Volume 684 Week 24 - Tuesday 25 September 2012 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Volume 684 Week 24 - Tuesday 25 September 2012 
[Sitting date: 25 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5557. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Tuesday 25 September 2012 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Speaker’s Rulings 
Bills Members’—Preliminary Ballot 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Honourable members on Thursday last week the senior Labour whip raised a point of order about the preliminary ballot for members’ bills that are the same or substantially the same. Standing Order 277 provides for a ballot to be held when fewer than eight orders of the day for the first readings of members’ bills are available for consideration. If the Clerk receives notices of proposal for two or more bills that are the same or substantially the same in substance the notice to be entered in the ballot is determined by preliminary ballot conducted by the Clerk. The purpose of the same question rule is to promote effective use of House time by preventing a proposition having the same effect from being brought up again. Speaker’s ruling 103/1 establishes the principle for questions that are the same or substantially the same and that is “having the same effect”. 
The senior Labour whip raised whether two bills that seek to achieve the same outcome but by different means are in fact the same in substance. Each case has to be judged on its merits. It is possible that the policies proposed to achieve an outcome could be so different as to merit the House allocating time to consider both proposals separately. In such circumstances the scope rules may provide useful guidance. If the difference between the policy proposals is one that could be bridged by an amendment that is within scope then the bills can be considered substantially the same. In such a case the proper course is for a preliminary ballot to be conducted. Should the successful bill be introduced the member responsible for the unsuccessful bill would be at liberty to propose an amendment to the introduced bill addressing the proposal in his or her bill. 
Questions to Ministers 
Dotcom Case—Actions of Government Communications Security Bureau 
1. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Minister responsible for the GCSB 
: Does he consider that he should have been informed about the unlawful bugging of Kim Dotcom earlier than Monday 17 September 2012; if not why not? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Minister responsible for the GCSB) 
: 
 No. I was informed by the director of the Government Communications Security Bureau on 17 September which was the first day I was in Wellington following travel to Russia and Japan and the first opportunity I had to meet with the director in a secure environment once he had confirmed that it was likely an unlawful activity had taken place. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Is it his understanding that the bugging was unlawful because Mr Kim Dotcom is a resident of New Zealand? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I am not in a position to go through what the particular issues are. I can say that the law is quite clear in one regard about what sort of individual can have action taken against them and in the fullness of time—hopefully by the end of this week—Justice Neazor’s report will be available for people to be able to read. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Am I to understand that the Minister is using a public interest defence for not answering the question? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think the Prime Minister answered the question. He said he is not in a position to answer it and I think that one has to take a Minister at their word. That is a pretty honest response to a question if he is not today in a position to answer it. I think the Prime Minister indicated that by the end of the week information should be to hand that will enable some of these answers to be available. But the House does have to take the Minister at his word. If he says he is not in a position to answer it then he is not in a position to answer it. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister has already gone public saying that it was unlawful. What he is being asked today is to further detail the nature of the unlawfulness not being discovered—namely that he was a resident. But he has already been publicly out there in numerous media outlets having said that the action was unlawful. That is why he sought the inquiry. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not a— 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Mr Speaker speaking to the point of order— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will hear from the Prime Minister but that was not actually a point of order for the House. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I have to check; I am not entirely sure. I have actually said it is likely to be unlawful and as I said we will be in a better position to understand the reasons— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! This is the trouble we get into when I allow a point to be heard that is not a point of order. We are now getting into debate over the Prime Minister’s answer and it always leads to difficulty. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Given the widespread media coverage that suggests the reason it was unlawful was that Mr Dotcom is a New Zealand resident is he seriously trying to tell the House that the Government Communications Security Bureau was unaware that Mr Kim Dotcom was a New Zealand resident when it has been in every media outlet in the country and Mr Dotcom organised a $500000 fireworks display to celebrate getting his residency? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: The fireworks are an irrelevance but the memorandum has been released by the court today. That may help the member get some understanding of the issue but as I said to him earlier in the earlier answer to the question I would be cautious about jumping to conclusions until the member has a chance to read Justice Neazor’s report which I myself have not read. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Referring to the memo released from the court which says that the Government Communications Security Bureau sought an assurance from the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand as to the fact that Mr Kim Dotcom was not a resident of New Zealand or a citizen is he seriously trying to tell New Zealand that the Government Communications Security Bureau the organisation whose job it is to acquire information could not find out that Mr Kim Dotcom was a New Zealand resident given that it was in every newspaper in the country and Mr Kim Dotcom had a fireworks display to celebrate his residency? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: The issue at heart is about the legality or otherwise of the position and as the memorandum says assurances were given about that legality. But Justice Neazor’s report I am sure will give us the rationale behind why that assurance was given. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister has just referred to the memo and he has now allowed us to— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! What is the issue of order the member—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! I will let the member explain his issue of order. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: The issue of order is around the Prime Minister’s refusal to answer the first supplementary question. He has now referred explicitly to the issue of concern that he refused to answer the question about. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member should think of the question he asked. The question he asked from my recollection was whether the Prime Minister was trying to say to New Zealand that the Government Communications Security Bureau did not know certain information. The Prime Minister in answer has explained that the bureau did have certain information the detail of which is not fully available yet and when it is available from my understanding of the Prime Minister’s answer it will be made public. But the member’s question was one where there was no particular answer. When his question asked “Is he trying to tell New Zealand …” what the Prime Minister has answered is what he is trying to tell New Zealand—that in fact there are legal issues and they are a little more complex than that. That is a perfectly proper answer. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Does the Prime Minister accept that the court documents to which he referred in his earlier answers state very clearly that the Government Communications Security Bureau sought assurances from police that Kim Dotcom and his co-accused were foreign nationals and hence it was lawful for the bureau to spy on them and hence the issue at concern was whether Mr Kim Dotcom was a New Zealand citizen or resident? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I accept that that is what the memorandum says yes. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Does the Prime Minister hence come to the conclusion that either the Government Communications Security Bureau was incompetent in not checking whether Mr Kim Dotcom was a New Zealand citizen or resident or the bureau misled the responsible Minister because it did not tell him much earlier that it had acted unlawfully? Is it incompetence or did it mislead him? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I believe neither of those assertions to be correct. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: How can the Prime Minister argue that neither of those assertions is correct when either the Government Communications Security Bureau the agency responsible for collecting information did not realise that Kim Dotcom was a New Zealand resident in spite of all the information—that is one option; it is incompetent—or it did not tell the responsible Minister that it had acted unlawfully? What is the third option? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: The third option is the Neazor report. The member is jumping to conclusions without all of the information. He is joining dots that actually cannot be joined. 
Economy—Competitiveness 
2. 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What measures has the Government taken to improve the long-term competitiveness of the New Zealand economy? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 The Government has taken a number of measures including reforming the tax system to reduce tax on work savings and companies and increase tax on consumption and property speculation improving regulations and reducing unnecessary costs on business and progressing our business growth measures that focus on exports innovation skills infrastructure capital markets and the use of natural resources. Last week I signed a new policy targets agreement that sets out specific targets for price stability helping to create a stable macroeconomic environment suitable for growth. 
John Hayes 
: What are the main features of the new policy targets agreement that will contribute to a more competitive economy? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The agreement continues to require the Reserve Bank to keep CPI inflation between 1 to 3 percent on average over the medium term. Within this target the new agreement now requires the bank to focus on keeping future average inflation near the 2 percent mid-point. In addition the policy targets agreement includes a stronger focus on financial stability by including asset prices in the range of indicators that the bank monitors. As with previous agreements it requires the Reserve Bank to seek to avoid unnecessary instability in output interest rates and the exchange rate. 
John Hayes 
: What lessons are there for New Zealand from international attempts to intervene in currency markets in the hope of creating more competitive economic conditions? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: A Reserve Bank paper published earlier this year looks at interventions by the Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank and their relevance to New Zealand. It notes that economic conditions are quite different in New Zealand from Japan and Switzerland. Both of them have experienced deflation recently partly due to their strong currency appreciation. New Zealand has not. New Zealand has in fact experienced an increase in its terms of trade contributing to upwards pressure on the exchange rate. Switzerland and Japan have been forced to attempt to lower their currencies in order to ease monetary conditions. In New Zealand we could just lower interest rates if we want to ease monetary conditions. 
John Hayes 
: What specific lessons can New Zealand draw from the results of currency market interventions by Switzerland and Japan? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Reserve Bank paper confirms that the currency market interventions are expensive and they do not have a lasting impact. It notes that currency interventions since 2008 have largely resulted in financial losses for the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of Japan and they have been ineffective in lowering their currencies. Since the beginning of 2008 despite the efforts of the Swiss bank to keep its currency down it has actually appreciated 27 percent against the euro and 15 percent against the US dollar. In Japan the yen has appreciated 29 percent against the US dollar and 37 percent against the euro. 
Hon David Parker 
: Which of the following measures is the best indicator of the competitiveness of the New Zealand economy: 53000 people a year leaving for Australia large job losses for exporters and local manufacturers competing against imports or an overvalued exchange rate leading to increases in New Zealand’s net international liabilities? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: There are any number of ways of measuring competitiveness but in the long run it will be the profitability of our export sector which was damaged pretty severely in the first decade of this century. We are working hard to restore it. Unfortunately it is taking some time and there are some international headwinds such as for instance the large drop in coal prices recently that has hit Solid Energy. 
Government Communications Security Bureau—Briefings Since November 2008 
3. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: How many times has he been formally briefed by the Government Communications Security Bureau by year since November 2008? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 My diary indicates that I have been formally briefed by the Government Communications Security Bureau the following number of times by year since 2008: twice in 2008 15 times in 2009 11 times in 2010 10 times in 2011 and 15 times in 2012. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why was he not briefed by the Government Communications Security Bureau about who would be involved in the raid on Kim Dotcom given the involvement of the Government Communications Security Bureau the New Zealand Police and an American agency so that he could be aware that the Government Communications Security Bureau had met with Crown Law the police and US authorities 2 months before the January raid on Dotcom’s residence? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: The activity in question did not require a ministerial warrant and I am not briefed on operational matters on every operation it undertakes. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: When was he first briefed about the ministerial certificate that his Deputy Prime Minister signed on his behalf? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Last night. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Rt Hon Winston Peters—[ 
Interruption 
] Does the member wish to ask a further supplementary question? 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: No thank you very much. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: My apologies. 
Dotcom Case—Government Communications Security Bureau Actions and Prime Minister’s Statements 
4. 
DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he stand by all his statements in relation to Kim Dotcom and the inquiry into the actions of the Government Communications Security Bureau? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. I stand by my full statements in the context in which they were given. 
David Shearer 
: Does he stand by his statement that he first heard of Kim Dotcom on 19 January 2012 the day before the police raids on Dotcom’s residence? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes. 
David Shearer 
: Is he expecting us to believe that that was the first time he had heard of Kim Dotcom given that there was an extradition order for Kim Dotcom from the highest authorities in the US that his Ministers—Minister Williamson Minister Power and Minister Coleman—had dealt with him that the New Zealand Police the Solicitor-General Crown Law and the US had given substantial assistance up to that raid that the media had been reporting on him and that his own agency the Government Communications Security Bureau had been investigating him? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: That is the truth. 
David Shearer 
: Does he stand by his statement when he said he did not know about the ministerial certificate Bill English signed on 16 August as Acting Prime Minister and is he therefore telling the House that Mr English did not ring him and tell him did not brief him on it when he returned sat through an entire Cabinet and did not mention it to him and told him about it only after the press conference yesterday? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: In relation to all the earlier points yes except that the latter point is incorrect. My agency informed me about the last point. The reason for that of course is that the ministerial certificate was simply a certificate around a suppression order that was—[ 
Interruption 
]—oh Jesus—granted by an application of the court. The reason why that would not be an extraordinary item is that it is quite normal for the activities of the Government Communications Security Bureau and SIS not to be entered into the public domain for good public interest reasons. 
David Shearer 
: In light of that and in light of the seriousness the situation is in now does he have confidence in his Acting Prime Minister at the time Bill English? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes. It has been a longstanding practice for Government Communications Security Bureau and SIS activities not to be in the public domain for good public interest. That was the policy that Helen Clark followed—that was exactly the policy that Helen Clark followed—and the ministerial certificate simply does that. It does not do anything else. 
David Shearer 
: Does the ministerial certificate relate to information that if released publicly would prejudice the relationship between the New Zealand and the US Governments? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: No. The ministerial certificate was in relation to an application by Paul Davison QC to have the involvement of the Government Communications Security Bureau released into the public domain. It was deemed that that was not in the public interest. 
David Shearer 
: Is he suggesting as he did yesterday that the Government Communications Security Bureau made a mistake because it did not know the status of Kim Dotcom’s residency when in fact—this photo will jog the Prime Minister’s memory—he put on a fireworks display that was the biggest in New Zealand’s history? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: All I can say to the member is that I would caution him as I would caution every other New Zealander to wait until they see Paul Neazor’s report which might make it quite clear how such a situation like this could have taken place. 
David Shearer 
: Does he stand by his statement that as a Minister he did not take any responsibility for the actions of the Government Communications Security Bureau “because I wasn’t aware of the fact that the operation was taking place. It didn’t require ministerial sign-off.”? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I am responsible for the direction and priorities of my agencies; I do not get involved in operational matters. I would note that the  
Cabinet Manual 
 says that Ministers should not be involved in their departments’ day-to-day operations. 
David Shearer 
: Who is ultimately responsible for the actions of the Government Communications Security Bureau? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I am responsible. That is why on Monday 17 September when my agency came to me and said that it believed that it may have acted unlawfully I immediately set about and started an inquiry rightfully so. 
Education National Standards—Publication of Data 
5. 
NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: What support exists for the publication of National Standards data? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Firstly parents because they have consistently said that they want to know how their child is doing how their school is doing and how they can be involved. In addition I have seen a number of reports overwhelmingly in support of the publication of national standards data. I have seen some Colmar Brunton research that shows that parents want three things: they want independent and comprehensive information about their child’s school they want it regularly and in plain English and they want to know where their child is and how they compare with other children. I have also seen several media polls that also support the publication of the data one of which stated a whopping 70 percent of people aged between 18 and 39 are tremendously supportive of schools releasing the information. But the national standards data needs to be considered in the wider context of Public Achievement Information and that is why on Friday the Ministry of Education will be making national standards data public together with links to Education Review Office reports and schools’ annual reports. 
