy both the historic heritage and the natural heritage that is Riccarton Bush. I commend the local member for the work that he has done with this bill and the trustees of Riccarton Bush who have put the work into it and I join with the select committee in saying this is a bill of which Parliament should be proud and that we should get on and pass. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I stand to support the Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill. It is a good bill. It is well supported by the House and I want to thank the member Gerry Brownlee for bringing it here. 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party is pleased to support this bill the Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill but I join with my colleague Ruth Dyson the member for Port Hills in expressing some puzzlement over the way in which the Minister in a very eloquent speech today described with a huge amount of knowledge and enthusiasm and passion the heritage values of Riccarton Bush the buildings there and the forest and yet he is the same member who called heritage buildings in Christchurch “old dungers” and who in his role as the Minister responsible for the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority has seen the demolition of much of the heritage character of Christchurch. 
So what we are seeing here in this bill is the protection and the retention of Riccarton Bush Riccarton House and Deans Cottage improved governance arrangements for that area and an improved management plan regime and criteria for Riccarton Bush but that same care and attention is not being applied to the rest of our heritage character in Christchurch. There we see a very aggressive demolition strategy by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. It is tragic that we do not have that same stewardship that we are showing and the Riccarton Bush Trust has shown through its trust deed and its care and stewardship of Riccarton Bush given to heritage in Christchurch because it is not just about the cost in terms of dollars. It was the vision of the Deans family which set aside the forest and the buildings at Deans Bush for the people of Christchurch. We need to show that same vision in protecting the character of Christchurch which attracts visitors to the city and which is part of the city’s identity because by safeguarding that we safeguard part of the city’s economy. By destroying heritage we create a wasteland in the city—an expanse of gravel concrete and desolation and a city that has no heart. 
We need to show that same care that we are giving to Riccarton Bush to the remaining heritage buildings in the city. If we are talking about money $10 million has been given to heritage buildings in Christchurch and half of that to the Arts Centre. Worthy yes but we need to increase that putea so that we can encourage owners who want to conserve their buildings like the NG building on Madras Street which is threatened by the authority’s blueprint for the central city. There are a lot of owners who want to keep their buildings. 
The New Zealand Transport Agency needs to be encouraged to protect the Lyttelton Tunnel building. It is using the rockfall risk to say that the building must be demolished. Well if it is rockfall why is the State highway and the access to Lyttelton Tunnel not closed to protect people travelling on that road every day? 
This is a good bill but the sentiments of the member who has sponsored it which are very valuable need to be reflected and carried over to the protection of our heritage in the city so that we have a city that has character that people want to continue to visit and that has an identity that has been established in part through its heritage buildings. 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 Deans Bush with its remnant of kahikatea forest and the Deans homestead since 1843 have been a very important Christchurch city asset one of many such assets in Christchurch that should be preserved for future generations. Its importance is in the bush area itself—the last kahikatea remnant in the built-up area of the city—in the house with its Victorian wooden architecture and of course in its being an important part of the history of the city having originally been the Deans homestead. This property has been well cared for but only since about 1990 using Christchurch City ratepayers’ money and that needs to continue. This bill the Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill will see that it does. 
Before that the property had been in a bad state and the bush had not been well protected. The early 1990s were the first time that the Christchurch City Council committed the adequate funding necessary for the preservation of this house and grounds including the bush behind it. As a member of the council from 1989 to 2004 I was one of the councillors who committed voluntarily the funding necessary to make sure that the past regime of neglect all changed and what we see now is a property that we can all be proud of despite the current earthquake damage. During the same period I was also a member of the Canterbury Museum trust board and that building was earthquake-strengthened during the same period especially the 1872 wing. I recall that it was in a sad state too. In fact it was in such a sad state that a good sneeze let alone an earthquake would have brought down. So a lot of work and a lot of expense had to be expended to make sure that it was preserved against earthquakes—in particular much stronger walls. In addition I set up and chaired a council subcommittee to save the old Government Building behind Cathedral Square. In due course it was purchased by the council for a few hundred thousand dollars. It too was strengthened against earthquakes and the sprinklers added and then it was resold with protective covenants and is now the Heritage Christchurch hotel. 
All these buildings including Riccarton House survived the recent earthquakes with minor damage in stark contrast to other Christchurch heritage buildings and I would like to mention three of them. First of all there is the Canterbury Provincial Council Chambers which for many years was under the wing of the Canterbury Regional Council which during those years did absolutely nothing whatsoever to strengthen it against earthquakes. The Anglican Cathedral in Cathedral Square under its ownership by the Anglican Church property trustees did very little to strengthen that building against earthquakes even though it had been seriously damaged in previous earthquakes. Obviously they did not really have the funds necessary for the purpose. The Arts Centre was an ongoing project for earthquake strengthening and that came from public funds—mainly Christchurch City Council funds too. We did the work as a council on Riccarton House the Canterbury Museum the old Government Building the Arts Centre and other such heritage buildings because we knew as citizens of Christchurch that that work was needed and we knew that it was valued by the people of Christchurch and that they would have it for posterity. That work has paid off as is now evident following the earthquakes. This bill will help to ensure the ongoing maintenance of Riccarton House and Riccarton Bush. 
But what about other Christchurch heritage buildings? The Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery has powers and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority has powers under the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act to ensure that buildings like Riccarton House are preserved and ultimately restored in whole or in part. Heritage issues are not just the elephant in the earthquake recovery room; they are a herd of mammoths in the room. New Zealand Governments have always been tardy at assisting with earthquake strengthening of heritage buildings and it is now tardy about recovering and preserving those buildings most needing it. There are many of those. I have asked questions for written answer of the Minister in charge of heritage and got a worthless smart-alecky reply which shows only that he should not be the Minister in charge of heritage because he clearly has not got a skerrick of interest about the subject at all. He would be better to resign. That would be the most positive thing he could do. I understand that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority has a draft policy on heritage buildings for Christchurch and I understand that the Minister is happy for it now to be released. But why has it not been released Mr Brownlee? Why has that draft policy not been released? All Christchurch people want to know what the policy of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority and the Government is about these buildings. It is high time we found out from the Minister in charge. 
This bill is great for Riccarton House but what about all the others in much more urgent need of attention? In particular what about the Christchurch Cathedral? Why is that different from Riccarton House? Gerry Brownlee has said in answer to a question for oral answer that it is a matter only for the church but that is not correct. Like Riccarton Bush and Riccarton House for which there is a trust board there is also one for the cathedral. So why no action on the most important building in the city the Christchurch Cathedral? It obviously can be preserved in whole or in part. The whole Canterbury community contributed to its construction and maintenance including a lot of council ratepayer funding. The Minister and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority must act now to apply the funding they have to save the cathedral and in due course to see that it is restored at least in part. 
I and many other Cantabrians want answers from the Minister on this not just on Riccarton House. I and many others want to see the 2003 Act that empowers the Anglican Church property trustees and covers the cathedral to be amended so that in return for Government funding and in addition to insurance money donations and contributions from elsewhere there would be an Act very much like the bill now under discussion covering Riccarton House so that the cathedral could then be restored owned in trusts for future generations and used as a multi-faith facility and for concerts and other public events. If it works for Riccarton House it will work for the cathedral. But instead we have heard nothing but silence from the Minister and from the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. It is not good enough. I want to hear now and the public wants to hear now what is going to be done. The alternative is for the cathedral to remain in its current trust and for it to be demolished for want of funding—a tragedy for Christchurch Canterbury and New Zealand and an indictment on this Government and this generation as a whole. 
Returning finally to the Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill now before us I say that it should obviously be supported. Reservations that New Zealand First had when the bill was first introduced relating to some aspects of the financial plan have been solved with the recent amendments to clause 23(3). So with those amendments New Zealand First is happy to support the bill but we wait in expectation for what will be done about the real problem in Christchurch: all of those heritage buildings most particularly the cathedral for which we have had nothing but silence silence and silence and for which action is now needed. 
MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I rise with pleasure to speak to the third reading of the Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill. I have spoken in both the other readings on this bill and I would like to add to some of the things that I have said and to add to some of the speakers. The sponsoring member Gerry Brownlee has so eloquently set the scene detailing the colonial history of this family and I would like to concentrate more on the natural heritage that this gives us in terms of a link to Gondwanaland which is our link with the ancient past. It is a way of preserving as an open-air plant museum if you like a piece of our vegetation and our native heritage that no longer exists anywhere else in this country let alone in the world so it must be preserved. I think that the board in the way that this bill has been drafted and put together will be able to its job properly. 
To me Riccarton Bush represents the very best of what the original colonial conservators did. These conservators were well ahead of their time. These were people—the Deans family and in particular the widow Jane—who showed a leadership around plants and conservation that we can all learn from still to this day. They decided that they would use in a prudent fashion not only what was available to them to build their houses to build the buildings that they needed to run a farm but also to leave the remnants because this area as has been said is a swampy area. It had podocarps in it. The predominant tree was the kahikatea and there was also the mighty totara. These are trees that were felled. They were cut down. Kahikatea itself which is called the white pine a  
Dacrycarpus 
 was used primarily and felled in the tens of thousands of hectares to make butter boxes to send our butter to Europe. Although that might have been useful at the time it was a pretty short-sighted thing to do. 
The kahikatea to many of us is one of the most accessible I suppose of our native trees. They retain a beauty and a majesty that is perhaps more accessible than some of the kauri for example. So when we look at the swampy land in Riccarton Bush we look at kahikatea which was one of the few species that would survive in such conditions. Perhaps because it was swampy the land was left with those trees on it but that again is the cleverness and the forward thinking of the family. The Deans family decided that this was something that needed to be preserved because it was of the land. I would remind people that we have seen in this country of ours a lot of trees and a lot of our native vegetation devastated. 
Others have spoken about the colonial heritage and I am not going to dwell on that but I am going to talk about the fossil remains of the trees in Riccarton Bush—remains that date back 130 million years. This is an open-air museum that gives us a direct link to our past. It is not very big. It is only 15 acres and it is the sole remnant of kahikatea flood plain forest so it is a very significant piece of vegetation not only for the people of Canterbury but also in the wider context and indeed in the world context. David Bellamy who had a series of television shows through the 1980s and 1990s came and filmed in Riccarton Bush. He said that this was a living link with our past that must be preserved in perpetuity. 
It is not that we need people to visit us from overseas to tell us how well we are doing but in that instance I think it did give a lot of confidence to the people of Canterbury that what they were doing and what Riccarton Bush represented was entirely significant and not just to the people of Canterbury in their own area as the people who visited there since they were children who had enjoyed going and playing on the trunks of the trees that had been felled and who had had a good time. Children were allowed to wander there free. It was one of the original parks that was enjoyed by people on their Sunday outings in Christchurch. But further to that it is an entirely significant piece of vegetation in the international sense. On a programme I used to front  
Maggie’s Garden Show 
 we went back and filmed in Riccarton Bush on many occasions. Again when you are looking for a place in New Zealand that represents something that we have lost we come back time and again to Riccarton Bush because it is such a precious place. 
I would have to say that the governance structure of the board does need assistance and again I commend the sponsor of this bill the Hon Gerry Brownlee. To update the governance arrangements is to carry on that wisdom that leadership that foresight that was shown by the original Deans family. These are people who are visionaries but they need assistance. 
I think this cuts across four other bills. It actually brings together and vests in the land at 30 Kahu Road Christchurch a very significant group of powers. There are challenges that exist really for this board. What this bill would enable it to do is actually make some decisions about how to preserve it in the future to safeguard it with management practices that are bold and forward thinking. 
Removing native plant species that are not endemic to that piece of land is something that people in Christchurch have struggled with but Diane Lucas and a lot of other landscape designers have led the charge on this and at Riccarton Bush they are contemplating it. It would mean the removal of exotic conifers. That is a pretty contentious and controversial thing to do and many say that it should not be done. But others say it needs to be a pristine piece of bush. So really native plant species need to be protected. This legislation will allow that to occur and I commend it to the House. 
I know that it will be passed despite some of the cheaper pot-shots from the people on the other side who of course cannot resist such a thing. But basically in the Local Government and Environment Committee there was a unanimous purpose around this bill— 
Phil Twyford 
: Can you blame us? It’s a hell of a target. 
MAGGIE BARRY 
: —which is not really echoed by the people who comment now like Mr Twyford who was never there. He knows nothing about it but blathers on as is his wont. I commend this bill to the House. 
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Speaker. I rise to make a brief contribution in support of the Riccarton Bush Amendment Bill. May I as the opposite and other Maori member for the area in question firstly congratulate the member for Ilam on bringing this bill to the House. I would like to support and congratulate all of the people who have been involved in bringing this bill to the House. I would like to thank the member who has just resumed her seat Maggie Barry for the history lesson and for taking us all the way back to Gondwanaland “Jurassic Park” and all the ancient forests that led as the excellent chair of the Maori Affairs Committee Tau Henare would say to the tapestry the bringing together of so many rich histories that are embodied in this special area of Riccarton Bush. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: With such eloquence he should be Speaker. 
RINO TIRIKATENE 
: Very much so. The leading candidate to be the next Speaker is the Hon Tau Henare. So there is a rich history there and I commend this bill. It is a shame though that the bill is being spread over four different Acts of Parliament—or is soon to be four different Acts of Parliament. We have heard members opposite talk about reducing the amount of legislation and it would have been nice to condense this into one nice and tidy single piece of legislation. 