Nikki Kaye 
: What does the first year’s data show? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: Given that this is the first year schools have reported their national standards data it is variable between schools but it does give sufficient information to tell us how well we are doing across the country. The first year’s data shows that 76 percent of learners reached or exceeded the national standard for reading 72 percent for maths and 68 percent for writing. Of particular interest is the consistency of the achievement trends in writing reading and maths by gender and ethnicity with other system health check studies such as the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study and the National Certificate of Educational Achievement. 
Tracey Martin 
: Can the Minister explain why private schools and future charter schools are not required to report against national standards even though they are funded either in full or in part by the New Zealand taxpayer? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: I am at a loss to know how that member knows that. We have yet to introduce legislation to establish these schools and it will then specify what is required. 
Tracey Martin 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think I understand—it is a point of order that the member is calling? The question asked about private schools as well as charter schools. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: Two parts. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I do not believe that was a case of two parts to a question. It was really one question. 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: Because parents have a choice and parents paying private schools can take their kids elsewhere. 
Nikki Kaye 
: Supplementary question to the Minister—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I want to hear this question. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! I want to hear this question. 
Nikki Kaye 
: What are you doing to support those children who are not at the national standard? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am sure “you” would do a better job but you are not to be the subject of questioning as the member did. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I did not pick up that bit in the question. There has been such noise though that I could not even hear the question. I would ask Nikki Kaye to repeat her question. 
Nikki Kaye 
: What is the Minister doing to support those children who are not at the national standard? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: Our Government is making a number of additional investments. We are investing $22 million per year in the Reading Recovery programme $1.6 million in Reading Together for 203 low-decile schools and a further $11 million in targeted support programmes for maths and literacy. And of course these supplement the overall first-line investment we make through our teaching profession of $3.8 billion a year. 
Solid Energy—Restructuring and Redundancies 
6. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does he stand by his statement that “exporters are actually doing their best and they need all the help they can get from a Government that is actually in favour of exporting and investing”; if so what support has the Government given Solid Energy to prevent layoffs and redundancies? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 The Government has kept in touch with Solid Energy’s board during this difficult time starting with analysis produced by the scoping study for potential sale back in 2011 and has received advice from the board that the mine in question simply is not viable in the longer term. That of course has made for a very difficult decision-making process for the company and even more difficulty for those who are adversely affected by it. 
Hon David Parker 
: Given that the Spring Creek Mine contributes $37 million in wages and services to the Greymouth economy what steps has he taken to ensure any closure does not economically decimate the local community? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The initial impact of that could certainly affect the community. In light of the fact that coal prices have fallen by about 60 percent in the past 15 months we look forward to the support of the Labour Party in asking objectors to the Bathurst Resources mine to withdraw their appeals so that that company can get on and provide up to 400 jobs on the West Coast which many of these highly skilled well-motivated Solid Energy workers could apply for. 
Hon David Parker 
: What reports has he seen about how different Solid Energy’s performance would be if New Zealand’s currency was not overvalued by 15 percent as estimated by the International Monetary Fund? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I have not seen any reports on that but what I do know is that there is another company keen to open a mine under exactly the same exchange rate on the West Coast. I would hope that all politicians in this House could call on those who are objecting to the opening of that mine to withdraw their objections so that the people who visited Parliament today can believe that the Opposition politicians believe what they said to them which was that they would do— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member is not responsible for the Opposition politicians. I call the Hon Damien O’Connor. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! I want to hear this question. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: Why don’t you listen for a change? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! There is no need for that exchange. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: Can the Minister give an unequivocal assurance to the House that there are no links whatsoever between the job losses and the restructure of Solid Energy and the Government’s plans to float the company on the stock market? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Yes I can give that assurance. The primary driver of the decisions as has been pointed out by the board has been the drop in the coal price. I sympathise with the member who has a problem that he wants to see more jobs on the Coast as we do but his political colleagues stand in the way of those new jobs. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: How can the Minister and the chief executive of Solid Energy continue to deny that the sale of Solid Energy was not part of these job cuts when on page 8 of the Solid Energy review document the priorities were to “maximise medium-term cash generation and value uplift consistent with our potential listing objectives [from] our shareholder …” and “preparing Solid Energy for a potential listing at some stage in one to three years”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Close scrutiny of Solid Energy which began last year has shown that that company needed to have very high coal prices in order to continue with its strategy regardless of any future sale. The coal price dropped by 60 percent. That particular mine has been losing millions of dollars per month. The answer for the workforce is for the objections to the Bathurst Resources application to be withdrawn so that that mine can get up and going providing 400 jobs. We hope the Opposition parties will join with us in calling on those objectors to withdraw in the interests of the people who lost their jobs yesterday. 
Andrew Williams 
: At a time when more than 60 workers are being laid off at the State-owned Solid Energy Huntly coalmine and coal production is being scaled back why in the very same town of Huntly is the State-owned Genesis Energy power station importing coal from Indonesia when the Huntly power station was built in this very location because of the coalfields in the area? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I am not familiar with all the commercial arrangements that Genesis Energy makes. I understand that what the member is pointing to has been in place for some time. What is clear though is that despite Solid Energy’s difficulties Bathurst Resources is keen to continue with a mine on the West Coast— 
Andrew Williams 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Bathurst Resources has nothing to do with the question I raised. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! And that has got nothing to do with a point of order. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The requirement for the Minister to be terse and to the point has got everything to do with the Standing Orders of this House. And going off from a North Island coalmine to the South Island the West Coast— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member is now debating the issue. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Bathurst has got nothing to do with it whatsoever. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! It is not a point of order. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: It is so! 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I am not sure what it has got to do with the proceedings of the House. All points of order must relate to the proceedings going on at this time in the House. The quality of an answer is nothing to do with the proceedings. The Minister answered the question. The member Andrew Williams could have raised a point of order in a proper way but that was not the proper way to raise one. 
Andrew Williams 
: Is Solid Energy still a contender for the Government’s planned 49 percent share sell-off or is this another energy State-owned enterprise that is increasingly becoming unsaleable such as Mighty River Power with its Waikato River water rights issues? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I do not agree with the member’s assertion about Mighty River Power. In the case of Solid Energy the Government can sell it in a public offering to New Zealand mums and dads only if the company is in a viable and sustainable form. We intend to work closely with the board to see whether that can be achieved. 
Youth Guarantee—Progress and Student Results 
7. 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
 to the  
Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment 
: What is the Government doing to improve access to foundation-level tertiary education for young New Zealanders? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment) 
: 
 Data released today by the Tertiary Education Commission shows that the Government’s Youth Guarantee scheme is successfully moving young people who have not previously achieved at school into fees-free tertiary education. The 2011 results show that average course completion rates across the Youth Guarantee scheme at all tertiary providers including private training establishments and wananga were 65 percent. This is very encouraging given that more than half of the 3597 16 and 17-year-olds taking up fees-free places at tertiary providers under Youth Guarantee had no prior qualification and a third of them had only National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 1. Clearly the Youth Guarantee scheme is working very well for young people who find the traditional classroom environment challenging. 
Colin King 
: What other benefits does the Government’s Youth Guarantee scheme provide for young people? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Youth Guarantee gives young people the practical skills and the opportunity for a career particularly those young people at risk of dropping out of school. The scheme is motivating young people to learn skills and gain a qualification that will set them up for a career in priority trades areas such as carpentry engineering horticulture plumbing gasfitting bricklaying and blocklaying. The scheme is also working well for young Maori who make up a third of the students enrolled in the Youth Guarantee scheme which is higher than the number of Maori in mainstream tertiary education. 
Oil and Gas Extraction—Hydraulic Fracturing in Taranaki 
8. 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Energy and Resources 
: Does he stand by his statement on fracking that he has “full confidence in the ability of councils to manage it” when unlined earthen blow-down pits were used without resource consent for over a decade and now the soil and groundwater near Kapuni well sites in Taranaki is contaminated? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Energy and Resources) 
: 
 Yes I stand by my statement in the context that it was given. In the case of Kapuni which the member refers to water quality sampling of the Kapuni Stream has been undertaken by the regional council in recent years and has shown no evidence of any impact. Regardless I am advised that the Taranaki Regional Council has indicated that the storing of fluids now requires a resource consent and pits would need to be lined. 
Gareth Hughes 
: Why then has the Minister changed his views in regard to Taranaki fracking from it is being done very very well to a statement last week when the extent of the soil and water pollution was revealed that it is being “reasonably managed um there haven’t been any significant incidences”? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: Well I stand by both statements. I disagree with the claims of the member that there has been water pollution. As I said testing of the stream suggests that there has not been so I no see no particular difference between my supporting the activities of hydraulic fracturing in New Zealand particularly in Taranaki over many many decades. If this is the worst incident that the member can come up with then I would argue that he is struggling. 
Gareth Hughes 
: Why then is more than 50 cubic metres of contaminated soil being trucked to Wellington 300 cubic metres of soil being remediated from the Kapuni well sites and there is a plume of dissolved hydrocarbons under five well sites at Kapuni which the council’s own report says it cannot clean up? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: The soil is being trucked in order to get it tested. Soil is not groundwater or surface water I would remind the member. The reason that there is oil and gas under the wells is the reason why the wells are there—they are trying to get out the oil and gas. 
Gareth Hughes 
: How can the Minister still have confidence in the council’s ability to manage fracking when it has allowed the use of pits without consent for over a decade it has taken no enforcement action against these polluting companies and it has no plan to clean up the groundwater pollution which has come about because of the use of these blow-down frack pits? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: As TV3 revealed the other night for decades the normal practice was to use unlined pits. As the Taranaki Regional Council has said and assured the nation today the practice is not to use unlined pits. All pits would need to be lined if they were to get a resource consent and I congratulate it on raising its standards. 
Hon John Banks—Confidence and Police Investigation into Electoral Returns 
9. 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Is it still his position that the test for his confidence in Hon John Banks was that he complied with the law; if so on what basis does he believe that Mr Banks complied with the law with respect to anonymous donations under the Local Electoral Act 2001? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes because Mr Banks has given me an assurance that he met the law. The police statement quite clearly said that there was insufficient evidence that there is a statute of limitations and that he has complied with the law. 
Grant Robertson 
: Does he accept the view of the police as outlined in paragraph 38 of the police criminal assessment report on John Banks that Mr Banks’ return was “wrong in content as the donations for Skycity Dotcom and [a withheld name] should not have been recorded as anonymous.”? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I am not in a position to offer a view on that but what I can say is that as I saw reported in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 the police concluded that the return was false but could not prove Mr Banks had known that when he signed it. 
Grant Robertson 
: Does he further accept the view of the police in paragraph 39 of the police report that the fact that the donations should not have been recorded as anonymous was the reason that this was a false return by Mr Banks? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I cannot offer a view of that but what I can say is that the police statement quite clearly established that the return was compiled by a campaign volunteer who assured Mr Banks it was accurate before Mr Banks signed it. I would also say that I have seen from the police report that they believed there was insufficient evidence and as the  
New Zealand Herald  
said not enough information to prove that Mr Banks would have known it was false. 
Grant Robertson 
: What police report was the Prime Minister referring to in that answer? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: The one the member was talking about. 
Grant Robertson 
: Is the Prime Minister now telling the House that he has read the police report; if so will he now not conclude that Mr Banks was found by the police to have breached the law; therefore he did not comply with the law; therefore he should no longer have the confidence of the Prime Minister? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: No. 
Civil Defence Disaster Preparedness—ShakeOut Exercise 
10. 
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Civil Defence 
: What progress has the Government made in encouraging New Zealanders to participate in the ShakeOut earthquake drill? 
Hon CHRIS TREMAIN (Minister of Civil Defence) 
: 
 The Ministry of Civil Defence set a goal of 1 million people taking part in our first ever nationwide earthquake drill ShakeOut. The good news is that we have exceeded that target with 1.3 million New Zealanders now signed up. This includes 2000 businesses and 4000 schools and preschools where everyone will drop cover and hold at 9.26 a.m. tomorrow morning. 
Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi 
: What reports has he seen of particular plans for participation in ShakeOut? 
Hon CHRIS TREMAIN 
: I have seen reports that Wellington Airport is running a large-scale earthquake drill including passengers and airport and airline staff. A community hospital in Waikato is turning off its power and water for 24 hours to find out what it would be like in a civil defence emergency. These are great examples of using ShakeOut to improve preparedness. The Parliamentary Service has also signed up and I encourage all MPs to take part and to particularly consider the preparedness of their own families. 
Dotcom Case—Potential Indemnity for Agencies 
11. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
 to the  
Attorney-General 
: Has the Government given any type of indemnity relating to legal actions concerning Kim Dotcom; if so what are the terms and which agencies were consulted before it was given? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) 
: 
 As was reported in newspapers on 24 May an undertaking as to damages was given by the Commissioner of Police in relation to the foreign restraining order made on Mr Dotcom’s New Zealand - based assets and I refer the member to section 29 of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009. It is not related in any way to litigation surrounding the wider extradition proceedings or to criminal charges in the United States. It is not related to any other actions by Government agencies. Undertakings as to damages in litigation are routine but in this case no Minister including the Minister of Finance has any role in approving or signing off this kind of undertaking. That was the sole responsibility of the Commissioner of Police and I refer the member to section 92 of the same Act. I am advised officials from a number of Government agencies were consulted including the Ministry of Justice Crown Law the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the New Zealand Police. 
Charles Chauvel 
: When the undertaking as to damages was being consulted upon was the United States Ambassador to New Zealand or the United States Government one of the people or agencies consulted about the decision to grant an undertaking as to damages? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: Not to the best of my knowledge. In these sorts of things in terms of international criminal litigation the matter is one where the costs are normally picked up by the country that has been requested to undertake the particular activity. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Can he explain to the House why if the United States Government was not consulted about the indemnity material was withheld under the Official Information Act citing the ground of disclosure being likely to prejudice the international relations of the Government of New Zealand; if he cannot can he explain why that ground was cited in any other respect? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: I am not privy to that particular decision that was made under the Official Information Act but I imagine it was because of the general sensitivity concerning these sorts of matters which would necessarily have a foreign component—namely in this case the United States of America. 