Maggie Barry 
: That’s what it does. It gets rid of it. 
RINO TIRIKATENE 
: No it does not get rid of it unfortunately. It covers four pieces of legislation covering over 98 years. Riccarton Bush is a very special place as we know. Its history goes back millions of years in terms of its geological and natural beauty and its historical and local and Maori and colonial history. So I look forward to seeing the passage of this bill through the House and I commend it to the House. Kia ora. 
Bill read a third time. 
Income Tax (Universalisation of In-work Tax Credit) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Debate resumed from 17 October. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a final call on this Income Tax (Universalisation of In-work Tax Credit) Amendment Bill from our side. I have had time to reflect on contributions from members opposite to this particular bill and this debate. I must say that when it comes to child poverty members who have spoken on this bill have not displayed any compassion or understanding or empathy for the plight of poor families bringing up young children in this country. They have not done that at all. In fact members opposite in the debate 2 weeks ago were actually quite disparaging of the plight of the poor. Effectively they pathologised that poverty through their comments and I think that was a pretty nasty thing to do. Government members were effectively saying that there is nothing more that can be done for the 270000 children who live in poverty making New Zealand’s performance on this score one of the worst in the world. We are entitled to draw the conclusion that apart from punitive measures which the Government has taken in the last 4 years it is just not interested in this particular area. Instead of taking the opportunity to reflect on the reality of these lives of quiet desperation—because that is what it is; many of these families live lives of quiet desperation—Government members instead of talking about it have actually gone on the attack in the debate and indeed in other debates concerning this subset of the population. 
David Bennett’s contribution to this debate reached probably even lower than the lowest which is usually reserved for Maggie Barry—apart from the last speech and I will acknowledge that. [ 
Interruption 
] Well if the cap fits wear it. That is saying something. For David Bennett the provisions of this bill were communism. That is what he said. Although I doubt he could accurately define the concept of communism he went on to interject that $60 per week will not make any difference to the lives of these poor families living in poverty. Clearly David Bennett was not listening at all to what the Green members were talking about. Both Metiria Turei and Jan Logie actually gave examples of what the experience was. Metiria talked about empty lunch boxes in schoolbags—$60 would go a long way. Teachers are desperately seeking funds for kids’ breakfasts. There is increasing illness and kids desperately looking for food in places where animals look for food. Yet those were the disparaging comments that he was making. Jan Logie also talked about the poor being left out not being able to go on school trips feeling the shame of having no spare resources lacking warm clothes and living from week to week. 
So this is the empathy of the members opposite for the poor in this country the most vulnerable. For these families Mr Bennett $60 a week would go a very long way. Of course it will not go a long way for him because for him it is only a meal at a reasonable mid-range restaurant. But for these families it makes the difference between living and really being miserable. Paul Goldsmith in his comments on the bill invoked the spectre of assistance to these families as destroying the human spirit. Which century is this guy from? The Charity Organisation Society was a long time ago. Assistance he said was like a narcotic. I say to Mr Goldsmith that he cannot hide from these images he created during the debate regardless of the fact that the quote was from someone who should have known better. But by quoting these lines he associates himself with the images that this work conjures up. 
This bill actually is a good bill. It really addresses the most vulnerable and the Government shows a lack of regard. Imagine a family with very little resources bringing up young children and young children are our future. Yet the Government is miserable enough to say that we cannot give them that—they will have to get a job and will have to do something else. Where do members opposite get their knowledge from? What about the poor in Maungakiekie? What about the poor in Waitakere? What about those people? Have they not gone and seen them? Have they not talked to those families? Yet they come here. 
The other point I want to make is that for these children this period of development is the most important there is. If we mess up during those early years age 1 to 2 all the research shows that they are on a downward path. But that Government and the members who spoke on this bill are quite happy for that to happen yet they privilege their own; they privilege the rich through tax cuts. I think they have taken a miserable position and it will come back to haunt them. They could have at least shown an appreciation and voted for this bill to go to the select committee. Thank you. 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I want to thank all of those who have spoken in support of the Income Tax (Universalisation of the In-work Tax Credit) Amendment Bill over the last few weeks and are voting to send it to the Social Services Committee. I understand that 60 members of the House tonight will vote in favour of the bill—very nearly a majority of Parliament. It is not quite enough but a good start and better than we have seen in the past. I want to thank also all of those New Zealanders who have supported this bill in their various ways and supported the campaign to end child poverty. 
The Green Party has long believed that the in-work tax credit is unjust. The reasons for keeping it in its current form are facile. Worse they damage individual families and children by trapping them into poverty and damage community cohesion by creating an arbitrary and unreal separation between those who work and those who rely on a benefit. It is unjustifiable. 
I recently saw two graphs showing the trend of child poverty from the mid 1980s to today from both Australia and New Zealand. The New Zealand graph is unsurprising. Child poverty rose radically during the late 1980s and into the 1990s particularly during the National Party’s vicious attacks on beneficiaries. Child poverty reduced slightly in the 2000s with Working for Families but it remains worse now than it was in the 1980s—that is a greater percentage of children now live in poverty than did in the 1980s. In Australia over exactly the same period of time in a similar economy and culture the rates of child poverty have continued to decline and decline. The two images of New Zealand and Australia child poverty rates are vastly different because they tell two different stories about how children are valued in the economy by the political decision makers. 
In Australia there is a comprehensive set of child-related payments of significant amounts. The payments are for the children and they apply to a family regardless of whether a person is in work or on a benefit. Australian families get something like NZ$330 a week for two children aged between 5 and 13 and more if the youngest child is under 5. If the child is newborn families get a one-off payment of A$5000 to help cover the costs. 
In New Zealand the same two-child family is subject to highly complex and discriminatory criteria for Working for Families. They get something like $216 a week for their children only if they satisfy hours of work criteria and are not on a benefit. If they are on a benefit or have simply lost work they get only $156 a week. Low-income parents with a newborn in New Zealand who do not meet the stringent requirements for paid parental leave get at most an extra $1200 parental tax payment. Parents who are on a benefit get no extra financial assistance at all for their newborn babies. 
In New Zealand families with children have been deliberately stripped of decent income support either through benefit cuts deliberate wage-reduction policies or by discriminatory Working for Families tax transfers that value some families over others. The name “in-work” for this particular child payment is simply a justification to deny the child payment to New Zealand’s poorest children. In doing so the Government saves itself some $450 million a year. The accumulative loss of income for low-income households since 2006 is $2.5 billion. That is $2.5 billion that is money taken from the mouths of New Zealand’s poorest children. 
These are political decisions. Solutions to poverty are absolutely determined by political action to put children at the centre of the Government’s economic decisions to value their dignity and security by guaranteeing the essentials: decent benefits good wages and affordable homes. No provision of services or charities can eliminate poverty; it can only help ease the worst effects and that is desperately needed. But child poverty is a political issue. Child poverty is an economic issue. The Green Party proudly puts children at the centre of its political and economic decisions. We ask that this Parliament does the same. I commend this bill to the House. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Income Tax (Universalisation of In-work Tax Credit) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 60 
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Maori Party 3; Mana 1. 
Noes 61 
New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Motion not agreed to. 
Sittings of the House 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 As we have made a lot of progress I seek leave to rise slightly early for the dinner break. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Sitting suspended from 5.55 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa. Go Obama! I am sorry. I move  
That the Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Maori Affairs Committee. 
I came here tonight thinking that all the stars are aligned. Earlier today we got a bill in my name to restore land to the people of Tauranga Moana Nga Potiki. Yay-ya! Just not long ago I would have been out watching Barack Obama coming to the fore to talk to the people. I knew I would then come to this House to talk about Te Tiriti o Waitangi and for members of this House to make an affirmation about Te Tiriti o Waitangi and affirm a commitment to that document but it may not all pan out—it may not all pan out.  
This bill I think is an extremely important bill. For the whole of the country listening in tonight—at least those who are not looking at Barack Obama—at least let me tell them what this important bill is all about. This bill in my name will provide the means by which any “person taking any oath set out in statute may in addition to the words of the oath elect to state that they will uphold the Treaty of Waitangi.” The bill will insert the optional additional words: “I will uphold the Treaty of Waitangi”; or … Ka whakaungia e au te Tiriti o Waitangi.” across a range of oaths and affirmations.  
These simple statements on their own reflect a much broader principle. The principle is that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is New Zealand’s founding document and the Government is committed to fulfilling its obligations as a Treaty partner. So the question tonight that this bill might provoke is: how committed are the political parties around this Chamber to a vision of this nation in which Te Tiriti o Waitangi provides us with the basis for living together and creating a positive future?  
As some background 10 years ago in August 2002 Queen Elizabeth gave a Speech from the Throne. She stated: “The basis of constitutional government in this country is to be found in its founding document the Treaty of Waitangi.” The Maori Party considers that our collective commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi as this nation’s founding document should be expressed in all oaths and declarations included within the Oaths and Declarations Act 1957. We did think that the National Party shared the same commitment. Indeed right up front in the opening paragraphs of the relationship accord we signed in December 2011 is the statement: “The National Party and the Maori Party will act in accordance with Te Tiriti o Waitangi the Treaty of Waitangi.”  
The Treaty is our country’s founding document. The key political question between signing the accord a year ago and this bill today is: what has happened to cause the National Party to back down from what was considered to be a statement of honour a statement of promise for our nationhood? 
Brendan Horan 
: Well you would get into bed with them. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: We will come back to you. I could expect it from a party like New Zealand First because it does not believe in things like New Zealand Maori teams even though one of its family members might be the head of the New Zealand Maori Rugby Board. I could expect it. And I could expect in a sense reflecting on the Prime Minister’s actions at the very start of getting together that he gave the invitation to the Maori Party to join this agreement. So I ask myself what is going to happen. Let us just take a look at simple things. 
Ultimately our bill is to enable all New Zealanders a simple choice to express a commitment if they wish—a simple choice—to uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi. I have got to ask myself: what is the problem? What is the problem? To express this commitment clause 5 introduces new section 4B into the principal Act which will allow for any person taking an oath under any statute to elect in addition to the words of the oath to state that they will uphold the Treaty of Waitangi.  
I want to make the point quite clearly that this is an avenue for New Zealand to elect to take up. There is no compulsion. It is entirely up to each individual. If there are 121 members coming into the Parliament of this land at the next election and if one took it up surely it is a matter of choice an ability to make an affirmation to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It is entirely up to each individual to decide whether they want to elect to take up that commitment or not.  
I want to return to my opening statement about the significance of this bill. It is our view that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is the cornerstone of the constitution of Aotearoa. We believe that central to our maturing as a nation is a need to increase New Zealanders’ exposure to and acquisition of sound knowledge of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the history of our nation. So it is perfect timing—almost almost a three-peat—today that this bill is going through the House at exactly the same time as a nationwide conversation is occurring about the country’s constitutional arrangements. That deal was a part of our relationship accord with the National Party. Again I ask the question: what is the problem?  
This is a conversation being spearheaded by the Constitutional Advisory Panel which is one of the key milestones anticipated in the last term of Parliament and is a central gain in the relationship between the Maori Party and the National Party. Again the question must be asked: what has happened over the last 12 months to cause the National Party to rethink its enthusiasm for encouraging all New Zealanders to think about our national identity and in particular the crucial role that Te Tiriti o Waitangi plays in our history and our future? 
As we speak right now we know that the Constitutional Advisory Panel chaired by Sir Tipene O’Regan and Emeritus Professor John Burrows is in a full-steam engagement strategy with a wide range of New Zealanders. In the conversation so far on a document that the Constitutional Advisory Panel has been consulting on it has concluded that the Treaty’s accepted position as the founding document in New Zealand is the result of decades of back and forth between the iwi and the Crown. The panel goes further and makes reference to New Zealand’s Government statement of support for the United Nations Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which sets out a strong preference to the influence of the Treaty of Waitangi.  
In that statement the Government acknowledged that Maori hold a distinct and special relationship as the indigenous people of New Zealand reaffirming the importance of the Treaty of Waitangi as a unique feature of indigenous rights in New Zealand. So the stage has truly been set for this bill. Indeed we had a youth forum a couple of months ago. Therefore I am looking forward to hearing some of the discussion. The time could never be better for exploring all the possibilities for New Zealanders to pledge allegiance to the Treaty. We see the Treaty as I say as a fundamental basis of our identity not only as Maori but as a nation. People who hold public office should not from our perspective be deprived of recognising that.  
Today in this first reading I am conscious that we in the Maori Party have finally achieved a goal that we have been pursuing for the last 8 years at least. The Maori Party is also proud that we were the first party to take the Parliamentary Oath of Allegiance in te reo rangatira. On 27 July 2004 Tariana Turia was sworn in as an MP for Te Tai Hauauru and as co-leader of the Maori Party. This is now an established part of parliamentary protocol.  
Two years on—19 July—Dr Sharples signalled that the Maori Party would introduce a Supplementary Order Paper to include Te Tiriti o Waitangi in oaths and affirmations. That Supplementary Order Paper has now turned into a fully fledged member’s bill. What it does is create an avenue for New Zealanders to declare an allegiance to Te Tiriti o Waitangi as our founding document. I will repeat that it is about a choice to honour the Treaty to provide people with the mechanism by which they can testify their beliefs in our constitutional framework.  