Charles Chauvel 
: How likely is it in his view that the undertaking as to damages will be called upon? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: As I say it relates to the restraining order that was granted under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act. In terms of section 28 of that Act a certain amount is being released. At the end of the day we have to wait until the end of the litigation or the expiration of 3 years to determine whether or not the undertaking would be called on and then determine at that point what if any damages would be payable. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Will the experience of the Government in respect of the present litigation alter his position in respect of the advice he gives as to the wisdom of future such undertakings as to damages? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: As I said in my answer to the primary question the decision whether to give an undertaking was for the Commissioner of Police. As I understand it under another type of legislation in 2002 the Solicitor-General gave an undertaking in relation to certain damages that could be suffered if as a result of that particular restraining order having been made damages were suffered. As I say undertakings as to damages generally in litigation where a person is seeking either an interim injunction or interim restraining order are not uncommon. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Can he confirm that in respect of this particular undertaking as to damages briefings were given to Ministers including the Minister of Finance and himself given the high-profile nature of this application to the court and is he concerned that the Crown is going to be exposed to further damages in respect of the Dotcom litigation given the admission of the Prime Minister yesterday that illegal actions had occurred in respect of the matters that were dealt with at the post-Cabinet press conference? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: I have already said that the undertaking is in terms of section 29(1) of the Criminal Proceeds Recovery Act and that does not extend to any acts or omissions on behalf of the Government Communications Security Bureau. It extends to the making operation or extension of the duration of the restraining order. The first part of the question was whether Ministers were given briefings on the subject. The answer is yes there was a briefing. 
Health Targets—Heart and Diabetes Checks 
12. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Health 
: What initiatives is the Health Promotion Agency taking to assist the Government’s heart health and diabetes targets? 
Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 The Health Promotion Agency is working with the Heart Foundation and Pharmac on a new national campaign raising awareness of the importance of a heart warrant of fitness cardiovascular disease assessment. This is an important preventative health activity. Encouraging more heart and diabetes checks is one of the Government’s six national health targets. 
Shane Ardern 
: What will the campaign involve? 
Hon JO GOODHEW 
: In addition to the national information campaign everyone who takes their car through Vehicle Testing New Zealand testing stations in October will get a leaflet encouraging them to get their heart checked. Buck Shelford is the face of the campaign and his message is this: “You’ve got a warrant of fitness for your car. Now get one for your heart.” I would certainly encourage all of the members of this House to get their hearts checked as well. 
Urgent Debates Declined 
Government Communications Security Bureau—Inquiry into Unlawful Interception of Communications 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Honourable members—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! What is wrong with certain members on the National backbench there? Honourable members I have received a letter from David Shearer seeking to debate under Standing Order 386 the Prime Minister’s announcement that he has requested an inquiry by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security into the circumstances of unlawful interception of communications of certain individuals by the Government Communications Security Bureau. The announcement is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility. The big hurdle to get over in applications for urgent debate is whether the matter has reached the stage where the business of the House ought to be set aside. The test is a high one. There must be an element of urgency or substantive policy change for the matter to take precedence over other business. Although the announcement of an inquiry may warrant an urgent debate the circumstances must be exceptional especially where the inquiry may take some time to finalise. 
Furthermore at the current time there is also a risk of a breach of the rule against referring to matters pending adjudication in the courts. For these reasons I am not persuaded that the setting aside of the business of the House for an urgent debate can be justified today. The application is therefore declined. 
National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage) 
: 
 I move  
That the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill be now read a second time 
. As is well known this bill is required to enable the National War Memorial Park or Pukeahu to be completed by April 2015. Unlike the 2008 plan that was proposed this project will entail the undergrounding of Buckle Street in front of the National War Memorial. The park will consist of a large plaza for commemorative ceremonies flanked on either side by landscaped areas with trees seating and walkways. Without the legislation it would simply be impossible to complete this work by April 2015. 
There is broad consensus across the House and throughout New Zealand about the need for the project. The site is nationally significant and the new park will be a valued local amenity for the people of Wellington. In order to complete the park in the required time the bill grants resource consents heritage authorisations and building consents and provides the designation powers of entry on to land and property rights to the two Government agencies that are tasked with this work: the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and the New Zealand Transport Agency. The bill removes the standard objection and repeal rights available under the Resource Management Act 1991 the Historic Places Act 1993 and the Public Works Act 1981. Rights to compensation under that latter Act are however preserved. 
Although the bill grants authorisations and rights it makes them subject to a range of checks and balances including the usual associated conditions. Some conditions require plans or documents to be produced and the bill will introduce a process for certifying independently that these documents satisfy the requirements of the conditions. In the event that further consents are required the bill enables the Governor-General to grant them by Order in Council on the recommendation of the Minister of Transport or the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage. Orders in Council can be used only to achieve the stated purpose in the Act and there are a limited number of Acts that are affected. 
Importantly the bill establishes an independent review panel to scrutinise any recommended Orders in Council. In addition the bill provides for parliamentary scrutiny by establishing an expedited disallowance process. Equally important a community forum is set up by the legislation. It will comprise key stakeholders who will provide information and advice in relation to the park. I anticipate that this will be supplemented by a series of public information meetings. The member for Wellington Central and I have in fact attended our first such meeting at Mt Cook School a week or so ago. The provisions in the bill overriding normal statutory processes will expire on 31 July 2015. 
Grant Robertson 
: It’s always a pleasure. 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: Did the member say it was a pleasure to be in my presence? I thank him for that. I am touched. 
It has been necessary to impose a tight deadline on this legislation to ensure that work on the undergrounding can begin as soon as possible. That has put a lot of pressure on everyone involved including the sturdy members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and I thank them for their tireless efforts. That committee received 18 submissions from interested groups and individuals and heard eight submissions. Principal matters raised concerned the purpose of the bill constitutional issues public engagement and the community forum Orders in Council and the role of the review panel. A number of changes to the bill have been made to address some of the very good submissions that were proposed by various submitters. I particularly refer to Taranaki Whanui. 
So what are these amendments? Submissions on clause 3 which deals with the purpose of the bill included the suggestion that the park needed to recognise 19th century New Zealand wars. I totally agree with the sentiment but also note that the purpose of the park itself is outside the scope of the bill. Clause 4 has been amended to clarify the circumstances under which the provisions of the Wellington City district plan have effect for the purposes of interpreting and administering the bill. The definition of “Park land” in clause 5 has been amended to include additional land parcels. These changes more accurately reflect the area intended to constitute the park. Landscaping work can be much better integrated and subject to the same fast-track processes for the duration of the legislation. Clause 5A clarifies the legal status of the plans in schedule 10 to ensure that where there is an inconsistency between the boundaries marked on the plans and the legal description of the land the legal description prevails. 
The Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust the Wellington Tenths Trust and other submitters raised concerns about the general grant of resource consents and the potential extension of those consents beyond the lapsing date of 31 July 2015. Clause 7(5)(b) has consequently been amended to provide that a resource consent granted under the bill will lapse “unless on or before that date—(ia) the resource consent is given effect to; or (i) substantial work of any kind relevant to the consent has been commenced;”. Clause 7(6) specifies that “In considering an application … the consent authority must take into account—(a) whether substantial progress or effort has been and continues to be made towards giving effect to the consent; and (b) whether the applicant has obtained approval from persons who may be adversely affected by the granting of an extension.” 
There is an amendment to clause 9 regarding authorisations for work on archaeological sites and the effect of that is to remove reference to the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. This is because a number of necessary archaeological authorities have already been obtained from the New Zealand Historic Places Trust under existing statutory arrangements. An amendment to clause 16(2) will allow the chief executive of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage to delegate the powers of entry that would be conferred by the bill. 
In their minority report the Greens expressed concern about the potential proliferation of legislation that overrides appeal rights of other statutes and empowers the Governor-General to grant Orders in Council. I can assure them that other alternatives were carefully and fully explored including expedited consenting procedures under the Resource Management Act but none of these could guarantee the completion of the park in the necessary time. 
I assure my colleagues that this bill has been drafted to meet the very particular circumstances. It has a narrow focus. The applications are closely prescribed and they apply for a finite period. The intent behind the Order in Council procedure is to provide a measure of last resort and I can assure the Greens that the bill has safeguards in place around the use of Orders in Council including scrutiny of all recommended Orders in Council by a review panel and a speedy disallowance procedure by Parliament. The committee has further augmented these safeguards and we accept them. Under clause 24(4) a Minister must not recommend the making of an Order in Council unless satisfied that all other reasonably practicable ways relevant to the particular circumstances have been looked at and in particular taking into account the objective of completing the park by April 2015. 
I mentioned the community forum. The membership and role of that forum have been addressed by amendments to clause 36 and I believe that that is going to be a very valuable forum to provide advice and information on the design of the park. It will meet at least three times a year. There have also been some minor changes to the schedules but I can go through those in the Committee stage. 
In conclusion I want to thank the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor of Wellington and the Wellington City Council for their enthusiastic support for the project and the pledge by the council to provide $5 million towards the creation of the park. I appreciate the relationships I have developed with community representatives during the consultation phase of this project which in my case go back to 2008 and I very much look forward to working with them as we move to make this great park a reality. 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 It indeed was a pleasure to attend the first community meeting in the Mt Cook School hall the other night with the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage. He was paying one of his royal visits to the electorate so it was good to see him there and should he choose to grace us— 
Hon Annette King 
: He’s moved out of the Labour electorate. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Oh he has given up on Rongotai—he could not beat Annette King—and has decided that he will come into Wellington Central. Well we welcome him with open arms into Wellington Central to be able to oversee this project. 
The Labour Party is supporting this bill the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill and first at the outset I want to thank not only the members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee but also the officials who worked alongside the committee. It was a process done at speed and there was a lot of technical detail that needed to be dealt with. The officials were able to meet extremely quick turn-round times and we are very grateful for the work that they did working across the New Zealand Transport Agency the Ministry of Culture and Heritage and the Parliamentary Counsel Office so we are very grateful for the work that they did. 
The Minister has run through the substantive changes that the committee made but I do want to highlight just three or four of them because they are areas that the Labour Party was particularly keen to see included in this bill to give us the confidence that this legislation will meet the purpose that it has been put forward for. The Minister has made clear that this is a very limited scope for this bill. It is all about the creation of the war memorial park by April 2015 to meet the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings. The committee was anxious to make sure and it is in the commentary on the bill that everybody was aware that those were the limits around this—the fact that this was a nationally significant project and that it had to be completed by 2015. Those two elements were vital to the conclusion of the committee that this was the only way in which we could ensure this project happened. 
I do want to put on the record again from the Labour side of the House that we know this is not ideal legislation. It would be much better if we were able to go through the normal processes. But the truth is that since 2009 the Government has dragged its heels around getting this project going and we are very pleased it has finally decided that it will back it but by deciding only now at the last minute the only option available to this Parliament to facilitate that is to pass empowering legislation of this sort. It is not ideal it should not become the regular practice of this House but there are going to be situations where it is necessary and we believe that this is one of those situations. 
The Minister mentioned the changes the committee made around Orders in Council and again this is important to make sure that all the checks and balances that need to be in place are in place when we are giving such wide powers under a bill as we are in this one. The committee felt that the process around the granting of Orders in Council was not sufficiently robust as it had been proposed and we made three main changes to that. The first of them is what I would call the “last resort clause”. This is new subclause (4) in clause 24 which makes absolutely clear that the use of Orders in Council is a last resort. The processes that the bill sets up should allow for all that needs to be done to be done in the construction of this part. But if it does not the Order in Council process is there to be used only in the last resort. The wording that we have come up with there was to say that when making an Order in Council the Minister must have considered all other reasonably practicable ways relevant to the particular circumstances to achieve the purpose of this legislation. 
So that notion of “all other reasonably practicable ways” is vital to our agreement to having this Order in Council process. It is a last resort. We also included a new clause to require the review panel that is set up under this legislation to look at Orders in Council to report to this Parliament every 6 months. It is important that Parliament stays in touch with this project. We have given significant power to the New Zealand Transport Agency and to the developers of this project. We need to know what is going on in the project—whether Orders in Council have been granted—and the new clause 27A in the bill allows us to have that ability. 
We have also recommended amending clause 31 and deleting clause 32. These are around what are called the disallowance provisions. Essentially this is to make sure that there is time for members of this House to review the Orders in Council and exercise their rights around whether or not they think those Orders in Council should be able to go ahead. The way that this works is that normally it would have meant a very short turn-round time so we have extended it out to 12 sitting days after the day on which an Order in Council is presented to the House. So with those three changes the Labour Party has a higher degree of comfort around the exercise of the Orders in Council process noting as we do that it is a last resort. 
The other area that I just want to mention in terms of the changes made in the committee is around the community forum. I was pleased to hear the Minister say that he thinks the community forum is going to be an important part of this process because the wider Wellington community and in particular the Mount Cook community are strongly supportive of this park being built. They have long wanted Buckle Street to go underground and allow there to be the kind of place that all New Zealanders would want to be part of but particularly the people who live in this community who would like to use it enjoy it and have it as a place to reflect. But as a community they obviously also want to be involved in the decision-making process. The community forum will now meet at least three times a year and I strongly encourage the Government to see that forum meet more often than that because it will be an opportunity for the local Mount Cook community to have their say. 
I should also note that the membership of the community forum has been increased and it has been increased to include two particular groups whom I want to mention. The first is the owners of the former Mount Cook Police Barracks and any members of the House who come into Wellington via the motorway will know the police barracks. They sit on the corner of Tasman Street and Buckle Street. They are a historic building. They have level 1 classification. The owners have tenants in the building and clearly the park will be built around them and it is very important that they have a say. The people on the opposite side of that intersection are those people who live in the Tasman Garden Apartments and we have also included the Tasman Garden Apartments body corporate in the list of people to be part of that forum. 
We are asking a lot of people who live in this area. There is going to be enormous disruption to their lives. The diversions on the road assuming this bill passes will start very soon. There has already been geotechnical work that has been causing some disruption. It is only fair to those people that they have the opportunity to have their say and be part of this process so I am pleased that the committee has agreed to extend the membership of the community forum. 
The final matter on the community forum that I want to mention is a very important change made by the committee and this is to somewhat contradict what the Minister said in his speech. The community forum does have a role now under this legislation in the final design of the park. The committee feels it is an important part of this process that the community forum can have its say. The park has been designed and well designed but it will not meet every single need as time goes on. We want to make sure that members of the Mount Cook community and the wider Wellington community do have a say in how the park is designed. So I am pleased that we have been able to amend clause 36 in relation to the community forum to make that happen. 
More generally to conclude my speech I want to make the point that this memorial park has been a long time coming. Helen Clark talked about it in 2004 and it is good that we now have some agreement—and I accept the reservations of the Green Party—across the House that it should happen. What it is going to create for New Zealand and New Zealanders is a place where we can reflect on those who have sacrificed themselves for us in war and we can reflect on all those who have served in war. 
I would just note in closing that Mr Finlayson said at the public meeting we were at the other night that he also favoured making sure that we have some recognition of those conscientious objectors in wars past—people like Archibald Baxter. I welcome that notion from the Minister that actually this will be a park where we can reflect on the war the nature of war the cost of it to us and the sacrifice that people have made. We need to get it developed in time for the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli commemorations. On this side of the House we recognise that this legislation is the only way now that we will achieve that the Government having lost the time over the last 3 years and therefore we will be supporting the bill. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I would just like to echo the thoughts of the first two speakers and to thank members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee for their hard work in getting this bill done in a timely way and also thank the officials who assisted us in that process who worked through tight time frames to enable this to happen. 
This bill the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill is as members have discussed something that is seen by most parties in this House as necessary. It is probably not the procedure that we would want to be followed in every case but special circumstances demanded this in this case to enable the park to be completed on time. I would like to thank the cross-party support that we had. I know the Green Party members will be voting against this but they were actually quite constructive within the select committee even though they will not vote for the bill. 
I think the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage needs to have a special thankyou as well. This is one bill where the public submissions made some really big changes in the sense that the public submissions in regard to consultation and involvement were actioned. You see those properties that were mentioned by the last speaker Grant Robertson and also the Tasman Garden Body Corporate—in regard to the barracks—now being included with distinct rights to be consulted during the process. So that is very important for them and it emphasises the way that the Minister has made this bill something that has worked with the community and within the national interest of getting this war memorial built. It is legislation that we believe will be effective and that listens and works with the community. We recommend it to the House. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 Labour as we have already heard from Grant Robertson wholeheartedly supports the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill. I think it was unfortunate however that the Hon Chris Finlayson went straight into criticism of the 2008 proposal. It is unfortunate because he really just could not help himself. He could not recognise that there is a broad consensus for this bill and I would have to say that I will never forget his comments to a former Mayor of Wellington after the 2008 election that he was not going to progress Helen Clark’s project and she was not going to get any credit for this. That in fact was what it was about in terms of this delay. 
I think it is most unfortunate there has been now a 4-year delay and that we need this legislation to be able to ensure that the park is in place for 2015 so that it can be opened for Anzac Day 2015 for the 100th commemoration of Gallipoli. But we will support this bill because it is important. It is important to all New Zealanders. The recognition is certainly important to our servicemen and servicewomen—a place where you can go and acknowledge the sacrifice made by men and women not just at Gallipoli but in the many conflicts that New Zealand has been involved in. 
I want to pay a tribute to the Rt Hon Helen Clark because it was her vision. I do not think I have met another member of Parliament who has driven harder to acknowledge commemorate and respect the soldiers and service people of New Zealand. She had a passion that came out of her own family background. She had great-uncles and family members who had served in war and lost their lives. This passion came through in many of the decisions that were made by Cabinet between 2000 and 2008. One of those decisions which has led to the decision to have the National War Memorial where it is placed was the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. Many of us will remember the day 10 November 2004 when the New Zealand Defence Force brought home the Unknown Warrior. There was a welcoming ceremony at Parliament and the Unknown Warrior was honoured with campaign medals from two world wars an Operational Service Medal and the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association’s highest award the Badge in Gold. 
 About 10000 New Zealanders queued to pay their respects to the Unknown Warrior lying in state here at Parliament. Then the following day on Armistice Day after a memorial service at the cathedral of St Paul the Unknown Warrior was accorded a full military funeral procession through Wellington to the final interment ceremony at the National War Memorial. It is estimated that around 100000 New Zealanders lined the streets that day to honour the Unknown Warrior who was taken to a place that is now to become our National War Memorial Park. 
That is fitting. Many countries have such places where people can go and remember and now we will have one in April 2015. It does mean because of the delay that we are having to use legislation. It does mean that we have legislation that has as part of it the use of Order in Council and that is not always ideal. There is also always some resistance and feelings of it being not quite right to have to use Order in Council and I understand those who feel uneasy. But I would say to them that I think the changes that are being made will ensure that there are safeguards put in place so that the use of that Order in Council will be done sparingly and that it will be done only as a last resort. I would urge all parties in this House to join together to support this legislation so that those who are listening to this debate and those who look to us to give leadership when it comes to those who have made sacrifices for this country can see that we are a united Parliament in wanting to honour them. 
I think that we can take comfort from the changes that were made that were suggested by Labour and secured at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. As you heard from Grant Robertson the changes mean that the Order in Council can be used only as a last resort. Every other thing must be considered. All other reasonable and practical ways must be considered and looked at before an Order in Council is used. There is also a requirement which I think is a very sensible one that any decisions made by the review panel have to be reported to Parliament every 6 months. They have extended the consideration of Orders in Council to 12 sitting days. So I think with those changes it has given some security to those who were worried about the use of Order in Council. Let us get over that and look to how we can make this work. 
One of the ways it will work well is by extending the role of the body that is deciding and the formation of a community forum I think is a really great idea. You see too often in this place we seem to think that we know best that we know how things should work and that we have the knowledge at our fingertips. But from my experience over the years I have found that often the best ideas and the best solutions come from the community itself—those who live in that community experience what is happening in that community. A community forum that can come together and say “This is how we think it should be going this is how it should be designed this is what it will mean to us and this is what the impact will be.” is I think a very very sound idea indeed. 
I gather it is to meet four times a year and there is some thought that this should be more often than four times. Maybe initially it could be more often than four times a year. Perhaps there would be a need for it to meet every month to begin with. We should not restrict how often it meets in a tight time frame and straitjacket but rely on what needs to be done and what discussions need to be held. 
This is a bill that is going to when it is passed allow for this park to proceed with speed. There is a lot of work to be done but if I was going to make any criticism apart from the criticism I have already made it is that I do think that the Ministry of Transport ought to rethink what happens beyond the park because its planning for the road beyond the underground tunnelling of Buckle Street is a dog’s breakfast. We are going to end up with a road which someone has called a “circus road”—I think it is actually a “rollercoaster road” where we go up and down and up and down—because the thinking beyond Buckle Street leading up to the tunnel has not been thought through by the New Zealand Transport Agency which is working with the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. We ought not to have a flyover around the Basin Reserve. I would rather that we wait and get it right than rush ahead with a flyover that I think will actually detract from the memorial park. 
That is something the Government needs to think about. Do not be driven by the agenda of the New Zealand Transport Agency and some need to have roads of national significance in place. Think about this park what we are trying to do here what we are trying to commemorate and the significance of it. Think about the road beyond it if it is going to detract from it. It is certainly going to detract from a transport and flow of traffic solution that goes into my electorate through the Mount Victoria tunnel. They will be able to get to the Mount Victoria tunnel very fast through a flyover only to reach a tunnel that goes just one way for each line of traffic. 
So I support this bill. Labour supports this bill as we have done from the time of its introduction. We have supported and assisted to make sure that it is passed and that this park can proceed and be ready for April 2015. 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to speak on the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill. We are going to continue to oppose this bill because of the process because of the precedents and because of the importance of these values that we in New Zealand hold true.  
We support the aims and the objective of this bill which is to see a park—to see a quiet and more contemplative space—for us to remember those New Zealanders who served and died for their country. We support this but we do not support the need for legislation to be able to make a park. I mean it is simply incredible that we need legislation to make a park. It does not make sense when you say it out loud: “We need legislation to make a park.” It does not make sense. 
Jami-Lee Ross 
: It makes perfect sense. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: It does not make sense. As a Wellingtonian I want to see a park there. It is a part of the city that is pretty much urban jungle. It is full of concrete shops and commercial and industrial facilities mixed in pretty closely. There is very little green space there. You have got the pine trees up on Mount Victoria. It is going to be lovely to have a quiet contemplative space in the middle of the city. I was there recently for the Anzac Day ceremony. It is great when you actually close off the road. You can sit there quietly contemplate and listen to the speeches. It is a great experience. But unfortunately you do not get that for the other days of the year because you have got State Highway 1 going straight past our National War Memorial. 
I want to be clear. The Green Party supports the objectives of seeing a park. We want to see a park there. The question is whether the end justifies the means. This is what this bill is because this bill is giving the Government extraordinary powers: the powers to override the Resource Management Act the Historic Places Act and the Public Works Act and to go over the district plan. It is a dangerous precedent. The member Grant Robertson said that it is not ideal to have a process like that. You can say that again. It is “not ideal” to have a process like this. This is a dangerous precedent we are seeing in our Parliament an abuse that we are seeing continually by the Government. 
The thing that both sides of the House will not say and the thing that they do not want to say is that the fact is that we are here in this extraordinary situation where we are passing law to make a park—we are passing law to make a park—only because of sheer Government incompetence. That is the reason we are here. That is the reason why we have got an opportunity cost and we are not considering other legislation and seeing other things—the important questions our country faces. We are here because of Government incompetence. 
Let us go over history because the Government benches are not going to talk about the history. Gallipoli 1915 was a long time ago. We have had a lot of preparation for this. Helen Clark the Prime Minister in 2004 announced the formation of the park—2004. We have had an awful long time to prepare. In 2007 the Labour Government committed $10 million towards it so there was real money behind it. Then we saw the bypass road completed roughly 5 years ago a new road exactly where the Government wants to use legislation to dig it up—a new road. It is like those council concerns that you hear all over the country where ratepayers are concerned because people are digging up the footpath to do something but the gas company dug it up last year or the year before. We are seeing that in this situation because only 5 years ago this Government spent an awful amount of money getting the bypass and we are going to dig it up now. And then in 2009 the Government scrapped the funding. So it was announced in 2004 funded in 2007 then scrapped by the Government in 2009. This is the reason we are here the reason we are in the extraordinary situation where we have to pass legislation to get a park. 
It is a trend in this Government that was started by the earthquake legislation. It is important to note that what we are talking about in this Chamber is not a national emergency. It does not require extraordinary legislation like this to override numerous pieces of legislation and to give the Government power through Order in Council to effectively do whatever it wants. 
I think it is important to quote from the Legislation Advisory Committee; it is quoted in the Green Party’s minority report. I think it is a very important point that it points out: “The number of ‘good causes’ for which government may wish to use its legislative power is unlimited and citizens can be adversely affected by apparently ‘worthy’ causes as well as less benign ones … The bill is an awkward precedent and the committee is troubled that the more this sort of device is resorted to the easier it seems to do it again.” We are seeing the process through other transport projects in the country where the Government is using the powers to call in projects and to constrain public say public rights of appeal and ultimately a beneficial process because you want to have numerous voices as part of the planning process. 
We note that there were a few changes made in the select committee. We would like to thank those submitters who made a submission. We note though that it was a very constrained process. The bill was referred from its first reading on 28 August then we saw submissions close a week later on 6 September. Here we are less than a month after the bill was referred to the select committee for its second reading—less than a month. 
We did see a few positive changes—and I would like to acknowledge them—to the make-up of the review panel. I understand from the comment of the member for Rongotai that the review panel minimum meeting times are being increased to three times a year. We have seen the changes to the Order in Council so now the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage must have considered all reasonably practical ways relevant to the particular circumstances before he can use the Order in Council. For those people who do not know what an Order in Council is it basically gives the Minister the ability to do whatever he wants under this legislation to achieve the objectives—absolutely extraordinary powers and when you couple it with the ability to override legislation like the Resource Management Act and the Historic Places Act it simply is extraordinary. 
We have seen some changes to the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and we would like to see a commitment from the Government benches that the historic Mother Aubert creche which is right next to this site will not be moved under this legislation. It is quite important because I fear that what we are going to see is the Government using these extraordinary powers to see the next project down the line commence or at least parts of it. This is the controversial deeply unpopular quite fiscally irresponsible Basin Reserve flyover. What we do not want to see is the Government using these powers to move things like the historic creche so it can facilitate its plans for an ugly unneeded expensive Basin Reserve flyover. 
In summary the Green Party supports the park. We want to see it done. We not think we need legislation to do it. In fact if it was not for sheer incompetence by the Government we would not have to be in this extraordinary circumstance. We oppose the process. It is a bad precedent and a damaging trend of this Government. What we are going to see ultimately is worse decision-making. What we want to see is people’s views actually listened to. When you have a review panel meeting a minimum of only three times a year you are not going to get those important voices around a table—needed voices because people’s homes and their businesses are going to be impacted. It is important that we hear from them and what we are seeing in this bill is simply a fast tracking and a constraining of those voices. 
So we are not being oppositional for opposition’s sake. We believe that we have got good grounds to be opposing this law. We think processes plans and consultation are important. We want to see a park but we do not support the process. That is why we are voting against it. Kia ora. 
JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) 
: 
 This bill the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill enjoys considerable support around the House. All I really wish to do is endorse the comments of the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage and just provide a couple of points in rebuttal to the Green Party. This is an important piece of legislation to achieve the goals of having a National War Memorial Park in place by the 2015 Gallipoli centenary. There are strengthened provisions in this bill whereby we are seeing a stronger community forum in place; where we are seeing strengthened disallowance procedures where there are 12 days in which members can lodge a disallowance motion if they feel the need to; where there is a review panel in place; and where the Minister’s powers to provide recommendations for Orders in Council have a significant check on them whereby he has to have considered all reasonably practicable alternatives. This is a good piece of legislation and I endorse it entirely. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill. This National War Memorial Park to be here in our capital city is a very fitting memorial and a milestone to mark the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli and of World War I. It will be a very fitting memorial park to note the 100000 soldiers men and women who went off to World War I—18000 of whom died and 40000 of whom were wounded. Further than that it will also commemorate the more than 300000 New Zealanders who in the last century have served this country in many theatres of war. This will be a very fitting National War Memorial. 
Many of our other cities in New Zealand do have significant war memorial parks. Auckland in particular has the Auckland Domain a very large park with the Cenotaph and the Auckland War Memorial Museum in its centre. It is a very fitting substantial place for commemoration and for ceremonies to do with our ones lost at war. This park will not be of quite the same scale as the Auckland one but it will still be a very significant park with views out over Wellington Harbour. More important it will provide the necessary ambience green belt and park-like atmosphere to link the National War Memorial the Hall of Memories the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior and the Carillon. At present State Highway 1 is a very very busy road that goes past these places of national importance. I have attended a number of ceremonies there over the years and it is not at all pleasant with such a large volume of traffic going by this very important national place of commemoration that it is not in a more quiet and fitting place. This park will provide that place and will provide what any capital city should have: a place of substance and of note. 
It is very very noteworthy that the Australian Government as part of the 100th commemorations is including a $5 million donation to the park to provide also an Australian memorial here. Again it is wonderful that our Anzac friends are participating to commemorate this new addition to New Zealand. Likewise of course New Zealand in the past put up the Australia - New Zealand Memorial in Canberra and in just the last few years also the New Zealand Memorial in Hyde Park in London. Similarly it is very wonderful and a great gesture of the Australian Government to do likewise here in what will be our National War Memorial Park. 