 The Treaty was never about division. It is about establishing a foundation for unity and diversity—hence Governor Hobson’s statement: “He iwi kotahi tatou.” We are greatly disappointed that some parties lack the courage or the commitment to come together united in our nationhood. We want to acknowledge all of those parties that do share a vision in which we can see the value of the Treaty and adding value to building unity in a diverse nation helping us to acknowledge our shared past and move forward to the future. I look forward to the korero tonight to see exactly where everyone sits and the opportunity to respond at the end. It is under those conditions that I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 I am torn about this bill the Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill. I support absolutely and totally the thoughts the words and the emotion of what my colleague has put before the House. Unfortunately the whipping system says that I cannot vote for his bill. I want to say— 
Denis O’Rourke 
: We don’t need to hear from you then. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Well actually you might not want to hear from me but I tell you what. You had better listen and it is for this reason. We had an opportunity to say to the world that we were different from every other nation in the world. By not doing what my colleague has suggested even by putting it into the select committee that says to the rest of the world one thing and only one thing—that we are just the same as Canada that we are just the same as Australia that we are just the same as the United Kingdom and all the other colonial conquering nations around the world. 
I do not want to go over the old history of who fought whom and who won and who lost. But at the end of the day this country had an opportunity this House of Representatives had an opportunity to say to the world: “Yes there are different cultures. Yes there are different people in our nation.” We could have said to the world that if you wanted to—not that we are going to make you but if you wanted to—you could have sworn your allegiance on the Treaty of Waitangi. 
It is a bit more personal to me than some of my colleagues across the House think it is. It was 70-odd 80-odd years ago that my great-grandfather stood in this House and espoused the same sorts of issues that my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell has spoken about tonight. So it is with a heavy heart that I have to inform my brother taku tuakana that I will be voting against this bill. I will be voting against a bill that I think is non-violent it does not threaten anybody and it does not tell anybody what to do. I will be voting against a bill that gives the opportunity for New Zealanders to be able to feel unique in the world. 
Dr Kennedy Graham 
: Cross the floor. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Yeah I would like to cross the floor. But if we have that sort of scenario going on all the time then you do not get stable government unfortunately. Like I said it is with a heavy heart that I inform my mate that I will not be voting for this bill. 
Two weeks ago I was in front of some other members of Parliament from around the world up in Quebec where I spoke about indigenous peoples’ rights and indigenous people and their culture and their language. If this country does not have a shared vision does not have a shared goal then none of us none of our mokopuna none of our kids yet to come can share in the spoils of that shared vision. We are always going to be on one side of the fence and somebody else is going to be on the other side of the fence and we are always going to be arguing about what our vision what our shared vision should be. We should at least have taken the opportunity tonight to send this bill to a select committee where we could have heard some of the arguments. In fact I will be out there and say that sometimes I think all members’ bills should go directly to a select committee but that would be a bit of a hard call. It would be a bit messy. 
I will be voting against this bill for one reason and one reason only and that is the system that we have. I know my colleagues across the House and especially in the Labour Party if they were in our shoes and they were voting against a bill it would work out the same. This is not about me having more morals or principles than the other side. It is actually just a matter of following what the process is. People get whipped and people follow their whip. 
Kris Faafoi 
: Good on you for owning up. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Absolutely! I own up to it. I do not like it but I signed up for the National Party knowing full well that I might have to vote for something that I did not like. I think a lot of people around this House have that conundrum as well. 
Kris Faafoi 
: You more often than not. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh no not really; not really. When it comes to matters of this magnitude when we are talking about the soul and the humanity of our nation then not really. I am yet to meet a member of Parliament who does not feel like me when we are discussing issues of this nature. I want to say sorry to my colleague my erstwhile colleague on the Maori Affairs Committee and to the Maori Party as well. 
This bill is not some sort of procedural motion that we are talking about. We are not talking about some minor procedural motion. We are talking about something that goes to the heart of the identification of this country. Walk the streets of any other country in the world and ask other people: “Where do you think I come from?”. They might say England they might say Australia they might say Canada or they might say the best parts of America. But I bet you my last dollar that without too much thinking they would not be able to say New Zealand. Why? Because we do not have an identifier. We do not have an identifier that puts the nation out there. I am not talking about only Maori. I love the fact that my ancestors fought each other for this land and both of them won. I love the fact that this country should be patting itself on the back in terms of its treatment of indigenous people. OK we have got a long way to go. You shrug your shoulders but look around the world and see how far we have come as a nation. And we have come far—we have come far. I do not mind getting up and patting myself on the back and patting this nation on the back. Of course we have got issues—every nation has got issues—but boy I feel glad that I live in this country where I can send my kids to a total immersion school and where I can get up and speak my own language in the House of Representatives. There are three languages in the House of Representatives. What a great democracy. What a great place. And we could have gone just that little bit further tonight by saying that if you want to you could swear allegiance not only to the Queen not only to the nation but also to the founding document of our nation the Treaty of Waitangi. Kia ora. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rawhiti) 
: 
 E mihi kau ana ki a koe mo tera korero e te whanaunga e Tau. E rekareka atu ki te rongo i te taumahatanga. E Te Ururoa tena koe. Tena koe mo to kaha ki te whai atu a muri i te kawenata mo tatou mai i Aotearoa. 
[ 
To the relative Tau I acknowledge you for that statement. It was really pleasing to hear how serious it is for you. Well done Te Ururoa. Your efforts to follow this up as an agreement for us here in New Zealand are appreciated 
.] 
I have 5 minutes. I could talk for 5 hours on this matter; it is something dear to my heart. I revel having just come back from Australia and seeing indigenous people who struggle and do not have the base—and I can accept some of the things that my learned friend Tau Henare has just finished saying—but we can do better. This is a real test for this country. It is fascinating that we preach nationhood but we dare not play the full game and that we do the haka as the All Blacks and we will play that game but we will not dare let the indigenous people have their say. 
I want to commend Ururoa Flavell for this bill the Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill and for recognising that it is something that is dear to our people’s hearts—the tangata whenua of this land. It was 172 years ago when the ancestors of people in this room promised unification promised nationhood promised joining together promised a better life and rights recognised. What a whole lot of teka; that is what is was. And then we get to this stage and there is no compulsion in this bill. 
This is not like these new ideas that he has on the warrant of fitness. It is not like a whole lot of stuff that is coming out of the Government benches. There is no compulsion in this; it is choice. We have gone so crazy that we want to even deny choice. That is really out of the fear of the unknown. When people do not know about certain things they play the best card that they have inherited. I think it comes through their genes—that we have been conquered and things have happened in the past—but you have to have a smarter brain to recognise that internationally indigeneity has a real place in people’s hearts and that in this country it is growing because of not just the tangata whenua but also the rest of the cultures that we have mixing into our nationality. 
It is fascinating that I am seeing a real rev up by this Government and other organisations taking trade visits overseas and using Maori as the front end to that. Whether it is to sing a song or throw a taiaha around they are using it. So you cannot deny even in the macro in the economic sense that Maori are starting to utilise their assets better. I really wonder why some people are struggling to support this simple and decent bill. It is the way forward. It is about nationhood. It is not just about standing under the Union Jack because that stance was forced upon us by other people. We recognise all of that and we have taken the benefit out of it. 
We will be supporting this bill and it is certainly important to say that because at the end of the day there are some things that politicians should learn—that they do not use their vote because it may make the majority happy and vote for them. If you want to live in a decent society if you want our children to revel in and understand what nationhood means then surely to goodness simple support for this non-compulsory bill is something that could happen. 
Maori are great people. It has been 172 years since the Treaty was signed. It is fixed in other areas. We have a Treaty commission. We have a Treaty process and we are resurrecting and putting right what was wrong. Why cannot we have this bill recognised because it is about choice? A lot of Maoris go to the churches that they never knew anything about. They swear on the Bible because they believe it is good for them. Somebody else taught them that. This is a learning curve and a teaching curve for the rest of the nation who want to stick their heads in the sand. I do feel sorry for people like Tau Henare who really should follow his great-grandfather’s efforts and I would suggest to you that it would be good to cross the floor and vote in favour— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! Your time has expired. 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise and offer a contribution in the debate on the Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill in this first reading. I want to start by acknowledging my parliamentary colleague Te Ururoa Flavell for bringing this bill to the House. Earlier today he successfully—unanimously actually—had a bill passed in this House so I do want to acknowledge his efforts. 
I want to say though that one of the reasons that National will not be supporting the bill today is that I believe in this instance the Maori Party has the cart before the horse. I want to explain that because there has been a conversation tonight about this being about national identity. Well the appropriate place for a conversation around national identity is with each and every New Zealander and that is a conversation we are having as a result of the partnership with the Maori Party with the constitutional review. The place of the Treaty of Waitangi is a key part of the constitutional review. So I think it is appropriate that we do not jump ahead too quickly in this instance. I know that this idea seems like quite a simple idea a simple fix to a problem but actually it is a much broader conversation around our national identity and around the place of the Treaty of Waitangi in our overall constitution. That is not something that should be rushed. 
I recently spoke in Australia—I jointly presented with Charles Chauvel—on the constitutional review that we are undertaking. It is so so important that New Zealanders engage in this conversation and that we do it properly and we do it fully. So the aspect of the constitution is the first sort of area where this bill creates some problems. I am somewhat frustrated at the suggestion that the National Party choosing not to support this bill indicates a wider issue in terms of our commitment. For anyone who has heard the speeches in this House from members all across the Chamber but in particular from the National Party and the commitment we have to settling Treaty settlements I think that that is quite an unfair comment. 
We are progressing settlements because we know—because we know—it is the hurt and the injustice and the disagreements of the past that continue to divide this nation. We are the party that is driving ahead at a pace to get those Treaty settlements resolved. I very firmly believe that it is the most significant thing we can do as a country to bring us to the place of unity. Some of my colleagues have spoken about challenges and the fact that we have more progress to make. Well our priority should be Treaty settlements. Our priority Mr Flavell should be the constitutional review. It should be engaging each and every New Zealander in this conversation. 
Although the idea in the bill seems like a good one I think the impacts of it are too—there are some other complications. I want to raise a couple of them. One of course is the issue of consistency. The bill talks about oaths and declarations of some types but has not actually explained each opportunity that an oath is taken in New Zealand. So for example in terms of the Citizenship Act is it expected through this bill that also new citizens would take an oath to the Treaty of Waitangi? What about the Ombudsmen Act? So there is an issue of inconsistency in the bill as it is drafted. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Optional Louise. 
LOUISE UPSTON 
: The member Te Ururoa Flavell who has brought this bill to the House quite rightly has said that it is optional but the fact that the oath is optional creates other complications. What does it mean if somebody takes an oath to the Treaty of Waitangi and someone does not and yet they are doing the same job? So the inconsistency in it potentially creates some other problems where someone holding the same office has made one oath and another has not. So you are getting an inconsistency with the same people holding office. 
The spirit of the bill I applaud and I commend the member for bringing it to the House but actually the commitment is having a much broader conversation about the national identity and the Treaty’s place in the constitution. Thank you. 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Tena koutou katoa. I would first like to acknowledge the leader of the Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill Te Ururoa Flavell the Maori Party those who have spoken in favour of the bill and indeed those who have spoken against it because Te Tiriti o Waitangi embraces all of us. It is just unfortunate that some parties in this House cannot embrace the concept of choice which is kind of interesting because the National Party has always gone on and on about choice since I have been in this House. Here is an opportunity to create more choice for the citizens of Aotearoa New Zealand and National is not going to support it which is incredibly disappointing. 
However I want to say something about this bill because the Green Party is very very happy to support it. We believe that if it could be passed to the Maori Affairs Committee it would herald a new age of respect for Te Tiriti o Waitangi not only for Maori but also for tangata Tiriti for Pakeha like me who tried when we came into this House to swear and affirm on both Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the other oath—and I was not the only one. This bill reflects what many of us have held in our hearts for some time and we are grateful to the member who has brought it because when we came here we wanted to take the oath based on an affirmation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It was not that we were rejecting anything else; it was what we wanted to affirm as a critical part of our nationhood. 
This bill is very generous and is designed with key words like “allow” “in addition” and “may”. There is nothing in this bill that uses compulsion or force or denies the respect that others may wish to pay to the other oath which is the normal one at this time. It is generous it creates space and opportunity it is gentle and offers choice and it is fundamentally positive and symbolic about an issue that we all claim to recognise symbolically in recognising the founding document Te Tiriti o Waitangi. And what does it commit us to? Is that the real fear? It commits us to recognising what Te Tiriti o Waitangi stands for which is a great opportunity for Pakeha and tauiwi katoa because as the Hon Tau Henare said it is our unique identity. It is what makes us wonderful in the world and it is what makes us hold our heads up and say that we are not at war. Since 1840 when Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed it has been a commitment to negotiation and dialogue. I do not know what people would prefer but I know that the Green Party would prefer that we were not at war and that what happened in 1840 was a declaration of peace and a declaration for continuing dialogue and negotiation. Otherwise what have we got as a nation? We have not got anything. What we have got is unfinished business and unfinished battles. 
Te Tiriti o Waitangi the Maori text—and that must be recognised. There is a principle called contra proferentem that recognises the Maori text—I always thought it sounded like “contraception”; I was not quite sure what it was—and it is an international way in which we recognise indigenous language texts. That is what Te Tiriti stands for. What this bill would do would be to allow some of us who have learnt about this—not sufficiently through our education system because it has failed to educate successive generations on this issue—to uphold what we truly believe is an opportunity for harmony peace and justice not only in this Whare but in every place where New Zealanders or new citizens or representatives take an oath or make a declaration. It is not threatening the foundation of the Crown. 
Many people are afraid that if we recognise Te Tiriti in this way it might somehow undermine the Crown and in no way does it do that. Many people who believe in republicanism think that we do not need the Crown but actually what Te Tiriti does is far more fundamental. What is disturbing about the rejection of this opportunity is that we should be applying this to all our work because it is a spirit that enriches us all as a nation and if we believe in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which the National Government upheld in theory it has to be seen in practice. It has to be implemented in reality. 
I have a bill that complements my colleague’s—it is the Citizenship (Acknowledgement of Te Tiriti o Waitangi) Amendment Bill which is in the ballot—which would ensure that all new citizens when they come to the ceremony have an opportunity to learn about Te Tiriti o Waitangi and to understand whose rohe they are in and who are the tangata whenua. It would allow mayors to decide how they do it and to actually acknowledge that. My bill is complementary to my colleague’s because rather than wait for the constitutional debate to reach whatever conclusion every day and in every way we need to stand up for Te Tiriti. This opportunity should be upheld and I want to honour Te Ururoa Flavell tonight. Kia ora tatou. 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First opposes the Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill. We think it is a piece of legislative nonsense. It would make no substantive contribution to actually upholding the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. New Zealand First understands the sentiments and why the Maori Party has proposed this but we suspect that it is not much more than a political stunt. It is not a bill to be taken seriously and we do not think for a moment that many New Zealanders would. However New Zealand First does believe that the Treaty itself certainly needs to be taken seriously and performed as a contract by the Crown. This bill will make absolutely no contribution to that concept whatsoever. 
I read the purpose of the bill and it states: “The purpose of this Act is to: (a) provide for any person taking a statutory oath to in addition to repeating the words of the oath elect to state that they will uphold the Treaty of Waitangi;”. The first thing that you note about that is that it is in addition to the oath. So this is something in addition to the oath. What is in addition to the oath? It is an election to state. So there is something different between the words of an oath and a simple statement. Is that intentional? It certainly is we think. What it means is that it is something less than the oath itself and that does not seem to be appropriate in an oath. People can of course and do make statements of support any time they wish and so they should but there is absolutely not one iota of reason why such a statement is appropriate in this particular oath. 
The oath is about upholding the laws of New Zealand and it is about loyalty to the head of State of New Zealand as a whole. It has got nothing whatsoever to do with contracts such as the Treaty of Waitangi or any other document. The point is this: in the law the Treaty is a contract between the Crown and the united tribes of New Zealand. So you would have to ask as a result of that how an individual person can uphold the Treaty when they are not individually a part of it anyway. It is utterly illogical for a person to swear an oath to uphold something that they have no power themselves to do. It is utterly ridiculous to put in such a thing when swearing an oath of this kind. 
Another point is this: it would be utterly meaningless for a person to do so because we do not even know what these principles of the Treaty are. We had one judge Justice Cooke who defined some principles then we had Sir Geoffrey Palmer while he was Prime Minister define another five principles but nobody yet knows which of these are—or whether others are—the principles of Waitangi. How can an individual in that circumstance swear to or make a statement to—and that is what they would actually be doing—uphold the principles of the Treaty when they do not even know what they are? So in practice it is unacceptable to add this even as an election. If it was appropriate to do so then why would it not also be appropriate to state that a person wished to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act the Magna Carta the United Nations Charter or even the constitution and rules of the Waipukurau rugby club or any other thing that somebody held dear? 
Finally this bill would degrade the oath itself. It would mean that we would be introducing extraneous and inappropriate words to the oath. It would take attention away from what the oath is really about and we think it would be disrespectful to New Zealand and to the head of State. This bill should not pass. 
LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Speaker. Ka whakaungia e au te Tiriti o Waitangi. What is so hard about that? What is so hard about having that choice as a member of Parliament elected by your constituents? In particular I want to draw reference to my constituency of Manurewa which has 28 percent Maori. What is so wrong about me being able to make an oath to uphold the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi? 
In fact being a member of the Maori Affairs Committee I want to acknowledge its chair the Hon Tau Henare I want to acknowledge Te Ururoa Flavell I want to acknowledge my colleague the Hon Parekura Horomia I want to acknowledge Rino Tirikatene and I want to acknowledge Louise Upston. We have just come back from a trip to Alice Springs. In Alice Springs we talked a lot about indigenous issues about indigenous peoples and about the status of indigenous peoples not only in their country but also in our country. We have a Maori Affairs Committee that actually acknowledges that we as the indigenous peoples of this country have a very special and sacred place within the institution of Parliament. Where does that come from? Where does that authority derive from? I would say the Declaration of Independence in the first instance which was our assertion of sovereignty. Maori are the first sovereigns of this country. We cannot change our history. The reality is that we have a Treaty of Waitangi and as a Maori Affairs Committee we are working to address the grievances of the past. 
To come into this House and say that there is no status of the Treaty of Waitangi is ridiculous. It is ridiculous given that we have a Minister of the Crown—the Hon Chris Finlayson—who is working through an incredible process of truth and reconciliation and that we can have a process that so far has expended $1 billion of Crown money to say sorry to our indigenous people. To then say that it is irrelevant and it is not already a constitutional document of this country actually is pretty immature I believe in terms of the debate we are having tonight. What I want to say is that Matthew Palmer in his book  
The Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand’s Law and Constitution 
 has said that “the Treaty of Waitangi is best understood as representing an explicit commitment to the health of the relationships between the Crown Maori and other New Zealanders.” I believe that Te Ururoa Flavell’s Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill enables us to actually realise this explicit commitment. 
I do not see anything wrong with us as members of Parliament being able to swear an oath on the Treaty of Waitangi our founding document when we have the honour of representing the people of New Zealand in this House. I do not understand why there is such resistance and why we have to wait for a constitutional review process to take place before some of us as adults as people who recognise and understand the history of this country and who want to acknowledge that the Treaty of Waitangi is the founding document of Aotearoa New Zealand can do that. And we do want to uphold. What does that mean? We want to maintain we want to affirm we want to defend and we want to give moral support and inspiration and lift up the Treaty of Waitangi to its rightful place. So I am here in support of this bill. I want to congratulate and thank my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell for bringing this bill to the House and for providing us as members of Parliament with an opportunity to actually recognise that we have a founding document of Aotearoa New Zealand. 
I also want to highlight that earlier this year there were 50 of the country’s brightest young people involved in the development of a draft constitution. They were law history and communications students. There was a forum facilitated by Dean Knight from Victoria University Law School. The group made it very clear that the Treaty of Waitangi should be central to a new constitution. There is a recognition already in our country about the status of the Treaty of Waitangi and all this bill seeks to do is to enable individual members of Parliament to affirm and to commit to upholding it. I note that the students wanted the constitution to be more visible modern bold and unique to New Zealand. Evident was the emphasis on Treaty values. They also wanted to rename the Prime Minister as Tumuaki. I have risen to support this bill. I want to again congratulate my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell on bringing it to this House. Kia ora. 
IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 This is the first time I have had the opportunity to speak in this House on a member’s bill. It has taken me nearly a year to get this far so it is a pleasure to be able to get up and speak on the Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill. 
When doing a little research on this I went back to the original Oaths and Declarations Act 1957. When you go back to the original Act and then you read the member’s bill in Te Ururoa Flavell’s name it really simplifies something that is quite complex legislation. I think that to move to a change like this needs a lot more discussion and a lot more planning than has gone into this process so far. 
I support the view that the constitutional review is the proper place for this type of discussion to take place. It allows us to chart our future. It allows us to do it in an orderly manner. I think that if we are going to make a change of this magnitude then the change needs to be made in a general discussion undertaken by all New Zealanders. I also think that if we are to get unity in this sort of approach then the voluntary or the optional approach to this is not the correct one. If you were to take this bill forward then I do not think it is right that we should necessarily have an option because I do not think that achieves the objectives of this bill at all or even the objective of the mover of this bill. So I think that if this bill is all about inclusiveness and unity then there should be no choice in this. This bill clearly gives a choice. Catherine Delahunty the Green member who spoke earlier talked about unity. I do not think there is unity when we give people the option to do something or not to do something. 
 It has taken us many years from moving even from swearing on the Bible to the option of simply making an affirmation in the— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Oh so we have a choice. 
IAN McKELVIE 
: We have a choice in that but that is a very different choice from some people being able to take it with them or some people not being able to take it with them. I think they both achieve the same thing. This does not achieve the same thing. It certainly achieves something— 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Why not? 
IAN McKELVIE 
: Because it allows people to be either in or out. I can imagine my wife swearing an oath using the Treaty of Waitangi and I can imagine me not doing that and I do not think that is how this thing will be planned properly at all. I do not think it makes any sense to proceed down this path. I think that as a country we need to have a much greater discussion on this and I think we need to do it in a manner that includes everyone’s opinion. 
The country has changed much in the last 160 years. I must say that some of the sentiments expressed in this House tonight point to that fact that the country has changed much. The make-up of the country has changed significantly in the last 160 years and I think that in dealing with these sorts of issues we need to account for the very different make-up that this country’s population has now from the make-up it had in the past. I look forward to that discussion. I think it is a great opportunity for us in the future. 
The last thing I want to talk about is the Treaty settlement process that has been undertaken and is currently being progressed in my view very satisfactorily under Minister Finlayson. It is making really good progress and I think it is probably the first time in 160 years that we have moved forward in a manner that I think is doing a lot of good for this country. In my own electorate in the Rangitikei I look forward to the Treaty settlement process being concluded because I think it will give rural New Zealand a significant boost. In saying that I look forward to the Treaty settlement process moving on with pace I also have to oppose this bill because I do not think either that it is inclusive or that it completes or gives us an option to achieve this in a manner that I think the country wants to move on. Thank you. 
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Mihi atu ki a koutou e te Whare. I am very proud to stand and wholeheartedly support this bill the Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill. I would like to at the outset mihi to Te Ururoa Flavell for bringing this bill to the House. Ka mihi atu ki a koe e te rangatira. This bill gives everyone the choice to add the words to their oath or declaration: “I will uphold the Treaty of Waitangi;” as an alternative ending. It is such a small measure and that is why I cannot understand why people do not want to support this because this is actually part of who we are as Aotearoa. This is what all of us Maori parliamentarians have been striving for mai ra no. To have these seven words added at the conclusion of our oaths and declarations should be a given. It should be inclusive of everybody. I would encourage everyone to really support this bill. It is disappointing to hear the remarks from New Zealand First and from certain members opposite because this is not denigrating or degrading the oath. It is definitely not a stunt. It is not about demeaning or not having any substantive merit. If anything it strengthens the conviction that we should all have when we come into this Parliament. 
I remember—well we are just coming up to our first anniversary shortly for us new members of Parliament—the excitement that we all had when we filed through here to deliver our oaths. We could elect to do either the oath or the declaration. We could also do it in Pakeha or Te Reo Maori so that has been progress. There has been choice in those two aspects. That is why I just say that this measure which gives the additional choice to add those additional words should be commended by this whole House. It is disappointing. I feel for my whanaunga there Tau Henare for being whipped into the position that he has to take with voting with the opposition. That is the nature of this place but it in no way demeans anything that he does because we know where his heart is. We know where his heart is and his conviction for our people and for the Treaty in terms of his whakaaro and his ngakau. So I mihi to him for his korero. 
I would just like to add: what do we mean by an oath? If I go back to my Sunday school days when I was a child the oath was a solemn agreement. It is important that when two people come to an agreement if you put an oath behind it you are witnessing and sanctioning that you are committed to do what you are saying you are going to do and you call on God to judge and avenge to dish out some punishment or a sanction if you do not do what you say you are going to do. That adds a bit of fire and brimstone to what you are agreeing to do. Likewise for those who do not want to go for the religious sanction well they can always opt for a declaration. But the main thing is that oaths and declarations are very important personal commitments that people make. The most important commitment you can make is to swear an oath. If we could broaden the oath to include the Treaty it would be great. It would show the progression that we have made as a country over the past 30 years. 
Eighty years ago in this very House my grandfather when he was an independent MP—he came in representing Southern Maori—presented a petition signed by 40000 Maori and Pakeha right throughout the motu seeking to have statutory recognition of the Treaty. We have seen great progression over the past 80 years and especially in the last 30 years with the modern-day Treaty settlement process. That is why it is very disappointing that the Government has signalled that it will not support this measure to give people the choice to uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi when giving their oath and declaration. I would just like to say one thing: Treaty settlements do not mean that Maori are going to go away. If anything it is strengthening Maori right throughout the motu and so maybe this bill might not be passed this time round but I can tell this House that in time progressive steps will be made. I tautoko this bill. Kia ora ano tatou. 
Dr JIAN YANG (National) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak in the first reading of the Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill. As previous speakers have already stated the purpose of this bill is to commit a person taking any oath set out in statute to elect to state in addition to the words of the oath that they will uphold the Treaty of Waitangi. The bill will insert into the Oaths and Declarations Act 1957 a new section 4B that will be in essence applicable to every person who takes an oath. This bill is flawed in that the Oaths and Declarations Act 1957 does not cover all oaths. Therefore it is not clear whether the provisions in this bill will affect other oaths that are not specified in this Act. 
Taking an oath or declaration is an important part of this country’s legal framework to which a standard national approach needs to be taken. This bill is not the right platform as the status of the Treaty of Waitangi is still evolving. A wider discussion should involve all New Zealanders. 