The project itself is $12 million for the park and its development. However the vast bulk of the cost of $75 million is for the underpass and undergrounding of State Highway 1 to go under this area of Wellington so that the park is maintained without that busy busy highway. It is somewhat disturbing that in 2007 $11 million was originally allocated for the park and this project was under way under the former Labour Government with support from New Zealand First. However in 2009 most disappointingly the National Government axed the funding for the National War Memorial Park and put the whole project on ice. Again it was very disappointing to hear that that was perhaps attributable to differences in personal feelings towards the former Prime Minister rather than to what was in the interests of the nation and the people of New Zealand. It is a shame that petty politics became involved in what should have been a project of national significance. 
However the National Government has chosen to get it back on track this year. Unfortunately now it has to be done under urgency so it is probably going to be in a situation of having to be pressure-cooked through to get done in time for the 2015 Anzac Day commemorations of the 100th centenary of World War I. However I am sure that because of the goodwill on the part of all parties—apart from the Green Party which is not supporting this bill—to get this done it will be achieved. Likewise it has the support of the Wellington City Council the New Zealand Transport Agency and all the other various other agencies. It is most important that everyone does cooperate so that this can be done in a very timely manner. 
 This country owes a great debt to all those who died in the service of this country. This Chamber commemorates many of those battles and the names of many of those great battles and theatres of war are on the walls of this Chamber. Likewise New Zealand moving into the next 100 years will have a fitting National War Memorial Park in Wellington when this project is completed. New Zealand First is very much in support of that and of honouring all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for this country. 
SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 I think it is a chance in this short speech to acknowledge the cooperation that has occurred around the House in bringing this bill the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill forward. I certainly acknowledge the Greens and their opposition for their reasons. But really this is about a national memorial for those who have served us in war. I think it is not my or our speeches today that are going to be the memorial but the memorial itself which is to be built in 2015. I just ask that we pass this bill and have that appropriate memorial set up. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I call the honourable member Iain Lees-Galloway. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I appreciate that. That is what they call me in caucus too. As Labour’s veterans spokesperson— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: That’s a breach of privilege. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: Oh that is true actually. As Labour’s veterans spokesperson I have the privilege to spend a lot of time with our veterans who have served in various conflicts around the world and over the decades. In recent times like many members in this House I have had the opportunity to lay wreaths and to honour the sacrifice and service of a number of our veterans at the National War Memorial. And in discussions that I have had with members of the RSA and with members of different veterans groups their response to the National War Memorial Park has been uniform in every sense. 
Their initial enthusiasm and excitement when Helen Clark first proposed the National War Memorial Park back in 2004 was then followed with some trepidation and nervousness when the current Government declared that it was going to abandon those plans and slow the process down. For a while it looked as though the opportunity to have the National War Memorial Park in place by Anzac Day 2015 was being lost and that the Government was losing focus. That trepidation has now been replaced with relief that there is a process by which the National War Memorial Park will be completed in time for that centenary commemoration of the landing at Gallipoli. 
I have to say that veterans have also expressed their appreciation of the fact that this has had more or less bipartisan—I suppose “bipartisan” is the term that many people use—or multipartisan support from parties around the Parliament. And it has to be said that for the most part the veterans are not terribly concerned with the intricacies of empowering legislation of the powers that the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage will be given or of any precedents that might be set. All that those veterans their families and their descendants are concerned with is the completion of that original vision that was first espoused back in 2004. They are pleased that Parliament has found a way to ensure that that memorial will be completed in time. 
That is not to say that we as parliamentarians should not be concerned with the situation that we find ourselves in and as other members have expressed it is not ideal that the Government’s procrastination around this issue has led us to the position where we are having to pass empowering legislation in order to complete the job. It was not necessary. If the National Government had continued on with the plans that had been put in place had continued on using the funding that had been set aside for this project then we would not find ourselves in this position and that has to be recognised as well. 
But it is important on issues of national significance like this one that the Opposition lend a hand to the Government when it finds itself in this sort of trouble. It is appropriate that we act in a constructive manner and get the outcome that the veterans their families and in fact really all New Zealanders are looking for. So although it is not ideal it would have been unfortunate in the extreme if all Opposition parties had chosen to vote against this legislation and make it more difficult for the Government than necessary. 
That brings me to the Greens’ position. Although I respect the arguments made by Gareth Hughes I wonder if the Greens had found themselves holding the balance in this legislation whether this legislation would have lived and died on the Greens’ vote whether they would have voted the same way. That perhaps is a philosophical question that can never be answered. Well Gareth Hughes is nodding which suggests to me that the Greens would have blocked the completion of the National War Memorial Park had they been given an opportunity to do so. That I think is unfortunate. That is what people I guess expect of Parliament: that Opposition parties will oppose for the sake of opposition. It would have been an interesting question whether or not the Greens really would have been prepared to stop the National War Memorial Park going ahead. Gareth Hughes said they want to see it happen. They like the idea of a park. They like the idea of a contemplative place where we can go and reflect on the sacrifice that our veterans made we can reflect on the nature of war and we can reflect on our desire for a more peaceful future but they are not going to vote for the legislation that is going to make it happen. 
Shane Ardern 
: Sanctimonious. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: And it is those sanctimonious barbs that other parties receive from the Greens that I think perhaps betray their desire to put process in front of absolutely everything including an outcome that all New Zealanders want that is going to be good for Wellington that the local community wants and that is in the interests of our nation. I do not want to dwell on that any more but suffice to say that it is important for Opposition parties to help the Government out sometimes when it gets itself into a spot of bother. 
I also have to say that veterans have expressed to me their surprise that the Government has seen fit to move with such speed on this particular issue when the Government has been dragging its feet so substantially on another issue which is perhaps of even more significance to veterans and that is the rewrite of the War Pensions Act a process that was begun over 5 years ago when the Labour Government asked the Law Commission to carry out a review of the War Pensions Act. That review was returned to the Government more than 2 years ago now and the National Government has had those 2 years since to get on with the job. 
Nobody would say that it is an easy job. I think any veterans organisation and any individual veteran would have said that they would give the Government 12 months’ grace to get on with that job and sort out how it is going to introduce a new War Pensions Act that responds to the contemporary needs of New Zealand’s veterans. But now I think it is fair to say that veterans are getting tired of this Government dragging its feet over what is such an important issue to them. It is an issue of equity it is an issue of justice and it is an issue of recognising the service that was carried out on behalf of our nation and on behalf of decisions made by politicians. It is only right that we as a Parliament get on with the job of recognising that service in a more proper way. 
Nevertheless Labour does support this bill. We are pleased to see the completion of the National War Memorial Park. We are pleased to see that it will be done in time to honour the centenary of the landing at Gallipoli. We do believe that it is unfortunate that the Government has got itself in this position but we are from the Opposition and we are here to help. 
SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 Both my grandfathers served at Gallipoli. Both fortunately returned eventually to New Zealand. Many thousands of others did not. In subsequent battles to protect our heritage and our freedom of our country it is very appropriate that this new national memorial park be fast tracked through in time for the centennial commemoration of the Gallipoli landing. It is with enormous pride that I support the second reading of this National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Just before I call the next member I wish to advise the House that this is a split call between the Labour Party and the Green Party and both speakers will get a bell with 1 minute to go. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 Efficient as always Mr Speaker—I appreciate it. It is a pleasure to take a call in the second reading of the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill. I was pleased to find myself on the select committee the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that considered this bill because I listened to the first reading with great interest. The reason I did that I suppose is for the same reason many of us in this House have found this bill particularly interesting: it is about—as our very valuable veterans’ affairs spokesperson Iain Lees-Galloway has said—honouring past contributions but also our men and women who are currently serving in overseas conflicts. 
One of the things that I got to do quite recently—in fact Gareth Hughes was with me—on a trip with the Speaker was to visit Belgium and go through Messines Ypres and Passchendaele. I have people in my family who served in those wars—and in fact there is a story; I will come to that in a minute. I had no idea that only when you stand in those fields those fields so far away from home and understand how many of our young men were there—and I mean young; the youngest I think was 15; he lied about his age to go there—and you see the white stones going for miles and miles and miles do you have any idea of the sacrifice that was made in those conflicts in the First World War. I was thinking about my grandfather who actually served at the Somme and I remembered coming across his diary. He left his diaries to my sister and me. He talked about how he walked from Messines to Ypres and then on to the Somme which is quite a long way. So I stood in his footsteps if you know what I mean. He came home safely but it was a very very powerful experience and I know many of us here have similar stories in our history and in our families. 
I felt very privileged to be on the select committee to be considering this bill albeit with all of the concerns that people have raised. It was a very fast select committee process. It was referred to the committee on 28 August 2012 and we had a very short time frame for submissions but nevertheless we did receive 18 submissions and we heard eight of them. All of them were powerful. All of them were supportive. There were some concerns raised. I think we had very good advice also from the Regulations Review Committee and the Legislative Advisory Committee as well and we had good advice from the Ministry of Culture and Heritage the Ministry of Transport and the New Zealand Transport Agency that helped our committee get through this I think very fast process. 
One of the things I was pleased about was the way that we worked together in the spirit of this memorial park to overcome some of the concerns that we had. I know that we did not satisfy the Greens on all of them but we did work together to overcome some of the concerns that people had about this fast process for empowering legislation which we prefer not to do. But of course in this situation if we want to see a memorial park on Anzac Day in 2015 that honours the sacrifice of all of the wars that are mentioned in this Chamber and all of the other wars all of the people who have been lost to us in those wars and all the people who are still serving we have to support this. We have to see this wonderful park established and sadly we have to take some short cuts. We do have to allow in this case with reservations the necessary legislation that will enable this park to be built. 
Finally I also want to say that it is a national war memorial so even though I am not from Wellington I take pride in the fact that it is a national war memorial. I look forward to its completion. I look forward to us celebrating as a nation and remembering in 2015 the wonderful event that it will be when we finally have this park together and when all of us as a nation can remember. Thank you. 
JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Tena koutou e te Whare. I rise to speak on the second reading of the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill which I did not have the pleasure of following through the select committee. Like my colleagues Gareth Hughes and Holly Walker have said on this bill before me the Green Party absolutely supports the creation of a National War Memorial Park in Wellington. We honour our fallen soldiers we honour the memory of their service and we hope that the creation of a war memorial park will enable reflection an opportunity in the busy city for people to think about how we will work towards peace in this world. 
However as also stated by my colleagues previously we simply cannot support this bill as it stands because it uses extraordinary measures that undermine the fundamental principles of democracy which are of course what our forebears fought for. It is simply not good process to use special legislation to give sweeping powers to the executive and it is a flawed top-down process that this Government has used repeatedly since it came into power. It is not only that this bill could set a precedent but also that it is continuing the precedent of the erosion of democratic process and we simply do not accept the idea that one can get the desired outcome and aims through poor process. It is simply not possible. 
If this Government had not axed the planning and funding for this park in 2009 we would not be in this situation of playing catch-up in this sloppy irresponsible and undemocratic way. 
I acknowledge the comments made by members of the Labour Party who have worked to improve the bill in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and I acknowledge that at this late point in time perhaps this bill would be the only way that the park could be created in time. However to answer the questions previously raised by Mr Iain Lees-Galloway I think it is safe to say that if the Green Party held the balance of power we never would have seen the park abandoned. We never would have seen such a poor solution as an urban motorway ploughed through Wellington as the bypass which does nothing to solve the traffic problems of Wellington but did desecrate our National War Memorial which already existed in the heart of this city. 
For those members who are not familiar with the latest research in urban and transport planning policy I can tell you that actually there are cities all over the world that are removing motorways and creating parks. What they have established is the incontrovertible fact—it is incontrovertible—that when you reduce the ability of vehicles to flow through the city actually the traffic disappears. It is the exact opposite of the phenomenon that happens when you create a new urban motorway which is to say if you spend hundreds of millions of dollars putting tunnels through this city to enable the flow of vehicles there will simply be more people seeking to drive through the city and you will not reduce traffic. But if one takes a more creative low-cost approach which is being taken in many cities across the world— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Are we talking about Auckland or Wellington now? “Around the world”—which bloody tunnel are you talking about? 
JULIE ANNE GENTER 
: —it is entirely possible to get better traffic outcomes better economic outcomes and better urban amenities and you can absolutely create your National War Memorial Park without the need to spend $70 million on a tunnel and without the need for this outrageous legislation. 
To answer the question of Mr Mallard the cities that I am referring to include Seoul South Korea; New York City; Paris; Portland Oregon—cities of absolutely comparable size to Wellington and Auckland. The principles of transport planning actually are identical no matter where one is. So there is not the need for this legislation as it stands although the Green Party does support the need for a beautiful National War Memorial Park in the heart of Wellington. Thank you. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I want to just preface my comments by reminding the House of what Mr Bennett said in his call acknowledging the very good work that the Green members did in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee in considering this bill the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill because that offering from Ms Genter completely confused me— 
Julie Anne Genter 
: Genter! 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: —Ms Genter—particularly the last comment which was that it was an outrageous bill. Well that is not particularly what her colleague Mr Hughes said and I do not think we heard the answer to Mr Lees-Galloway’s very sage question which was had they held the balance of power what would they do? Ms Genter tried to answer the question. I am none the wiser. I am none the wiser what they would have done and at some point in the next 25 years they may well be in power. They may well be part of a left-leaning Government and the luxury will not be theirs to do nothing to make no decision. 
I think it is a very revealing insight into the challenge that the Greens have in considering this bill. The reasons for its delay and the need for haste are very well documented. I do not agree with Mrs King on many of the reasons that she offered for this but I think it is a very revealing insight into the way the Greens think on what they have previously said was a good bill but they did not like the process. Now it is an outrageous bill. 
I think it is a good bill. I look forward to the monument being completed and to the tunnel being built. It is not designed to solve Wellington’s transport problems but it is going to certainly not hurt. I support the bill. 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek under Standing Order 107 to correct a misrepresentation made in the debate by the member for Palmerston North. The member— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: I was not actually seeking leave— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Under which Standing Order was it? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Standing Order 107. He wishes to make a correction. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: I was not actually seeking leave but just to alert the House that the member for Palmerston North pointed to me saying how the Greens would or would not vote— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No no. That is a debatable point. 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We are in a bit of a bind because Speaker’s ruling 38/4 refers to interjections. I was not interjecting when the member made this case. It is not up to me to say how the Greens would vote; it is up to our caucus. Therefore— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No no. The member should know better. He has been here long enough now. It is still a debatable point. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the National War Memorial Park (Pukeahu) Empowering Bill be now read a second time. 