There will also be an issue of enforcement and confusion about what “upholding” would mean in practice. Making part of the oaths optional departs from the principle of uniformity that currently applies to oaths. The status of the Treaty in New Zealand’s constitution and the duties flowing from it are a matter for Government policy and so should be addressed in a Government bill and not in a member’s bill. Because of all these issues I will not be supporting this bill. Thank you. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Can I firstly thank those members who contributed to the discussion on the Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill. I have got to say that the arguments that I have heard tonight—my gosh they are wimpishly weak. I want to acknowledge Tau Henare for his courage in putting his korero out there tonight. I think he made an important statement when he said this is an opportunity to be different in the world. I support that and I appreciate his comments. He also said it is non-threatening—non-threatening. It is an option. You do not have to do it. You will not get banged on the head nothing like that. No no if you want to you can take it up. So I struggle with some of the discussion that has been made tonight. We can talk about the Treaty history all that sort of stuff but let us cut to the chase: that argument will always be there. What we are talking about tonight is a small statement allowed to be additional to what is already stated in our oaths and declarations—if a person wants to. Nothing more nothing less. The statement is: “I will uphold the Treaty of Waitangi;”. 
Some of the discussions that we have had tonight with respect are way off the mark. I talk to my colleague Louise Upston talking about the notion of having a constitutional discussion beforehand. That is happening but it does not have to be one or the other; it can be both and tonight’s opportunity would have been that. I appreciate the comments from Parekura Horomia and Catherine Delahunty in supporting this. Talking about New Zealand First well probably I will not spend too much time talking about those members because they do not do Maori very well at all—they do not do Maori very well at all. They do not do Maori seats even though they got in on the back of Maori seats. Sorry they do do Maori All Blacks. That is all right. I wonder why. So that is them. 
Mr McKelvie talked about needing discussion and planning. Goodness! This is a simple statement that allows a person if they wish—if they wish—to make a statement. Actually I would say this. In their heart of hearts from the discussion I have heard tonight members actually believe in their heart of hearts that there is no problem with this but they are bound—like Mr Henare—by the whole notion of being whipped. Planning and discussion around a five-word statement to be added to a statement that we have in this Parliament—I mean what is the big deal? Somebody is talking about magnitude of change. My goodness! Five words for goodness’ sake! Somebody else talked about the notion of choice. Well this is choice. 
Denis O’Rourke 
: It’s nonsense. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: It is choice. It is nonsense when you talk. We talked about Mr Tirikatene-Sullivan—Mr Tirikatene. I am sorry e Rino e taku he. I appreciated his comments as well about the historical nature of a desire from our people to have this statement and similar statements of it in this House. Mr Yang you talked about uniformity. There is no uniformity already. You have got a choice—oath or declaration—and within that here is another choice that you could take a part of if you wished. No compulsion—that is it. You talked about enforcement. When we come into the halls of Parliament we are already part of an enforcement regime which is why Hone Harawira could not go through this process this year. By adding five words he would have been—along with many others who wanted to follow this line—able to take up that opportunity. So we talk about consistency and yet we have oaths to the Queen to God and whoever else and yet on a constant basis we contradict that. We contradict that in this House. 
This statement if there was fear about there being a political motive to this I do not get it. There is no political motive to it. There cannot be because it is for those people who choose to take it up—no political motive pretty straightforward to allow some of us to take up that option. Sure there is a discussion to be had about the bigger picture about Treaty statements but I have got to say that it is with an element of heavy heart that I listened to the discussions tonight. For all the rhetoric about the Treaty of Waitangi in this country for us not to be able to have the courage and the commitment to add five words— 
Denis O’Rourke 
: It’s nothing to do with courage. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: —New Zealand First aside—to the declaration and oaths in this country is a sad day. It is a sad day when we cannot take up an opportunity even to take it to a select committee to allow the debate to happen. Surely—surely—at this point in time with the commitments made between political parties and indeed the founding document of our nation that we could not find the space to take it to a select committee of this Parliament it is a sad day for us. The balance is that Obama got in. The balance is that Tauranga Moana Maori are happy. The downside is that today tonight in this House at this point in time it is noted down in history that some people did not have the courage to follow it through for this bill. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 52 
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Maori Party 3; Mana 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 8; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Motion not agreed to. 
Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 I nominate the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider the bill. This bill is about keeping public library services free for all New Zealanders. The bill would make public library services a statutory obligation for councils and would make core library services such as borrowing and internet access free. We have a fine tradition in New Zealand of our local libraries. We were brought up with them our children visit them new migrant students and older people rely on them. If members have not visited their local library recently they should. They will find vibrant exciting and inclusive hubs of community learning and activity. 
I want to acknowledge my colleague Grant Robertson the original author of this bill. I was delighted to pick it up from him and even more pleased when it was drawn from the ballot. I also want to acknowledge the important role of the Library and Information Association of New Zealand—LIANZA—which has been advocating for legislation of this type for some time. Its members have been talking with their local MPs. I am sure many of you will have heard from these guardians of the taonga we call our local libraries. 
Who could ever imagine that our libraries could be at risk? Yet with the Government’s focus on local government cost-cutting increasingly strapped local authorities may turn their attention to library services and more charges. Despite what many New Zealanders believe our public libraries are not protected in legislation. Our current legislation only advises local authorities to ensure local residents can join libraries free of charge. We are out of step internationally with countries such as Australia the United Kingdom and Canada all of which protect free public library services via legislation. 
We are not meeting Unesco guidelines where public libraries in principle should be free of charge and the responsibility of local and national authorities financed by national and local governments. The Unesco Public Library Manifesto states: “The public library the local gateway to knowledge provides a basic condition for lifelong learning independent decision-making and cultural development of the individual and social groups. This Manifesto proclaims UNESCO’s belief in the public library as a living force for education culture and information and as an essential agent for the fostering of peace and spiritual welfare through the minds of men and women.” This bill will help New Zealand meet Unesco guidelines. It will address the issue of user charges and ensure that New Zealand’s public libraries are an essential component of any long-term strategy for culture information provision literacy and education. 
Over the last couple of months since the bill was drawn I have reacquainted myself with my local library. I have visited many other libraries and have found they are well attended and supported sometimes crowded with an important store of local and family history and exciting places of discovery. At the Auckland Central City Library students sit along the walls to access the free Wi-Fi. Others are curled up in chairs reading a book that is crucial for their study. Walk a bit further along and there is a bank of computers with people waiting to access them. They are there to access important information such as job seeking. The old days of advertisements in the paper are diminishing and now jobs are advertised on a range of internet sites including Government sites such as the Work and Income job seek site. If someone finds a job more likely than not they will have to apply online. It is almost impossible to do anything these days without access to the internet. Information about and access to Government services are increasingly available only through the web. 
The public library is a place that is open to rich and poor alike. Our library services should never be bound by someone’s ability to pay but that principle is at risk in these days of cost-cutting. Statistics show that the introduction of user charges results in lower usage of public libraries and this in turn directly impacts on our communities’ literacy outcomes. It adds to inequality by denying access to those who can least afford to pay. The introduction of user charges in New Zealand in the past has resulted in lower usage of public libraries. In August 2009 Hamilton introduced a fee of $10 per month for homebound customers and the numbers using this service halved. A series of charges introduced by the Rangitikei District Council in the early 2000s resulted in a 35 percent decrease in borrowing. These charges—[ 
Interruption 
] Well good question. These charges were removed in 2005 resulting in a steady increase in issues. In 1999 Ashburton introduced a charge of $1 per issue for all adult books that were under 2 years old. In 1988 Napier introduced fees for selected fiction books and magazines and that resulted in a 65 percent drop in borrowing. In the Ashburton and Napier cases after a huge public opposition the councils subsequently reverted to a free issues policy and that resulted in an increase in issues. 
Libraries are the holders of many precious collections. They are the storehouses of history. I am thinking here of the important George Grey collections in the public library in Auckland. Imagine these collections being developed and applied on a user-pays basis. Do we really want unbalanced profit-driven libraries that cater only for immediate popular choices rather than non-profitable alternatives? The landscape in which public libraries operated has changed significantly over the past few years. Rapid technological change has seen the rise of social networks e-books smartphones and many other mobile devices. 
The scale of that change is impacting on public libraries worldwide and countries are responding to change and that pressure in different ways. Some like Denmark are reinventing the library both physically and virtually into a vital national and community asset without which a community cannot think of itself as civilised. In the UK sadly some local authorities are responding to financial pressure by closing libraries or moving them to being run by community volunteers which has been a disastrous move. However other UK local authorities are reinvesting in libraries to ensure their continued relevance and value. As Singapore did 10 years ago China is now investing heavily in public library buildings and services to realise the economic and educational benefits they offer communities. 
Public libraries are vital community hubs. They connect people to their communities and they contribute to New Zealand’s sense of national identity. A well-informed educated population brings social and economic benefits to the whole country. Libraries help provide this with education employment and recreation opportunities. They provide the means for anyone to interact with the Government business and each other regardless of means or income. With libraries now playing an important role in bridging the digital divide for those without personal computers or other devices this bill will also ensure that no one is charged for accessing the internet via libraries in accordance with reasonable use requirements. 
I am sure that all members in this House will agree that libraries have a very important place in our society. Voting for this bill will entrench in legislation the role of free public library services for all citizens. It is a popular bill. It is a bill that surely we can all agree with. In finishing I want to quote that great feminist Germaine Greer who said: “A library is a place where you can lose your innocence without losing your virginity.” But she also said: “Libraries are reservoirs of strength grace and wit reminders of order calm and continuity lakes of mental energy neither warm nor cold light nor dark … In any library in the world I am at home unselfconscious still and absorbed.” So the question for the parties in this House is whether they support free public library services being entrenched in New Zealand legislation. It is not a radical idea. I urge parties to support this bill. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 This bill the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill is constitutionally confused it is fiscally flawed and it is awfully outdated. It actually says everything about how out of touch the Labour Party is with the modern challenges for New Zealand. It shows that the Labour Party is living in the past. Yes I accept that in the 1930s the local library was the pivotal access point for people to get information. The reality today is that ultra-fast broadband and the internet in which this Government is investing $1.5 billion is actually going to be far more important for access to information this century. 
The second thing is it is so nanny State. You see members opposite fundamentally do not trust locally elected councils. What they want to do is sit in their parliamentary offices and tell elected councillors what they must make free. 
The third thing about this bill is that it is fiscally reckless like so many things that Labour does. You know Labour knows so well how to spend other people’s money. You see everything that Labour members pride themselves on doing is coming to Parliament and making something free. Well I have got news for members of the Labour Party: somebody always pays. Whether it is the ratepayer or the taxpayer they cannot pretend there is not a cost for somebody. 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: Oh hang on—the Greens. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well we could take up the Greens. They say: “No there isn’t a cost. We just print money.” but this evening I am not going to go down that road. 
You see the basic point is this: do members on this side of the House think libraries are important? Of course we do. That is why we spent $70 million of public money on the National Library—$70 million. If you look at Vote Education there was over $100 million spent by this Government on providing libraries in our schools for children. 
It is absolutely proper that we in this Parliament have a say about how we spend taxpayers’ money but what this bill says is that we are going to overrule local councils and say that they must spend money on public libraries. They must make them free. I could recite even in this Parliament speech after speech after speech of local members opposite saying that we must trust local democracy. So I simply challenge the members opposite— 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: What about the regional council in Canterbury Nick? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: And I can hear Damien O’Connor poking his head up. Why does he not trust the Grey District Council to make the decision? Why does he not trust the Westland District Council to make the decision? Why does he not trust the Buller District Council to make this decision? You see members opposite cannot lecture this Government about local democracy and then when they come to their particular issue say: “No no no. Those services must be free regardless of what the local council might decide.” 
I also want to say how technologically illiterate this bill is. It again illustrates to this Parliament how much Labour is living in the past and not the future. I would love the next Labour member to explain this for me. Just down the road from the Nelson public library—in fact within 500 metres—I have got three internet cafes. They are little businesses; they employ people. Their businesses have been affected by a directive from the previous Labour Government that said that there could not be any charge for the public internet service even for international visitors and the consequence was a loss of jobs for those businesses. So my challenge to members opposite— 
Andrew Little 
: How many? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: How many? Mr Little challenges how many. I reckon there are about four or five people employed in each of those internet cafes. It is interesting—why is it that those internet cafes were started by private enterprise ahead of the public libraries? I will tell you why. Because private enterprise is innovative. It is able to move with the times more quickly. 
I ask members opposite what they have got against the provision of internet cafes Wi-Fi services and those other things? For instance why is it that this bill would make it illegal for my local library to charge a fee for a DVD? Do we really think it is such an offence that a library service right alongside Video Ezy or the local video store can also charge for a DVD? Do we really think Parliament has to pass a law banning a council from putting any charge on a purely entertainment DVD? Have Labour members become such a socialist society that they wish that DVDs were free under the great Labour Party vision that they have? I say not. I say this bill goes too far. 
I also want to challenge the member’s assertion that Unesco says that libraries have to be free. What a load of hogwash! What a load of hogwash! I challenge the member to tell us all those countries—whether it be the United States whether it be the Europeans—that have this sort of law on their books that have respect for Unesco. The Government’s own advice from officials is that the member is flawed in her assertions in that regard. 
Our local public libraries right through New Zealand have a very important service and role to play. They provide a damned good service which members on this side of the House respect. Even when I was listening to the member proposing this bill she struggled to find examples of a problem that would justify this bill. I noticed she remembered my colleague and the decision in Rangitikei which she then acknowledged a council had been democratically elected to change in 2005. So I say to the member opposite you are going to have to prove a lot better case for the wrong that you are trying fix for Parliament to override the decision of councils. 
This is a nanny State bill. This is a bill that is tied to books of the last century rather than the information age of this century. This is a bill that says that members opposite know better how to spend other people’s money than they do about how to create wealth. This is a bill that speaks volumes about the lack of vision of the Labour Party and how bereft it is of ideas for taking this country forward. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I call the honourable member Jacinda Ardern. As it is a 5-minute speech I will ring the bell at 1 minute. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 What an absolute outrage to have that ex-Minister Nick Smith stand up and tell this side of the House that a bill to try to preserve what should be a sacred thing and that is access to information via local libraries is an attempt to overrule councils overrule local government and gut their ability to self-determination. I find it utterly outrageous to have the former Minister who has tried to remove the four “well-beings” from local government’s mandate can now stand up and tell this House that our attempt to preserve something that should be sacred is an overriding of local government’s jurisdiction. That is a complete outrage particularly given that we have seen some examples in recent times of local government considering paring back some of the services around local libraries not because of choice but because of pressure—the kind of pressure that that Government is happy to place on local government with no qualms whatsoever. 
Bureaucracies are loading down local government and that means they are starting to have to make choices between essential services and for instance having to send out bureaucrats to individually one by one register trees Mr Smith. That is the kind of thing that that Government has decided is more of a priority than the kind of cost that we would like to see maintained within councils and that is the preservation of essential services. 
Nick Smith stood up and said this bill is constitutionally flawed. This bill is quite simple. It is about maintaining what the public would assume to be a natural right of local constituents anyway. Most people would be astounded to think that we would need to preserve in legislation free access to books and things like internet services. The ex-Minister also said that the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband was going to solve all the issues we have highlighted around access to the internet. That is absolutely untrue. He obviously has not heard of something called the digital divide and it is very real—so much so that it is actually measured as one of the enforced lacks. Unicef uses it as a way of demonstrating whether or not children are all getting the same start in life by whether they are able to access a computer and the internet. We know that that is an issue in New Zealand—we know it. Material deprivation enforced lacks has increased under this Government and now they think it is fine to allow a situation where this will get even worse and will not even put in a few measures to protect the odd free service via for instance preserving what should be sacred. 
In this party we recognise the important value of libraries—we always have. Norman Kirk a great Labour Prime Minister left school at 13. He educated himself via a local library. That side of the House may try to call those services antiquated. They are very much still the hub of our communities. I know that where I reside we have seen those services under threat even in recent times. Grey Lynn Library which was voted by users across central Auckland as the best library we have was recently threatened with closure as the council came under increasing pressure to cut services. 
The natural place that they go? Those quiet achievers; they look to our quiet achievers and they threaten them and yet those are the places that our parents go for playgroups and to take their children for story reading. It is where our job seekers go when they want to access a service that is a little more safe and secure than a Work and Income kiosk. It is where our students and our elderly go. [ 
Interruption 
] If they are safe why is it then that there was debate Simon Bridges in Tauranga about charging for general hireage? You would have to rent a book for $2 a go. We are not even talking about the best renters like  
Fifty Shades of Grey 
 Simon—I know you would be an avid reader. We are talking about the general checking out of books at $2 a go. If that side of the House thinks that is acceptable then fine vote against this bill but on this side of the House we want to preserve our libraries and that is why we are in full support. 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 You can only imagine yourself or oneself in the Labour Party strategy room and they are thinking— 
Maggie Barry 
: Scary. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: Well yes but in this instance we are going to go there and we are going to think “OK we’re going to oppose the commissioners coming in to do a good job and pick up after Environment Canterbury because we really want local democracy.” Then they move on to the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority post the earthquake and they say “It is really not fair of that bad National Government to take away local democracy.” Then you move forward a month or two and you go to the Local Government and Environment Committee and hear the submissions from councils fully backed up by their mates in Labour and they say “Taking away self-determination from local democracy—bad old National Government.” Then we have in front of us a bill the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill that does exactly that. So what does Labour want? Well I do not think Labour knows what it wants. 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: A new leader. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: Well yes Labour wants a new leader and it cannot even make up its mind about that. It is tearing itself apart as we speak. But we are now dealing with this bill in the name of Darien Fenton and all she is doing in this bill is shifting the costs. All those fine words about access to learning and access to libraries are all very well and crossing the digital divide and finding jobs is fantastic and finding shelter from the cold weather which is what they do in my part of the country is all very well but who is going to pay for it? Well under Darien Fenton’s “Labour-lite” world it is all going to be for free. Who is going to pay for it? Well not the ratepayers. 
So here we go. Let us have a look at the purpose of this bill. Clause 4 states: “The purpose of this Act is to amend the Local Government Act … to expand the public library services that local authorities are required to provide for free.” So if it is going to be for free who is going to pay for it? Let us just hold that thought for a minute because we will move on to clause 5: “Section 142 replaced”— 
Phil Twyford 
: Jacqui it’s called taxes. Hello Jacqui. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: Oh it is the taxpayers! The member from the other side of the House has now decided that the taxpayer is going to pay for local library services. Well let us ring up Local Government New Zealand and tell it that its Labour mates are now in favour of a complete takeover of local government by central government and that the taxpayer is now going to pick up the tab for library services. Let us just remember that thought. 
Let us go into new section 142(1)(a) which states: “the residents in the district or region of the local authority are entitled to join the library free of charge;”. Well hello here is some news Darien Fenton: they can do that already. It is already in existing legislation. So let us go to (b) and have another crack: “the library shall not charge any resident of the authority’s district or region for the use of library material including books non-print resources and digital information;”. Well who is going to pay? Who is going to pay for these services? Is it going to be free? Is it going to be the taxpayer as Phil Twyford is no doubt going to represent? Who is going to pay? Who is going to pay for these services if they are going to be for free? 
I just want to make one final point on this bill and I go to new section 142(2): “The National Librarian must present an annual report to Parliament on the implementation by local authorities of subsection (1) …”. Is that not fantastic? The National Librarian is now going to become the library police for the Labour Party. So not content with drawing money out of thin air—no should I say printing money because I suspect that is the only way they are going to be able to afford this policy—or printing money to give effect to this bill it is also going to make the National Librarian the library police for Labour so that it can go and check on local government. Here we have Darien Fenton and all this member is doing is shifting the cost. She cuts across all principles of funding of local government. This member should be ashamed of the ignorance she is bringing to this House. I do not support this bill. 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. I am pleased to speak on behalf of my colleague Gareth Hughes who is the Green Party’s library and archives spokesperson on this the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill. The Green Party will be supporting this bill in the name of Darien Fenton because we believe that everybody has the right to information and because in an increasingly unequal society due to the economic policies of this Government libraries are a place where everybody can have free access to information. This bill is not telling local councils how they should run their libraries; it is just enshrining that free right to read and to access books digital information and the other services that libraries provide. We value libraries because they are the storehouses of knowledge. They play a vital role in our communities and in the functioning of this Parliament in providing access to information and providing in our communities a gathering place. 
In Christchurch where we have not been able to access the library in Worcester Street post-quake it was a major cause for celebration when the new library opened opposite the old Christchurch Convention Centre in the old Vbase building. It is open it is clean and it is a place where children migrants and older citizens go because they can access books for free. This is why we support this bill. I would like to quote something that Carl Sagan said about libraries: “The library connects us with the insight and knowledge painfully extracted from Nature of the greatest minds that ever were with the best teachers drawn from the entire planet and from all of our history to instruct us without tiring and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. I think the health of our civilization the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.” 
Under the current Local Government Act local authorities that provide a library need to ensure only that local residents can join it free of charge. Those councils do not have to enshrine a right of free access. We have seen the growth of membership charges whether it is by rental for books or through other charges and that goes against the whole Kiwi culture. Kiwis love our libraries. In 2003 a survey of cultural activities and spending found that visiting libraries was the third most popular activity— 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: They love barbecues too; you’re not making them free. 
EUGENIE SAGE 
: Mr Bridges 39 percent of the population visited in a 4-week period. Around half of all New Zealanders are members of our libraries and in some places membership is at 80 percent of the local population. Another survey in 2009 by Kiwis Count found that 82 percent of people were happy with the services provided by their library—the happiest out of any council service. That is because New Zealanders value free access to books and library services. Where councils have attempted to put in place charges there has often been a strong resistance from the community and in places like Tauranga the council has had to retreat and not institute those book charges. And where those councils—like Ashburton as Darien Fenton mentioned—have put in place charges what has happened? Patronage of the library has declined. Where you put in place those user charges who pays? Who bears the brunt of those measures? It is people who can least afford to pay: migrants people on a benefit people on low incomes the people who would get the most out of free access to the libraries and getting access to books. 
This bill is a very useful one because it means that libraries have to ensure that books and the knowledge they provide is free. It is also a way as others have alluded to of bridging the digital divide because not everybody has a computer at home and by having free access to digital services we can get over that barrier. So it is a bill that we will be supporting because it is consistent with what done elsewhere internationally by not charging for books. 
NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
: 
 I am very pleased to speak on the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill. I want to start off by acknowledging the great job that so many librarians do around our country. I also want to start by acknowledging that in this Parliament we currently have a parliamentary inquiry into 21st century learning environments. I am not going to go into the detail of that inquiry except to say that I do not support this bill because I think there are rapid changes happening in terms of technology and information management and that what this bill does—although I acknowledge Darien Fenton the member who has put this bill to the House—is misguided. I think it is misguided for a number of reasons and I want to talk through them today. 
The first thing that I would like to say is that when we look across the country in terms of information management when we look across the country in terms of libraries in Grey Lynn versus libraries in North Shore there is a difference in practice so to provide a statute that puts things in place particularly even terms around charging for digital information and books will in my view legislate what may be outdated terms in a period of time. That is the first point I want to make. 
The second point that I want to make and it has already been made by a number of my colleagues is that to put these costs on local government and to say that every public library is going to be free is a very dramatic change and it is contrary to a number of other speeches that we have heard in this House. I want to touch on something that Eugenie Sage has already said. Yes there is an issue generally around access to information but that involves a range of policies the term “library” itself the role of the libraries in the future the role of libraries with regard to both public libraries and school libraries and the role of libraries in terms of broadband policy—these are all things that we have been considering as part of the select committee inquiry. But to prescribe those terms and to prescribe policies and to prescribe certain information management in legislation and say that every single local authority in the country will have free access around that in my view is a flawed piece of legislation. 
 I do want to say a couple of other things. Another thing I want to point out is that it is not just about the terms that are in the bill; there has also been an issue raised around UNESCO and its obligations under UNESCO. I do want to make the point that actually when you look in more detail at those guidelines the guidelines are in principle and I would think there is a very valid reason for that. That is that right around the world many countries are acknowledging that whether it is through the greater role that some school libraries are playing or whether it is through more online learning there are rapid changes in information management. My caution to this Parliament is that although this bill may have been well intentioned by Darien Fenton I cannot support this bill because I think that what is needed—and I know that we have got a parliamentary select committee looking at some of these issues—is a much more holistic approach to information management and the access to information. In my view I cannot support this bill for that reason. 
The other main point that I want to make is that Opposition members stand up and say to other members across this House that in some way we do not support information management and access to information when we are putting $1.5 billion—that is one of the greatest enablers in this country—into ultra-fast broadband. That is one of the greatest enablers particularly for disadvantaged communities. Many members in this House have heard of projects like Manaiakalani where we are seeing a huge uptake by Maori and Pacific kids. I am very proud of some of the policies that we are putting in place to enable disadvantaged communities to have access to information. This bill is flawed. It may be well intentioned but it is flawed and it does not take into account the rapid changing nature of both technology and information management in the world. Thank you. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill. This is a very interesting bill because the public libraries of this country are institutions in their own right. We all know of some of the great public libraries located around New Zealand and we have grown up with those public libraries in our towns in our villages in our cities and in our districts. They very much are the centre of many communities. As the explanatory note of this bill does say at the beginning: “Public libraries play an important role in our communities by helping New Zealanders to achieve access to information and entertainment. They also provide important community hubs.” That is very much the case. At this point in time New Zealand First will be supporting this bill because we feel that it does require scrutiny and it does need to go through to the Local Government and Environment Committee. 
We are very concerned about what is happening in local government in terms of the four social well-beings being taken away by this Government—in terms of the social cultural economic and environmental well-beings. Therefore if this Government is going to focus local authorities simply on rates rubbish and sewerage and take away many of the social and cultural responsibilities then perhaps our libraries could be threatened in the future. That is not to say that they would be immediately but they could be threatened in the future. That would be a sad day for many communities in New Zealand. 