Ayes 105 
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; New Zealand First 8; Maori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 15 
Green Party 14; Mana 1. 
Bill read a second time. 
Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Minister for Courts) 
on behalf of the Associate Minister of Health: I move  
That the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. First I would like to thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee for its consideration of the bill on a shortened timetable. I would also like to thank the 94 interested groups and individuals who made submissions on the bill of which 19 were heard in person. 
The bill itself is quite short and straightforward in its intent but it addresses a very important and serious issue for the country and that is the enormous harm caused by smoking which is by far New Zealand’s leading avoidable cause of serious disease and premature death. The committee recommends by majority to the House that the bill be passed without amendment. The majority view in the committee across all but one of the parties represented in this House was fully supportive of the intent of this bill to discourage smoking by increasing the price of tobacco. 
Increasing the tobacco excise is our lever to raise the retail price of tobacco products and this provides a strong signal and financial incentive to dissuade people from smoking. We know it works. Firstly it presents young people who might be contemplating taking up smoking with a real deterrent because we know they are very responsive to prices. Hopefully they will find much better things to do with their money. Secondly it provides all smokers with another trigger to quit. Not only can they avoid the high risk of the tragic health consequences of smoking but they can save themselves sizeable sums of money. Thirdly the rising cost and increasing unaffordability of smoking provides those who have quit or are struggling to stay quit with a strong reinforcement for their resolve. 
As announced in Budget 2012 this bill provides for four 10 percent increases in tobacco excise to come into effect on 1 January in each of the next 4 years. These compounding increases will likely take the price of an average pack of cigarettes to over $20 in January 2016. That marks a highly significant price point to drive home the very real cost of smoking. The bill provides for these new annual 10 percent increases in tobacco excise and excise-equivalent duties to be made in combination with the existing process available for the Government to make regular annual increases to keep pace with inflation. This is an important mechanism to maintain the value of the tobacco excise increases and the unaffordability of tobacco products in real terms. 
The other step being taken through this bill is to ensure the financial incentive against smoking is not watered down through the cost indexation of social assistance payments. It would make no sense to raise tobacco prices on the one hand in order to reduce tobacco consumption only to then factor the increase in tobacco prices back into the calculations used to keep social assistance payments in pace with inflation. I hasten to add that this does not mean that the Government is insensitive to the impact the tobacco excise increases will have on those who are unable or unwilling to quit. The proposal in the bill seeks to strike a balance that does not unduly punish low-income smokers or their families while ensuring there is a strong incentive for them to quit and thereby significantly boost their disposable income. The Government also provides a range of services and subsidised treatments to help smokers to quit. 
As the committee has reported many submitters from a health perspective sought much higher increases than those in the bill. Tobacco makes up a little over 2 percent of the total basket of products measured by the Consumers Price Index so the tobacco excise increases in this bill will have a noticeable impact on consumer price inflation. However for non-smokers there is no impact on their spending power whereas for smokers the whole point is to ensure that they see the full force of the financial incentive to dissuade them from smoking. For that reason the bill proposes removing tobacco price inflation from the calculations used to adjust superannuation Working for Families and other social welfare payments in line with inflation. To achieve this requires consequential amendments to a number of pieces of legislation: the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 the Education Act 1989 the Income Tax Act 2007 the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 the Social Security 1964 and the War Pensions Act 1954. As mentioned in the bill as introduced it is intended at the end of the Committee of the whole House stage to split these indexation provisions from the bill into separate amendment Acts relating to each of the Acts in the list I have just mentioned. 
This bill will play an important part in helping us reach the goal of New Zealand becoming to all intents and purposes a smoke-free nation by 2025 with smoking prevalence and tobacco consumption reduced to minimal levels. The Government adopted the smoke-free 2025 goal in March 2011 in response to the recommendations of the Maori Affairs Committee’s landmark inquiry into the tobacco industry in Aotearoa and consequences of tobacco use for Maori. Since then amendments to the Smoke-free Environments Act to remove retail tobacco displays and tighten up the regime preventing sale of tobacco products to people under 18 have also passed through this House via the Health Committee. Now a third select committee the Finance and Expenditure Committee has given its attention to the challenge of achieving a smoke-free 2025. 
I note the two recommendations for Government that the committee has made in its report on this bill—namely to monitor closely the progress made over the next few years towards the goal of a smoke-free New Zealand by 2025 and implement further excise tax increases after 2016 if the achievement is in doubt and to undertake work to assess the compatibility of New Zealand’s duty-free tobacco concession with the goal of achieving a smoke-free New Zealand by 2025. Work relating to both these recommendations is already in progress. 
There is no doubt that the smoke-free 2025 goal is a stretch challenge that will require a range of activity over and above tax increases. In saying that increasing the price of tobacco is the most effective policy tool available especially when it is part and parcel of a comprehensive tobacco control programme like New Zealand’s. 
The bill before us is a very similar piece of legislation in every regard to the previous amendment which brought in tobacco excise tax increases in April 2010 January 2011 and January 2012. The bill builds on that success and continues the momentum. The previous excise rises have significantly lifted the price of tobacco. The price of a typical pack of 20 cigarettes increased 40 percent from $10.30 in April 2010 to $14.40 after January this year. Over the same time the price of loose tobacco increased by over 50 percent and is now over $50 for a 50 gram pouch. 
Research tells us that for every 10 percent increase in the price of tobacco tobacco consumption will decrease by about 4 percent and this is exactly what we have been seeing. Overall tobacco consumption by volume fell by 13 percent from 2009 to 2011 following the first two of the three excise rises. This is in marked contrast to the previous 5 years when there was an overall decrease in tobacco consumption of only 3 percent. 
Smokers have been cutting back but more important there is also evidence that they have been quitting and best of all not starting. The previous excise tax increases resulted in immediate large increases in the number of people attempting to quit smoking seen for example in spikes in Quitline call rates. Preliminary New Zealand Health Survey data from the last 6 months of 2011 shows that progress is also being made in reducing the adult—aged 15-plus—daily smoking rate. In 2006-07 the rate of daily smokers was 18.1 percent and on the preliminary figures to hand this has been reduced to 16.2 percent. Every 1 percent drop in prevalence means 30000 fewer smokers and potentially thousands of lives saved. 
There have also been particularly pleasing results in relation to reducing the rate of young people smoking. The large annual ASH Year 10 Snapshot Survey shows the number of 14-year-old daily smokers dropped by a quarter to only 4.1 percent in 2011 and 70.4 percent of year 10 students had never smoked—an increase from 64.3 percent in 2010. The fact that these reductions in the rate of schoolchildren taking up regular smoking are being seen across all ethnic and socio-economic groups is encouraging for the future. 
Although the increases in tobacco excise in 2010 2011 and 2012 have reduced tobacco consumption and prompted thousands of smokers to quit and helped protect our youth by discouraging them from taking up smoking we cannot and must not rest there. That is why this bill is needed to bring in a further series of annual 10 percent increases over the next 4 years and that is why I commend the bill to the House. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 The health impacts of tobacco smoking have been well rehearsed in this Parliament time and time again with a number of measures designed to reduce the impact of tobacco-related harm having passed through Parliament in recent years. But I think it is worth reminding ourselves just briefly why it is that we are doing this and why we continue to come back to this issue. 
It is estimated that half of long-term smokers still die of a smoking-related illness. That amounts to around 5000 deaths each year in New Zealand that are attributable either directly to smoking or to second-hand smoke. Tobacco smoking shows up in and is a cause of all of the big four health issues facing New Zealand: cancer respiratory disease cardiovascular disease and diabetes. It is for that reason that it is important that the Government and Parliament do everything they can to reduce the prevalence of tobacco use in New Zealand. Of course we have that goal that we have all adopted to make New Zealand smoke-free by 2025. It is as Chester Borrows said an ambitious and lofty goal but it is one that I think is achievable and one that we need to continue working towards. We need to continue coming back to this issue. 
It is in that sense that this particular bill the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill is an important shift in the way Parliament deals with the issue of tobacco excise tax. Whereas in the past we made one-off adjustments—increases—to tobacco excise tax this bill legislates for a series of four cumulative 10 percent increases on 1 January over each of the forthcoming 4 years. That is an important development because the research tells us that each time there is an increase in the price of cigarettes and other tobacco products we see a related response from smokers in engaging in quit attempts contacting people like Quitline and in fact successfully quitting. But what the research also tells us is that we see a spike in quitting activity immediately after that increase and then that activity tails off. So we need to keep coming back to this. As this bill allows for increases year after year as the research becomes more developed we may want to look at whether annually is often enough or whether we want to revisit this issue more regularly than that so that we keep capturing a new cohort of smokers because each time the price goes up we reach a new level. There is a certain price at which each cohort of smokers will engage in quit attempts and as the price goes up and up and up we capture a new group each time. I think it is important that this legislation allows for a 4-year period where that will continue to happen. 
I have to say that this legislation has been able to pass because of the benign environment we find ourselves in in Parliament with regard to issues of tobacco harm reduction and tobacco legislation. That has not always been the case which has been a barrier I have to say to measures like this occurring much sooner. We could have been doing this a decade ago but I think it is fair to say the Labour Government was not prepared to come back to this issue time after time and face the fight that was put up by the National Opposition. I am pleased that the National Party has come round on this— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: It’s outrageous! 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: It is not outrageous Mr Woodhouse. It is not outrageous because the National Party opposed Labour’s excise increase it opposed smoke-free environments legislation it opposed getting smoking out of pubs and bars and restaurants and it opposed every initiative that the Labour Party brought to Parliament to reduce the harm of tobacco smoking. I wanted to say Mr Woodhouse that I am pleased that we now have a truce. I think it is great that we now have a truce and that around Parliament we have agreement that this is the right thing to do and we will not fight each other over it. I wanted to just note that it is due to that environment that this piece of legislation has been able to progress as far as it has through Parliament. 
Much has been made of the fact that these increases will not be factored into the assessment of CPI increases especially when it comes to assessing how much people who are receiving a benefit should receive in relation to the overall increase in the cost of living. I can see from a health perspective that that is absolutely the right thing to do. We are trying to make tobacco products more expensive in real terms because the research—the evidence—tells us that that is one of the most powerful ways to reduce the incidence of tobacco smoking. But it is important to note I think that this is one more way in which life is becoming that much more expensive for people on the lowest incomes and people who receive a benefit and that is something that we have seen over the last 4 years under this Government—life becoming just that much more difficult for those on the lowest incomes. So it is important that we examine what other measures we might be engaging with that would reduce the incidence of smoking but would not have this financial impact on those people who are most vulnerable who have the least. 
One of the other things that the Government could and should be doing and that has a direct evidence base that supports our carrying out this initiative is much greater use of social marketing to discourage people from smoking and to encourage them to quit. The research tells us that there is a direct relationship between what is known as target audience rating points—in other words both the volume of social marketing and the accuracy of its targeting at its target audience—in getting people to quit. We see the same spike in quit attempts around those types of social marketing campaigns as we see around increases in excise tax which this legislation allows for. However unfortunately under the current Government we have seen a reduction in funding for those types of social marketing campaigns and a reduction in those target audience rating points. So overall the Government is doing less of that type of social marketing that encourages people to quit smoking and discourages them from taking up smoking. 
That I think is a real pity because it is something that has a strong evidence base but does not directly impact the people who are themselves smoking. And it would go very well hand in hand with this type of measure. In fact what would be ideal would be to have with each of these excise increases a very active social marketing campaign around those that also encourages people to quit. That would have a cumulative effect to really get the prevalence of smoking down and really advance New Zealand towards that goal of having the nation smoke-free by 2025. I would like to see the Government commit to more of that type of activity in addition to this taxation activity which we do know will decrease the prevalence of tobacco smoking. 
Labour is pleased to support this bill. We are pleased to be constructive as an Opposition on issues like this where it is important that we get consensus around the House and we look forward to further action taking New Zealand closer to that goal of becoming smoke-free. 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise and speak on this bill the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. I was going to jump up and say to the last speaker Iain Lees-Galloway that he should be ashamed of himself for bringing such politics into a debate where all of the House is joined together to do the right thing for New Zealanders. But I have decided not to do that and the reason for that is that in the Finance and Expenditure Committee we worked extremely well together on this issue. We had a number of submitters who came before us who asked the committee to do more in these areas but easily we were able to agree on what it was this bill was trying to achieve and what it was as a committee that we wanted to happen and we were able to also agree on some suggestions to the Government about further ways forward. 
The reason for this is that smoking is New Zealand’s leading preventable cause of death and if we break down those who smoke of particular concern are younger people but Maori are disproportionately overrepresented in these statistics and that is a real concern. An estimated 4500 to 5000 New Zealanders die every year due to smoking or exposure to second-hand smoke. So up to 5000 New Zealanders lose their lives because of tobacco. We know that half of all long-term smokers die of a smoking-related illness losing an average of 15 years of their lives. I will say that again. Half of all long-term smokers lose an average of 15 years of their lives. Six hundred and fifty thousand New Zealanders or one in every five people over the age of 15 continue to put their lives at risk. What is really concerning is that 155000 of these smokers are Maori and 45 percent of the Maori population aged 15 to 64 smoke. 
I agree with the last speaker in this debate that as a Parliament all parties—and all New Zealanders—need to focus on this and we need to do so much more about these appalling statistics. What we heard at the select committee from submitters was their concern and we also heard from those who smoke. We heard why they smoke and we also heard from some who want to give up. Some of them said it was their right to continue to smoke if they chose to do so. But we know that about 80 percent of everybody who smokes wish they had never started. So this legislation with an increase of 10 percent per year for 4 years in the price of tobacco through excise duty is as much about making people stop smoking as it is about making them never start smoking. 
An interesting statistic I would like to bring to the House is around young people. Smoking among 15 to 64-year-olds fell significantly between 2006 and 2009 from 24 percent to about 21 percent. Well that is a decrease but 21 percent of people that age still smoking is too high. The proportion of school students who smoke daily has fallen from 15.6 percent in 1999 to 4.1 percent in 2011. That is an outstanding statistic because the work that the previous Government has done and that this Government has done over the last 4 years is about saying to young people that this is not a choice that is good for you. Price is a very important part of that. 
I am the father of four young children. I hope that they never smoke. I have to tell you that at the end of this process when the price of a cigarette is about $1 it is going to have a greater effect on young people and their habits than almost anything else we can do at the moment. I guarantee it. If you go to any schoolyard and walk around and say to young people “Can I have a dollar?” you would be hard-pressed to get one from any of them. Some years ago to say “Can I have a cigarette?’ was not equated to the amount of money they cost and I am sure that in schoolyards around New Zealand and in other situations they were shared freely. 