I can recall an instance that we had on the North Shore where our Birkenhead Library unfortunately got demolished before there was a building and resource consent to replace it due to some error in the bureaucratic system. Unfortunately the lovely old library which had outlived its usefulness and was leaking like a sieve—the roof was leaking like a sieve— 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: This is a terrible story. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: It is a good story Simon if you listen to it. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! The member will use another member’s full name. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: The Hon Simon Bridges. When that building was demolished and was out of use for nearly 3 years the library had to use some temporary premises and it actually did affect the whole community in that the community lost its heart and soul. It lost its library it lost its meeting point and it lost the place where so many people came together. It did illustrate the fact that although many people who are perhaps not used to using libraries see them as a cost or a burden on ratepayers to a large percentage of the population they are actually an important community venue. They are somewhere they go to genuinely get enjoyment from reading but also to get important information for their own educational purposes. When that building was replaced in Birkenhead after about 3 or 4 years it absolutely rejuvenated that community by having that heart and soul back in the community. So it is important that those libraries are freely accessible are free to those communities and are able to be accessed without charges. 
We do have some reservations about this bill in terms of we do understand that councils have difficulties in necessarily providing DVDs and CDs and all that sort of thing because they can be expensive and they can be costly to stock maintain and replace. Therefore if this goes through to the select committee we certainly would be looking for more information on that because perhaps there is an appropriate nominal cost to try to cover those sorts of electronic fees for the likes of DVDs and CDs. Also in terms of the internet again we would not want to see libraries putting out of business local businesses that provide paid internet services. So there has to be a little bit of a compromise there a little bit of give and take. Sure you want your citizens to have access to the internet but the library certainly should not be in competition with local businesses. 
We certainly would like the Government to support this bill. Give it an opportunity to go through let it be thrashed out and let the people of New Zealand have their say on how they feel public libraries should be treated in this country in the future. Thank you. 
MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore) 
: 
 Light bulbs shower heads compulsion in the shower compulsion in the way we put light bulbs in—does any of this sound familiar? Is it bringing back the old failed polices of Labour lost? “Nanny Fenton” I am afraid has taken over. She is trying to exhume the Labour policies of old which have failed abysmally in the past and are coming over again. We have rejected that level of micro-management. It does not work. No charge for library services including books digital information and internet access. Prohibit libraries from charging. Compulsion and prohibiting—what good is that doing? Who are you shifting the burden to? Think it through. What good are you actually doing the wonderful libraries that are in this country? You are not doing anything about the problems that exist. So for example if someone takes out a DVD or a book and they damage it do the ratepayers have to pay? Does everybody but the person who does the damage have to pay? Sometimes libraries have to be able to charge a little bit. If they do that should be up to them and local government not you guys. Relinquish your hold on this— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
MAGGIE BARRY 
: You lost elections over it—not you of course Mr Assistant Speaker. I suspect in your case you would not really adhere to this sort of stuff. The Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill is a bill that lacks specific measures to prevent for example excessive use and monopolising of the internet resources. So you go into your local library and there is somebody sitting there at the internet hogging it hour after hour. There are no restrictions and there are no problems with it. There needs to be control. Local librarians and local organisations can sort this stuff out. You guys have enough trouble getting your leadership organised and getting your policies sorted. Frankly it is nothing much to do with you— 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member needs a little help in just remembering the convention about “you”. She has brought you into the debate several times. I think just a little bit of assistance would be useful for her. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Can I thank the honourable member for his remarks and point out to him that under Speaker’s ruling 27/5(2) the sole discretion is at the use of the Speaker. However the member should try to direct her comments to the House. Thank you. 
MAGGIE BARRY 
: Thank you very much. I think King’s College would regret the day that it graduated such a person but that is another issue altogether. 
We look at what is already an unnecessary piece of work. This Government is all about rolling out broadband so that it is available all around the country. Books and libraries are places of great tradition in New Zealand. I think that people in Government or in fact in their case on the Opposition benches in perpetuity should keep well clear of things that have not worked for them before. We do not support this bill for a whole lot of reasons. I certainly do not support it. 
I think of our Better Local Government reforms that other members opposite have tried to ridicule even though of course failed practitioners not elected even for Albany boards let alone for the mayoralty ought to take a cue from failed utterances in the past Mr Williams. But what we look at here is ratepayers. I am concerned that somebody sooner or later is going to have to pay. Rates have skyrocketed particularly on the North Shore where I come from. The Labour Mayor Len is very keen to pass on charges. The Labour Party seems quite happy to help him in this. Who pays? Really the dictates of this policy are ridiculous. I am surprised that it has come this far but there you go. That is democracy. 
I certainly do not support this bill in any way shape or form. I concede it is probably well intentioned but it is still a failed and implausible piece of stuff and I do not support it in any way shape or form. Thank you. 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 It is really lovely to be following the flower of the North Shore. That last speech was not so much a case of “spray and walk away”; it was more “spray and sit down”. It is clear that this bill the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill—this very fine member’s bill from Darien Fenton who seems to have a knack for pulling excellent members’ bills out of the ballot and this is just another one in the series—has touched a deep nerve in the National Party benches. It exposes what is a philosophical fault line in this House and that is that members on that side stand for user-pays and an individualism that is in stark contrast to those on this side of the House who stand for public provision and— 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: Community. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: —community. That is exactly right. It was the British Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee who said famously that taxation is the price of a decent society. I would say—to paraphrase Clement Attlee—that public libraries are an indicator of the health of a decent society. That is why Darien Fenton has brought this bill to the House. 
It should not surprise anybody here that the idea of ensuring of guaranteeing the public library as a place where anybody in the community has free and equal access to the information commons is extremely challenging to the members of the National Party. The idea that people should have free and equal access—free and equal access—to information is an idea that National Party members simply cannot get their heads around. 
It is worth remembering that the public library is an institution in our society that developed at the same time over the last couple of hundred years and alongside free universal public education. It developed at the same time as we extended the universal franchise in our society. It developed at the same time as we began to govern our towns our cities and our communities through democratic public institutions and not through private oligarchies. There is a reason. Those are all fantastic public achievements in modern history and they are all based on the understanding that free and equal access to information is the cornerstone of democracy. 
That is what it is about and that is why National Party members do not like this bill. They do not like the whole idea that anybody should be entitled to turn up to a public library and have access to information whether it is on the internet whether it is on a DVD or whether it is in a book. Nick Smith got up in this debate and poured scorn on Labour for supporting a bill that he said infringed the rights of local government. This is the man who has sacked Environment Canterbury who is in the process of stripping local government of its powers and purposes and he got up and tried to poke the borax at Labour for interfering in local government. That is such an absurdity. But the thing is that Nick Smith pointed to the internet cafe as the great institution in Nelson. I think that that actually perfectly symbolises the National Party’s idea of society—the user-pays internet cafe. 
Over this side of the House we champion the publicly available publicly provided library where any child in a town a city or a suburb around New Zealand can turn up at that library and have access through broadband internet and a collection of books magazines and DVDs to all sorts of information. That is the kind of society that Labour stands for and that Nick Smith and the National Party clearly do not understand. 
I want to finish by paying a tribute to the librarians of this country. They are a wonderful breed of people who are dedicated to service. They are dedicated to the community and to the sharing of knowledge. All over New Zealand tonight librarians from our public libraries will be watching this debate with interest. They will be appalled by the selfish narrow-minded philistinism that they have heard from the National Party tonight. May the rage of a thousand librarians rain down on the heads of National Party members. 
JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) 
: 
 I can see that the good people of Te Atatu are sitting at home tonight regretting the decision they made a year ago. They sent Phil Twyford here to do great things they sent him here to make big changes in the world but actually he came here to save them 50c for borrowing a book from their local library. That is what Phil Twyford is going to be known for after tonight if this legislation passes—50c at the local library. I want to know why Labour members are focusing on the big issues in this economy. We have got some issues to deal with. Their solution is printing money. Their solution is borrowing a whole lot more money and it is also about protecting libraries from the Christmas Grinch from the library Grinch who supposedly is raining down upon local government in New Zealand. 
Actually local government will continue to provide for libraries at a reasonable cost to its ratepayers like it has done for a long time. In fact if you look at the legislation that this Government is passing through the process around local government it actually talks about good quality local public services. I absolutely agree that libraries are part of a good local public services regime and that is why libraries in local authority districts around the country have been operating fairly well for a long period of time without the need for the socialists and without the need for the command and control economists sitting over there on the other side coming along and passing legislation to protect them from something that is just not even going to happen. Libraries in New Zealand provide a great role in local communities. I absolutely agree with that. But there is no need at all for this legislation—there is no need at all for this legislation. 
The explanatory note talks about public libraries playing an important role in our communities—absolutely—but swimming pools play an important role in our communities too. Are they now going to bring legislation saying that swimming pools should be free? What about museums? Museums play an important role in local communities. Why do they not have a bill saying that museums should be free? What about art galleries? What about hall hire? Local authorities do a huge number of things in our local communities that play an important role and that ratepayers and residents do value. Why are they not telling us they should be free too? It is because it costs money. They know that the ratepayers in New Zealand expect their local councils to look after their money sensibly. There is a cost to it too. There is a cost to it. 
I have looked through the Auckland Plan which details the budget. If the Labour Party legislation goes through in the form that it is written in then there will be ratepayers up and down Auckland who will be up for about an extra $5 million. There are ratepayers in Auckland at the moment who are moaning who are complaining and who are absolutely upset that the Labour Party member who is the Mayor of Auckland is proposing huge costs on them and we have got the Opposition on the other side wanting to impose even more costs on ratepayers. The Labour Party does not care about ratepayers. The Labour Party cares about ideological solutions to non-problems because this is a non-problem. There is no problem here at all. 
 I want to talk about some of the services that libraries do provide because libraries do legitimately charge for some of the more premium services. By premium services I mean the likes of DVDs. When Shane Jones goes to his local library and wants out to hire out a DVD then I would say that the local library should be quite within its rights to charge for it if it is a premium service that that ratepayer—maybe Shane Jones could be his name—wants to be utilising. What about CDs? If someone wants to go to their local library and hire out a CD I do not see why I should have to go to the local CD shop—I do not see why the local CD shop should have to have his business impacted on because the Labour Party wants to make CDs free in order—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! Order! Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. There has been far too much of this tonight. I have been quite lenient but the rules for interjections are predicated on the assumption that the person being interjected on has the call. There are members interjecting on each other rather than on the person who is addressing the House. That is not allowed. 
JAMI-LEE ROSS 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. If it makes the House feel any better I was actually quite enjoying his interjections. They are usually quite comical. 
Hon Member 
: They’re a lot better than Twyford’s. 
JAMI-LEE ROSS 
: They are a lot better than the ones coming from Phil Twyford anyway. 
If there are premium services that the library wants to provide and wants to charge a legitimate and small charge for that then they should be allowed to because there are businesses operating probably next door to the local library that will be having their libraries competing with them for free simply because an ideological solution from the other side has been passed through legislation. And the end result—the end result—of this legislation if it passes actually will be us seeing a reduction in services provided by libraries because if libraries and local authorities cannot charge for some of these more premium services they will simply stop providing them. That is what this legislation does. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 First of all I want to thank the colleagues in the House who made sensible and reasonable contributions to this debate. I am really glad that this bill the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill was drawn from the ballot even though it is very clear where the National Party is going with it because I think what it has done tonight is reveal the real agenda of the National Party. It has revealed those members’ real agenda around the local government reform. It has made it very clear that deep down in their hearts they do not like libraries they hate books they hate people having access to knowledge and they think people should pay for it. They think this should be about user-pays—never mind the people who cannot afford to pay. 
What we have heard from this Government tonight is if you do not have access to a computer—I mean if you do not have access to a computer because you cannot afford one broadband is no use to you. Broadband is no use to people at home if they cannot have it and yet we have this whole programme of e-government. It is all about information provision online by the government to the citizens of New Zealand but this Government wants to make sure that that is impossible. 
I am really looking forward to seeing and hearing about some of those members visiting their local libraries and seeing—what was the word you used about the librarians—the anger the rage of a thousand librarians raining down on them because it will. I think the attitude the sniggering and the sneering that has gone on from the Government tonight shows nothing but contempt for those people who work in our libraries who are committed to what is a public good. 
I have got a very very interesting question to ask the members of the Government. Are they prepared to cough up for user-pays for the Parliamentary Library? Are they—are they? Are you prepared to have the Parliamentary Library as user-pays? No it is a fair question. Silence. Silence on the other side. So it is fine for the citizens—for the poor citizens—to have to pay for their local library— 
Phil Twyford 
: Who pays for the Parliamentary Library? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well who pays for it? Good question. Yes it is a very— 
Hon Member 
: That shut them up. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well it did. It absolutely shut them up. 
I thought Nikki Kaye made an attempt at least of making a contribution. I know that she has chaired an inquiry into the digital future of New Zealand and I do know that the Library and Information Association of New Zealand has made a submission on the digital divide—a very very important submission. I am looking forward to Nikki Kaye on her next visit to the Auckland Public Library when she trots along and wanders around showing her support for the library and gets her photo in the paper and all the rest of it—she has just lost the library vote. She has lost the library vote and there will be other members who will be in that same situation. 
There is an old saying that it is well known that libraries are dangerous places. Libraries are dangerous places because they actually help people challenge themselves learn new ideas and actually possibly challenge the status quo. How dangerous is that? This Government wants to shut this down. It does not want the dangerous places called libraries. It does not want ordinary people to have access to knowledge and information and information on the internet because by keeping them shut out of information it can make sure that it controls the future. 
Well I have got news for the Government tonight. This is not the end of this bill. It may be voted down by those members but I can tell all of you in the House that this is not the end of the matter. The librarians of New Zealand will continue to mobilise around this. The citizens of New Zealand and the communities of New Zealand will mobilise around it. They will be outraged when they hear about the appalling speeches from the members of the Government tonight. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Local Government (Public Libraries) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 60 
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Maori Party 3; Mana 1. 