Although there were people who came to the committee and said that we were targeting smokers and that it was unfair on them and we were putting an extra burden on them actually we know that 80 percent of people wish they had never started and want to stop. Every single time the price goes up New Zealanders are moved to seek help to stop smoking. Therefore I support this legislation and I support it because it is going to encourage more New Zealanders not to smoke and it is going to encourage greater numbers of younger New Zealanders not to start smoking or at the very least to not give these very expensive cancer sticks away to others. 
I want to finish here but I will say that off and on I have been a smoker for some years. This is not one of these free-for-all declarations that the Hon Tau Henare makes in the House—and I wish him the very best with his challenge in this—but I would always say that I gave up smoking almost as easily as I started. I never made it a point to smoke in front of my family my children because I know that if they saw me smoking they would grow up thinking it was OK. It would normalise it. Much of the work this Parliament has done is to take the normality of smoking away so that it is not something that is as acceptable it is not something that is normal. But through support—actually not through the support of the Government; I paid myself but there is support available—I found these tablets called Champix which changed things for me and for a year and a half I have not gone near a cigarette nor do I want one. 
So I encourage anybody who may be listening to this or who may read this—or the four of them out there who have got TV on listening to Parliament at the moment—if you are smokers to go and see your doctor. Go and ask the question and you will be surprised at the amount of support that is there and you will not be a statistic—well you are not a statistic Mr Deputy Speaker but you the people out in the real world who do not understand that we cannot use the word “you”. Anybody in the real world at the moment should go and talk to their doctor and seek support because it is not as difficult as it seems and there is a huge amount of support there. I thank you Mr Deputy Speaker for the time and I look forward to the Committee stage where we might discuss this bill in greater detail. 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 It gives me great pleasure to rise and support this bill the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. Anything that curtails or curbs the consumption of tobacco in our society has to be a good thing. We have heard already many of the statistics around tobacco and tobacco consumption. We know that about 5000 deaths each year in New Zealand are attributable either to direct smoking or to second-hand smoke so this is about the environment around a smoker as well as their own consumption of tobacco. Five thousand deaths is a lot of New Zealanders. 
In fact if we have a look at the regulatory impact statement attached to the legislation we notice that Treasury in its inimitable style tries to quantify the impact of tobacco and the harm it does and tries to quantify the social costs of smoking. The regulatory impact statement says: “The social costs of smoking have been estimated at 62800 life years lost to tobacco-related premature deaths and 19000 quality adjusted life-years lost to tobacco-related illness.” “Quality-adjusted life-years” is a term that is used in the health sector. It does not mean a lot outside of that but basically what Treasury says in its own way is that people could have lived longer and they could have lived longer better if they had not been subjected to tobacco consumption or had not consumed tobacco themselves. 
It gives me particular pleasure to speak to this bill as Labour’s spokesperson on health. This bill has not come up as a health measure. This bill has not been introduced by the Minister of Health. This bill has not come to the Health Committee. So I am left with a question mark about the Government’s real motives. I wish there were a consensus. My colleague Iain Lees-Galloway a moment ago referred to a truce between Labour and National over controls on tobacco consumption and smoking. I hope this is better than a truce. I hope this is actually an agreement on the negative health impact that smoking has on the lives of New Zealanders. But if the Government were truly convinced that this bill is a good health measure then surely the Minister of Health might have introduced it and it might have come to the Health Committee. 
In fact what I see is that we have an assessment—and this is Treasury’s assessment again—that this legislation will raise an additional $528 million over the next 4 years—$528 million over the next 4 years. I would have more comfort that this was a health measure and not a tax grab if there was any reference to the $528 million over 4 years being put into smoking cessation. The speaker who resumed his seat a moment ago Todd McClay talked about not having had too much trouble giving up smoking. Well that is not true for most smokers—that is not true for most smokers. In fact people who are addicted to nicotine do require support. So let us be clear that if we are going to curtail the consumption of tobacco we should have equal support measures put in place by the money raised from this measure. If this bill is going to raise $528 million over 4 years it would be a good idea if the Government could see its way clear to redirecting that money into health initiatives and into supporting further Quitline programmes nicotine substitutes and things that people need to reduce the harm and finally reduce their addiction. 
This is not an easy substance to deal with. Putting the price up is certainly one way of making it less accessible to young people and I support that. I support it as a health measure. I support it because the tobacco companies are known for their appeal their advertising angle to young people. Would they be putting so much money into their current television advertising campaign—AgreeDisagree I think it is called—around the plain packaging of cigarettes if they were not persuaded that advertising works? If we raise the price—and Labour supports that; Labour supports it as a health measure not as a tax grab but as a health measure—if we do that then let us make sure that we are helping people who will not be able to afford the one thing that they consider to be their stress relief which is a cigarette and help them to quit smoking and to give up that addiction. We are talking about an addiction here. This is not as the Government would have us believe simply a lifestyle choice. We know as one of my colleagues said earlier what the four major killers of New Zealanders are: cardiovascular diseases cancers respiratory illnesses and diabetes. We know that these four killers take 80 percent of the health budget. We know that most of the symptoms are preventable. Why can we not now have an agreed position across the House on what the major health goals ought to be for New Zealanders and why can we not work jointly as we are on this bill to reach them? 
I have to say that I am not yet persuaded that the Government has changed its mind over tobacco. If it has and if subsequent speakers from National can persuade me that they have changed their mind over tobacco I will welcome that. But I recall what Bill English said in 2000 when we in Government were looking to increase the excise on tobacco in 2000. Bill English said: “The reason we voted against this measure was that the Government did not ever say that it would do it and that is the measure it set—not us. The Government did not say before the election that it would do it—that is the Government’s standard not ours. It is a tax increase. It is a tax on the poorest people in New Zealand it is an increase that is far too large and that is why we voted against it.” That is the same man Bill English who went to the country in 2002 with a policy that said that the National Government would repeal the Smoke-free Environments Act. If there has been a change of heart if there has truly been a change of heart in the National Party I would like the next National speaker to get up and say so. If we are agreed on the health goals here then let us celebrate that and let us move forward. If this is simply a tax grab and if the money is going to paper over the holes that the Government’s economic policy has left then let National speakers say that. I am sure they will not but let them be challenged to say that. 
We agree on this side of the House that this bill is a good measure for health reasons. Let it be for health reasons. Let us agree on it for those reasons and let us pursue it and ring-fence some of the income from this increased excise to address the problem of smoking addiction. Thank you. 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 I want to begin by expressing my thanks to all of those who made submissions on this bill the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill to the officials who serviced the Finance and Expenditure Committee and to the committee members themselves including the chairperson of the committee Todd McClay who has just recently spoken in this debate. Congratulations to Todd McClay on his successful attempts at quitting smoking. On average it takes someone seven attempts to quit and on average the odds of quitting are doubled in any particular attempt by using nicotine replacement therapy or some other method as Todd McClay has discussed. 
None the less I want to express some frustration that despite a request from the Health Committee this bill was considered by the Finance and Expenditure Committee. The reality is that this is or ought to have been as Maryan Street has just mentioned a bill primarily about health. Indeed virtually all of the submissions that were received by the Finance and Expenditure Committee were about health. I believe that the Health Committee may have been better positioned to provide an expert scrutiny of the submissions that were received. Had that occurred it may be that the committee would have come back to this House with a bolder recommendation about this bill. 
In the  
New Zealand Medical Journal 
 just a few days ago on 21 September Nick Wilson and George Thomson from the University of Otago Faculty of Medicine published a letter entitled “What is tobacco tax for—revenue or health?”. I think some of Maryan Street’s comments go to that point. I want to particularly draw out one passage from their letter in which they say this: “We suggest that Parliament makes it explicit in the tobacco tax legislation that: The primary purpose of the current Bill is to reduce smoking so as to prevent harm to health and to prevent premature death rather than to increase Government revenue. The Bill is a key part of the Government plans for achieving a smokefree nation in 2025.” Chester Borrows has referred to that goal in his contribution to this debate today. The reason that that is important is that the option considered first by the agencies of Treasury the Ministry of Health and the Customs Service which has been selected for this bill and has been recommended by the select committee is in fact the option that has the least effect on improving New Zealanders’ health so it is in fact least congruent with a purpose that is about health rather than revenue gathering. 
We know that these 10 percent increases recommended in the bill will not be enough to get us to that smoke-free goal in 2025. We know also that the tobacco industry has ways of manipulating its margins to enable it to cope with and accommodate such small increases to excise tax. Chester Borrows referred to that smoke-free goal as a stretch goal target and indeed as other speakers have mentioned it will be a difficult target for the nation to reach. Given the comments that I made in the first reading debate which others have picked up on in this debate today that smoking is the largest preventable cause of death in New Zealand and increasing the price of tobacco and tobacco products is the single most effective measure of actually reducing the consumption of tobacco and tobacco products it seems to me that it is woefully inadequate to choose the least effective measure. In doing so the Government is planning to fail to meet that target that it has set. 
 By way of contrast virtually all of the submitters—who as I say were from the health sector by and large—recommended instead that we in the first year increase excise tax by 40 percent because they said that is the way of achieving the kind of shock change of behaviour rather than that gradual acclimatisation that smokers will tend to have to these progressive smaller increases. They also suggested that that 40 percent increase should be followed up by subsequent annual 20 percent increases. That is the option recommended by the experts from the health sector and that is the option that the Green Party supported. So why was a more aggressive option rejected? That one was not even considered by the agencies but they did consider a one-off 30 percent increase and subsequent smaller increases. 
The implication of the letter from Messrs Thomson and Wilson in the  
New Zealand Medical Journal 
 is that it may have been rejected because it would adversely affect the revenue because if we reduce the consumption of tobacco and tobacco products actually the revenue stream will in fact decrease. I guess there is some evidence for that in that when the agencies considered the options to recommend to us—and those options are included in the regulatory impact statement—the option that is included in the bill and recommended by the select committee was the one favoured by Treasury. The much more aggressive one considered by the bill is the one that was favoured by the Ministry of Health. So in our questioning of officials in the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s deliberations I asked why that more aggressive approach was rejected. What the Treasury officials came back to me with was the suggestion which Chester Borrows has alluded to in his comments here today that it was rejected because Treasury was concerned about the impact on those low-income New Zealanders who did not quit or reduce their consumption of tobacco or tobacco products. There was absolutely no modelling done of that at all despite the fact that it is actually a relatively easy scenario to model. That causes me to question that scenario just a little. 
So I put that suggestion to all of the submitters from the health sector who deal with those low-income communities. What those submitters said without exception was that they did accept that there would be a disproportionate impost on those communities and they expected that the Government would respond to that by using some of the revenue that came in through these more aggressive taxes to fund better services to support people who wished to quit or to reduce their consumption. But they also said that they still favoured the most aggressive tax increases possible and they did so for one reason and one reason only: in addition to disproportionate costs falling on that community there would also be disproportionate benefits in the savings from reduced tobacco consumption but most important disproportionate benefits to the health status and the years of quality life gained by those communities. 
So overall it is a shame that the Government has chosen to go with the modest 10 percent increases. The bill also refers to the duty-free concessions. Those duty-free concessions are at best an anachronism and the sooner they go altogether the better. I support the select committee’s recommendations about that. I want to again endorse the thanks and the congratulations that this House has previously accorded to the Hon Tariana Turia who ought to take a considerable degree of credit for this measure and for the ongoing efforts of this House to deal with the scourge of tobacco-related harm. Thank you. 
PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) 
: 
 I rise to speak in favour of this the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill and I do so with pleasure because the purpose of this bill is to increase the excise tax on tobacco to reduce smoking. Over the next 4 years excise taxes will increase 10 percent a year on top of the 40 percent increase since April 2009. The advice we have had in the Finance and Expenditure Committee is that for every 10 percent increase in price tobacco consumption falls by about 4 percent. So this increase I am sure will contribute to the improvement of our health outcomes in New Zealand. 
I must say I do find it fascinating that we have the Labour Party and the Greens supportive of this principle this basic principle: that if you want to stop something—if you want to stop smoking—you increase the taxes and that discourages people from doing it. That is how you go about doing things. But when it comes to taxing work they have a very different view. They do not seem to see that same logic flowing through. If you tax work and you tax income very highly it discourages people from doing it and if you tax saving by capital gains taxes that also has a disincentive on people doing it. So it is interesting to see the different logic you have in the different parts of the mind when it comes to these things. But all in all I am very much in favour of this bill and I think it will make a real contribution to reducing the harm caused in this country by smoking. Thank you. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I am taking a call on behalf of New Zealand First in the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill debate. This bill will see a 10 percent cumulative increase in tax on tobacco commencing 1 January 2013 and applying every 1 January thereafter for 4 years taking a packet of cigarettes from something like $14 a packet to around $20 a packet by 2016. The bill states that the increase in the price of cigarettes will discourage tobacco consumption which in turn will improve the health of New Zealanders. New Zealand First will not oppose this bill as we agree that it is in New Zealand’s interest to tackle the harmful effects of smoking and the cost of cigarettes is one tool—a very simple basic tool—to limit consumption. 
However New Zealand First does have some concerns that this may be just a pay-off by the National Government to the Maori Party members in order to keep their vote and support. Is this just a sop to one of the Government’s cling-on parties to maintain its vote? It is a bit like the charter schools—another sop to a cling-on party to keep its vote as well. So we do wonder. Having heard in this House today how National Party members had opposed the many other increases in excises in the last decade it is interesting that suddenly the leopard changes its spots and agrees with it but probably only because Associate Minister of Health Tariana Turia has managed to convince Government members that she will maintain her vote with them only if they support this particular bill of hers. 
We do have concerns however about whether this money will not just disappear into the general consolidated fund as another way to prop up the National Government’s “Fagin Budget”. We have already had the “pick a pocket or two Budget” this year which included the Government taking $14 million of taxes from the paper boys and paper girls of this country. It was getting down to the rock-bottom way of getting money into the coffers by attacking the young people of this country who are trying to get out there and make a little bit of pocket money to perhaps pay for some of the things that they would like to have that they cannot afford. Or in some cases I have heard young children have actually paid for their annual school camp from the money that they have made from their paper round or their odd jobs. So it would be disappointing if this 10 percent cumulative tax was taken each year—a significant amount of tax—but was only to then disappear into the coffers. 