Noes 61 
New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Motion not agreed to. 
Land Transport (Admissibility of Evidential Breath Tests) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I move  
That the Land Transport (Admissibility of Evidential Breath Tests) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 I nominate the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to consider the bill. When this House first passed into law the Land Transport Act back in 1998 it established a strict and prescriptive regime around the evidential breath test and blood testing of drivers suspected of driving while under the influence. 
The legislation has been intensively scrutinised by the courts over the years. Those charged with excess blood-alcohol levels often engage lawyers to test probe and nullify the technical aspects of the law in attempting to avoid conviction. The case law around this area is extensive. It is complicated and it provides in my opinion far too many opportunities for escape from conviction resulting from what most ordinary Kiwis would call legal loopholes. I am delighted therefore that the Minister of Police the Hon Anne Tolley has recently ordered that the Police should come up with a better system for testing drunk drivers because there are too many escape routes. I applaud that review and I will look forward to the outcome of it in due course. 
Today there are still too many people escaping prosecution and it is the closing off of one of those escape loopholes that my bill seeks to address. My Land Transport (Admissibility of Evidential Breath Tests) Amendment Bill will remedy a small but significant oversight one not contemplated by the House when it passed the principal Act back in 1998. My bill amends the Land Transport Act to broaden the circumstances where a positive evidential breath test is admissible evidence in seeking a prosecution under the Act. 
Under section 77 of the present law a positive breath test is not admissible in evidence if the suspect has elected to have a blood test subsequent to having blown a positive evidential breath test. Section 70A confers the right of an accused drink-driver having produced that positive evidential breath test to request that a blood test be taken. The accused driver has 10 minutes in which to make that decision. However the law is very specific and once a decision is made to elect to have a blood test taken at that moment the preceding evidential breath test is no longer able to be used in evidence in any subsequent court case. That is section 77(3)(b). Under the law the test is statute barred. 
The principal Act assumes that once the option to elect a blood sample has been exercised by the accused drink-driver blood will in fact be available to be taken from the accused drink-driver. The principal Act simply does not contemplate a situation where the particular medical or personal physical characteristics of the accused mean that a blood sample may not be able to be drawn from that person. 
The Act is actually silent on what is to happen when a blood test is elected but a sample cannot be collected because a medical officer is unable to obtain a sample. But the Act does make it clear that once a blood test has been nominated the previous evidential test is no longer admissible. The original intent of the legislation obviously was to provide statutory clarity that once obtained the blood test should have evidential precedence over the earlier breath test. So let us consider when it may be for instance and under what possible circumstances it would be that a blood sample perhaps may not be available from an accused drink-driver. 
A recent Rotorua District Court case the  
Police v Childs 
 heard before Judge M A MacKenzie in just July of this year provides an absolutely excellent example of the situation my bill seeks to remedy. There the defendant Childs who was positive for hepatitis C and also an intravenous drug user of many years was apprehended by police and underwent a breath-screening test that returned a result of 400 micrograms. He then underwent an evidential breath test that returned an even increased result of 655 micrograms. He was then advised of his right to a blood test and of course he immediately accepted it. As the tourniquet was applied Mr Childs taunted the medical officer by saying “Good luck” and smiling. Three attempts later made over 40 minutes the medical officer was simply not able to locate an appropriate vein and no adequate blood sample was obtained from Mr Childs. Years of intravenous drug use had more than taken its toll on the veins in his arms. 
Judge MacKenzie examined in detail existing case law around this area. I commend members to take the time to read her very good judgment which sets out in clear detail why my bill is required to remedy the situation where following two positive breath tests Her Honour was forced to by statute dismiss the drink-driving charges against Childs. Childs literally got off scot-free. 
The judge said and I quote directly from the judgment: “It is accepted that there is no specific statutory provision which addresses the situation where a blood sample is not in fact collected on the basis that the medical officer or practitioner has been unable to obtain a sample such as in Mr Childs’ case. I am acutely conscious of the need and importance of accountability for drink-drivers. The frustration in this case” said the judge “is that Mr Childs clearly contravened the sprit of the legislation given the evidential breath test result and in that sense is evading responsibility for his actions of drink-driving and the consequences of it.” The judge went on to say: “A statutory amendment would be required to address the unusual circumstances such as Mr Childs’ where blood cannot be taken for medical reasons.” This bill provides that statutory amendment. 
 I was pleased to hear from Mike Noon on behalf of the Automobile Association say that the Automobile Association supports the intent of this bill. It will be suggesting to the select committee that the words “any reason” be narrowed slightly to identify that the reason should be of a medical nature. Doing so would of course prevent a situation where for instance no testing equipment or no testing officer was available thus preventing a blood sample from being taken. That is a matter very appropriate for consideration by the select committee and it is a suggestion I am more than happy to explore. I certainly appreciate the support of the Automobile Association. 
I note that the Attorney-General has tabled a report on my bill under section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The nub of the report from his officials is that my bill would in some way infringe upon the rights of a person to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Nothing could be further from my intention in moving this bill. The purpose of this bill is to entirely confirm the previously very clear intention of this House that driving under the influence of alcohol is both legally and socially unacceptable and those who do should after evidence beyond reasonable doubt has been established in a court of law be held accountable for their actions and accept the full legal consequences of those actions. 
My bill does not remove the presumption of innocence. It merely provides that should blood not be available for testing then the police shall be permitted to introduce into evidence before a court of law the evidential breath test taken prior to the nomination of a blood test. It would absolutely of course still be up to the police prosecutors to prove their case to the satisfaction of beyond reasonable doubt. That is the measure of all criminal convictions within our judicial system. I respectfully disagree with the views expressed by the Attorney-General’s officials. In so doing I remind honourable members that it is Parliament this Chamber itself that is master of its own legislative-making capacity. 
So in conclusion this bill seeks to remedy a loophole not anticipated when the principal legislation was enacted. It is an amendment that will impact on people such as Mr Childs who do not and cannot currently accept responsibility for the consequences of their drink-driving due to an omission and an oversight on behalf of this House in the principal Act. 
I would like to acknowledge and thank my colleague the senior Government whip Michael Woodhouse for his help support and guidance with this bill. The genesis of this bill was his and arose from a previous court decision where similar circumstances to the  
Childs 
 case prevailed. I look forward to the select committee consideration of the bill and to progressing the bill through the House. I thank honourable members for its favourable consideration. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 Let me say at the outset that we in the Labour Party seek to be a constructive Opposition and to work with the Government where we can on legislation so we will support this legislation the Land Transport (Admissibility of Evidential Breath Tests) Amendment Bill going to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Having said that we concur with the view of the Automobile Association that the bill as it is worded currently is too broad and we would also want to see some amendment to those final words in the bill “for any reason”. We would need to see amendment to that and also consideration of the Attorney-General’s report before we could support it any further but we do look forward to the debate and the consideration at the select committee. 
Clearly it does seem inadequate that where an evidential breath test finds or suggests that someone is over the drink-driving limit there appears to be a mechanism by which a small number of people may be able to avoid prosecution. It is important to reinforce I think that we are dealing with probably a very small number of people—in fact I believe that the member in charge of the bill Scott Simpson cannot tell us exactly how many people might be captured by this legislation. Therefore we wonder whether this really is a significant issue that is so desperately in need of attention. In fact the member suggested that there are many ways to avoid prosecution for a charge of drinking in excess of the limit. If that were the case then surely this should be a Government bill that addressed all of those issues. We wonder on this side just how significant the problem is. 
I have to look at some of the language that Mr Simpson has used around this issue. He cited the case of a defendant who was apparently hepatitis C positive. I do not know what that has to do with anything. I do not know why Mr Simpson felt the need to bring that fact into the debate at all. That person was also an intravenous drug user. I read in the newspaper Mr Simpson referring to this as an issue that was pretty much specifically designed to capture people who are intravenous drug users. In fact he has not offered any other reason why it might be difficult to take blood from someone. There are a range of reasons why it may be difficult to take blood from somebody. One is being overweight another is stress. At a time of stress the body actually withdraws the blood from the limbs—the arms the legs—back towards the vital organs and the brain. It is the fight or flight response. It is quite a normal thing to happen and indeed if someone were found to be driving over the limit it is probably fair to say that that would be a stressful situation and that fight or flight mechanism may kick in and it may be difficult to draw blood from these people. But these situations have not come up in Mr Simpson’s discussion at all. He has focused this solely on a group of people whom I suspect he deems to be less worthy of a reasonable hearing before the law. Because they are intravenous drug users he has decided that they are somehow less worthy before the law. 
You have to wonder exactly what it is that is driving Mr Simpson here or why he has used that language. Maybe he is trying to convince the good National voting people out there that this will not affect them somehow because this is directed at a very narrow group of people and not at them. I do not know. Mr Simpson might be able to enlighten us as to why he has used the particular language that he has but that is up to him. Suffice it to say that there are a number of reasons why it might be impossible to draw blood. 
I do want to say though that we must be mindful of the Attorney-General’s report. Mr Simpson referred to it as the Attorney-General’s officials’ report. I think that is unfair on the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General’s signature is on this. I know John Banks has set a new standard for signing documents and whether or not you are supposed to have read them before you sign them but I take the Attorney-General’s signature on there as this being something that he has not only read but something that he supports. So this is the Attorney-General’s report and we do have to be mindful of it. In fact if the Attorney-General were to offer his thoughts in this debate that would be welcome on this side of the House. But we do need to be mindful of what the Attorney-General said. 
I find it ironic that this Land Transport (Admissibility of Evidential Breath Tests) Amendment Bill is being promoted by a National Party member. It is being supported by the National Party and it will get I am sure the support of the governing parties tonight as well as some of the Opposition parties when it will have such a small impact on the road toll and the harm caused by drink driving when in the same breath those parties will refuse to support lowering the drink-drive limit from 0.08 to 0.05. That is a measure we know is evidence-based and will have a significant impact on the harm on the roads caused by alcohol. The Ministry of Transport has provided evidence to the Minister of Transport that it will reduce the number of people killed on our roads every year by up to 30. Up to 30 lives can be saved every year if the Government would just accept the advice of its own officials and would follow public opinion. Eighty-five percent of New Zealanders support lowering the drink-drive limit from 0.08 to 0.05 which international evidence tells us not only has an impact on the people who drive with a blood-alcohol limit of between 0.05 and 0.08 but also significantly reduces the number of people who are heavily intoxicated who get behind the wheel drive their vehicle cause accidents and kill people. 
Hon Member 
: How? 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: I heard the word “How?” from the far side there. The evidence is actually quite clear and quite simple. It is quite simple. A limit of 0.05 requires people to make a decision about whether or not they get behind the wheel much earlier in the process of consuming alcohol because once they get over 0.05 but are below 0.08 they lose the capacity to make a sensible decision about whether or not they should get behind the wheel. It is as simple as that. The evidence supports it. The evidence that the Minister was given supports it. Public opinion supports it. It is what people want. It is the right thing to do. It will save lives and yet this Government will not do it. What it is doing instead is a piecemeal piece of legislation like this which is fine in and of itself but it is meaningless in the grand scheme of trying to reduce the road toll and trying to reduce the harm caused by alcohol and the harm caused by drink-driving. It is in fact from the language used by Mr Simpson being used to isolate some members of our community and further divide our community which we know this National Party is so very very good at doing. 
So although we appreciate that there is probably some positive motivation behind what Mr Simpson is trying to do and although we appreciate that there is an inadequacy in the law which we will work with the Government to tidy up we think there are much larger issues that need to be addressed and could be being addressed by this Government if it was actually prepared to do the right thing and address the harm caused by alcohol on our roads with a piece of legislation that would actually make some difference. 
Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Consumer Affairs) 
: 
 It is great to follow King’s College old boy Iain Lees-Galloway who is now we know a social campaigner. It is great to see someone sticking up so staunchly for intravenous drug users a group that has not been stuck for before. That is one interpretation. The other interpretation is that that party is so low in the polls that those members are looking for any interest group to support them. That is probably the interpretation that I would go with. 
No one is saying Mr Lees-Galloway that this is the biggest issue that has ever come before this House. No one is saying that. The member Scott Simpson himself should be commended for finding this issue—it is a discrete issue it is a narrow issue but in its way it is an issue that should be remedied and there is a problem here. We understand that the evidential breath-testing happens then there is a 10-minute rights period and then we go to the blood test. I have no experience of that test; some members in this House may do but I have none. But there is a real problem here. There is a real problem. We understand that some 10 years ago the law reinstated the right for blood tests for all drivers and to compensate for that and for the removal of the right of drivers to challenge the accuracy of the evidential breath test we have got the problem here that has arisen and that the member Scott Simpson has brought to this House because case law has made it clear that it needs to. 
This bill aims to close a loophole whereby a small select group of drunk drivers are able to avoid prosecution. The truth is Mr Lees-Galloway it is a small number of people. It will basically be just intravenous drug users where they cannot have blood taken from them because the vein cannot be drawn from. 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: That’s one reason. What about the other reasons? 
Hon SIMON BRIDGES 
: There may be other reasons for it as well but that will absolutely be the issue that is coming before the courts and the case law tends to indicate that. So if a person complies with the blood-taking process and they cannot be prosecuted— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. Honourable members the time has come for me to leave the Chair. 
Debate interrupted. 
The House adjourned at 10 p.m.