New Zealand First is supporting this on the basis that those taxes do go into genuine health support and into trying to reduce smoking such as through public awareness campaigns for instance or an increase in the media spend concentrating for example on the media showing the real effects of smoking on unborn babies—real stories real people the good and the bad. We would expect that such campaigns would dispel the whanau myths—smoking is a killer but the messages that may come down through the Maori whakapapa contradict these such as “I smoked through all my pregnancies and you lot are all right.” The truth is that cigarettes now contain many more poisons than ever before. They are more potent and New Zealand has more poisons than ever before. They have the highest levels of nicotine in the world which therefore makes them more highly addictive and harder to do without. 
New Zealand First would expect more funding from these tax increases to allow health professionals to work with specialist populations such as more specific support for those with mental illness who may find it difficult to quit without that extra assistance. The primary health organisations throughout New Zealand are doing a tremendous job in helping public awareness of this problem and addiction. Smoking cessation programmes need to become more integrated and prioritised across contracted funding streams such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Quitting smoking reduces risk across these health issues as well so the flow-on effect to our health system is enormous. It cannot be just an isolation of taxes on smoking; it must be hand in hand with the other health measures as well. 
Cigarette taxation needs to fund research with resources made available to those who are at the coalface without there being huge application processes. We need access to researchers who can give their time to help write up case-based realities to share and grow existing smoking cessation services. We need more training and recognition of the smoking cessation workforce and access for funded quality training. We also need money from these increased taxes to go into an innovation fund to recognise that there are lots of great suggestions to try to quit smoking such as in countries around the world where they have tried quit cafes. Those quit cafes have been successful in many other countries. 
I also sat on the Finance and Expenditure Committee on behalf of the Rt Hon Winston Peters and one of the discussions that came up during that committee was that this legislation did not cover duty-free cigarettes. In fact there is a significant consumption of cigarettes that come via the duty-free stores in our airports and our ports but there was no real data—the officials could not provide data—on how many duty-free cigarettes were being sold. In Australia they have reduced the dispensation on duty-free cigarettes to only 50 now whereas we are still at 200; therefore if the Australians can see fit to reduce it to 50 cigarettes then we should be considering likewise. Otherwise why do all this work? Why have all this effort to try to increase the programmes to try to improve the education around smoking and ceasing smoking and yet still allow literally pallet-loads of duty-free cigarettes to hit you in the face as you walk off the aeroplane. If we are going to be genuine about reducing smoking and reducing the use of tobacco and cigarettes then this Government certainly needs to also look at duty-free cigarettes and line ourselves up more with the Australians who have obviously decided to get on top of the problem. 
New Zealand First will be monitoring what funding is provided from this taxation to ensure that the programmes that I have suggested and the health measures that I have suggested will receive the benefits of this increased taxation. We will expect to see the funding and delivering of the smoking cessation programmes to go up quite a few notches from where they are at the moment—not just lip-service from the National Government but proper funding and delivering of programmes to help the health of New Zealanders. These cigarette tax increases must not just be another way for this penny-pinching “Fagin Government” to pick the pockets of good everyday New Zealanders in order to balance the books of an ever-failing Government. 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this debate on the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. It is a little bit disappointing to listen to the quality of the debate this afternoon. Labour and the Greens are arguing that “Yes we support you but it’s just a tax grab not a health measure.” Then they go and complain about why the issue came before the Finance and Expenditure Committee and not the Health Committee. Well I think the outcome of this going through the Finance and Expenditure Committee shows that the committee members there had a good deal of common sense. 
The last speaker from the New Zealand First Party Andrew Williams said that this measure was simply a sop to the Maori Party. Well that is not the case. Then he went on to explain that he had sat on the committee—well he did for one session—and asked questions about the duty-free allowance; he was not there the following week to hear that the amount of cigarettes sold through duty-free stores equates to about 500 million a year. This has just been politicking in the House this afternoon. 
I want to just make the point that human beings respond to signals. It is very clear—there is very strong evidence—that a 10 percent increase in the tax reduces the number of smokers by 4 percent. Nobody in the Opposition at least has mentioned this afternoon that the Budget in 2012 has provided $20 million over the next 4 years to help people stop smoking. This is a very sensible bill it is very well constructed and I support it. 
Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I rise to take a call in support of this bill the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill and I hope I can certainly meet and possibly exceed the high standard of debate just forwarded by Mr Hayes in his— 
Hon Member 
: Short. 
Dr DAVID CLARK 
: —short succinct and worthy contribution. I enjoyed the irony in his comments on politicising. You know usually those who like to throw stones in that glass house know how they are thrown. Indeed Todd McClay in his earlier contribution rued that politics had entered the debate after the Finance and Expenditure Committee had worked so well and collaboratively. I certainly always admire Mr McClay’s ability to insist on the absence of politics in debate when the politics does not suit him. He is nothing if not consistent. 
The debate of course in the select committee was a good one. We heard many submissions from many organisations that had important things to say that had experiences to share and that indeed had much research behind their submissions. We discussed topics such as the unintended consequences of this rise in the excise—the 10 percent increases year by year from 1 January 2013 and then 2014 2015 and 2016—and we wondered what might happen. Overseas evidence was considered and a view was presented that home-grown tobacco would be more popular as a consequence. I am assured by those who know more about this than I that flavour will not be leading that move. The quality of home-grown tobacco apparently is not perhaps up to what can be purchased in the shops but indeed some people will endeavour to produce their own as they struggle to meet the costs of rising tobacco prices. We also discussed the introduction of amendments to the duty-free treatment of tobacco and it is regrettable that the Government has not done something to tackle that. It appears that it could be open to accusations of having one rule for those who cannot afford international travel and a different rule for those who can. 
We can see the Government’s priorities indeed in getting this through. It is not entirely comfortable with the legislation one suspects although it will raise an additional $528 million over the next 4 years. One suspects that it is perhaps along the lines of the other tax grabs we saw in the Budget—a bit of a cynical measure aimed at those whom it has done the least to support during its time in this Government. The increases will be made in combination with the CPI indexation of the duties that occur annually on 1 January. We know that this will have a significant effect on the final cost. Treasury in its analysis in the regulatory impact statement that it has presented to the House has said that tobacco consumption imposes a significant cost on Government. We know that to be the case. But it also makes the point that these costs—these negative externalities—are largely met by the existing excise so further increases in tobacco excise cannot be justified on the grounds of meeting all the health costs that arise from the smoking of tobacco. In Treasury’s words: “smokers are probably already ‘paying their way’ in narrowly fiscal terms.” But that is where Treasury’s analysis stops. It is disappointing because then Treasury goes on to say that it may also reduce labour productivity and it may have other impacts that are internalised—it speculates “through effective wage rates in the functioning of the labour market.”—but it has not taken the time or it does not have the time it says to research those impacts fully. 
 This is a pattern we are seeing out of the Public Service at the moment as various parts of it are squashed and where morale is low because of a Government that is choosing to bring in consultants rather than to value the contributions of Public Service policy analysts. We saw a similar pattern with my bill to Mondayise Anzac Day and Waitangi Day the Holidays (Full Recognition of Waitangi Day and ANZAC Day) Amendment Bill. The effect on productivity of policy changes is not being assessed because it is hard work. Those policy analysts who have it on their agenda simply cannot afford the time or are not encouraged to do it by the current Government. That must be disappointing as we seek to have the best possible advice when making these decisions that affect a significant portion of our population. We are told that one in five New Zealanders is a smoker today so 20 percent of our adult population is affected by this legislation entirely and directly. 
Smoking remains the single biggest cause of preventable morbidity and mortality in New Zealand so there is no doubt we need to tackle this. That is why Labour will support it. Labour indeed took measures under extraordinary urgency to increase the excise on tobacco back in the early 2000s. We see here a move by this Government to increase it in a series of steps but all put through in one swift move. I guess it is probably a little distasteful to the Government if we turn our minds back to the comments of Bill English in 2000. He had this to say. He said that “The reason we voted against this measure”—as the Government then did—“was that the Government did not ever say that it would do it and that is the measure it set—not us. The Government did not say before the election that it would do it—that is the Government’s standards not ours. It is a tax increase. It is a tax on the poorest people in New Zealand it is an increase that is far too large and that is why we voted against it.” Well how times have changed. We have a Government that is suffering from a low tax take. We have seen a 4 percent drop since the global financial crisis in revenues. The tax department says that 1.5 percent of that can be attributed to the global financial crisis roughly in line with what other countries have expected and experienced but that 2.5 percent of that drop in revenue can be attributed directly to Government policy changes. 
Here we are talking about measures that the Government described as “broadly fiscally neutral”. We are going back to those 2010 tax cuts where we know that 44 percent of the value of those tax cuts went to the top 10 percent of earners and just 2 percent of the value of those 2010 tax cuts went to the bottom 20 percent of earners. Those are the people I suggest who are disproportionately affected again by this excise tax. It is a Government that says one thing and then does another. It votes against this kind of legislation in one term under one Government and then brings it through in its own Government when really by expediency it is faced with a revenue hole that needs to be filled. So this Government has put up this tax and done it in a way that has not really been signalled. It has done it to paper over the big hole in the books that is created by that tax so-called switch. We know that the majority of the benefits for the lower-income earners—in fact all of them—were swallowed up very quickly in GST and then beyond that with rising living costs we know that the median wage recently dropped by 3 percent. 
This is a Government that is overseeing the worst economic record of any Government in 50 years. I am sure Mr Bennett will rise soon to dispute these facts or to defend the approach it is taking or to tell us that it is a long-term strategy that is broadly fiscally neutral—if you interpret “broadly” in the sense of “over the next 100 years”—or some other excuse. What we are seeing here is a Government that has lost the revenue that it was expecting and is grabbing for some more revenue. 
Ultimately we do support—we do support—measures that will stop people smoking over time and that discourage smoking. They are the same kinds of measures that it would be interesting to see employed in the alcohol space. We know that alcohol-related harm could be reduced by pulling the big levers of marketing and price. These are the recommendations of the Law Commission. Again the Government has said that it will not go near them this time. I guess we wait another 10 years to see whether it will back out of that view as well and come around and come to terms with the fact that there are ways to change behaviour. This measure is a measure that the Government is taking. We will support it because we believe that it is important to address this single biggest cause of morbidity and mortality in New Zealand. Thank you. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 The Labour Party just needed to say that last sentence in the previous speech. It did not need to have all that economic waffle which is just rubbish. The economy has grown in the last 6 months more than it did under the Labour Government. When National took office it took on an economy in recession and it has turned it round in these most difficult times. That is the economic reality. 
The Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill is not a revenue-gathering bill. This is in the best interests of New Zealanders’ health. If the Labour Party was serious about that it had 9 years to do more than it did in this area. Token changes were made by a Labour Government that did not take them to the public. Bill English was quite right in what he said—that Labour Government did not put it in front of the people. We have put it in front of the people. Labour knew that the Government was going to make these changes. They are in the best interests of the population and the public and of our health. It is a good bill and we support it all the way through the House. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rawhiti) 
: 
 Labour wholeheartedly supports this legislation the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. We said it before the election and we said it after the election. I want to commend Minister Turia for the effort that she has put into it. 
In relation to the tax take it is quite fascinating that some of the policies that this Government has laid out on a platform of a whole lot of rhetoric are not going anywhere like Whanau Ora. I hope that the returns of this tax take can be seriously put to use to support a whole lot of the unnecessary gaps and the real pressure and areas of poverty where a lot of people are not getting serviced or supported because of the lack of finance. It is interesting to see that unlike National when it was in Opposition Labour supports this. 
Around one in five adults currently smokes in New Zealand. That is still a high percentage. I know that amongst Maoridom respiratory diseases for a whole host of reasons are not helped by the smoking issues. I know that in my family my wife and my mother had emphysema and that still runs rampant amongst a lot of young people. Generally smokers like my mum—bless her who has passed on—would not stop. They would do it right to the end. That was because they were more than addicted; it was a way of life. For people to carry on and say that it is OK is just outrageous. Certainly the effect on the body is that it does not just affect the lungs or the respiratory system; it affects that whole body. It is something that we should join together as a nation to ensure that there is a decline in over time because more than 700000 New Zealanders still smoke. That is a lot of people. 
What else is interesting is what is done with the tax. It is interesting that the good old duty-free shops have ducked and dodged because not many of the ones who are disadvantaged and who smoke go through them but there are a whole lot of other people who go through them. Again there is an imbalance in relation to the delivery of services and whatever else. In 2004 we along with two other countries became the third country in the world to ensure that smoking stopped inside restaurants and bars. If you can recall there was an uproar about it and how unnecessary it was. It is such a treat now to go anywhere and nobody smokes inside. There are some inventive ways—I saw on a balcony the other day people were allowed to go outside and smoke and they might get arrested but they might get away with it for the rest of the time too. New Zealand does set a good example and we just need to do better. 
The issue for me is the tax take where it goes and what it does. It should be expended alongside and utilised in the sense of cessation programmes—not stopping them—and helping our people the young ones especially stay off it. I see your finger raising up there Mr Assistant Speaker so I will end there. Thank you very much. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: You have still got more time if you want it.  
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I want to speak briefly on this report. We also support it. It is funny listening to the grumping about it given that most parties I think if not all of us are supporting this legislation the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill. We know that raising the tax on tobacco works to deter people from smoking and particularly to deter new smokers from taking up smoking. That is a good thing. We know that it is one of the most effective tools. It is disheartening for those of us who want to see us meet our Auahi Kore 2025 goal to see the timidity—if that is the right word—with which this Government is pursuing this policy. I think it is very telling as my colleague Kevin Hague said that the Ministry of Health suggested that there should be a 40 percent increase in the tax Treasury suggested 10 percent and 10 percent is what the Finance and Expenditure Committee has proposed. 
There are some 5000 smoking-related deaths a year 600 of which are Maori deaths. Smoking costs around $2 billion a year in health costs. So this is a very serious issue. There are 150000-odd Maori in this country who smoke. The Maori Affairs Committee inquiry was I think one of the most detailed inquiries ever into tobacco in this country not just for Maori but on issues across the board. The recommendations included denormalising tobacco and not allowing it to continue to be a normal product on New Zealand shelves which I want to talk about in a moment; reducing availability; putting some pressure on the industry rather than just on consumers; transparency in the additives that tobacco companies use in their cigarettes to help maintain the level of addiction—and again I shall come back to that in a moment—and tax increases. They were key issues. The inquiry also talked about the elimination of interference by the industry in regulation setting. 
I want to touch just very briefly on this report  
International Trade Law and Tobacco Control 
 which was produced by Professor Jane Kelsey in May of this year. It sets out very clearly the risk to New Zealand through international trade agreements on continuing to regulate to meet our Auahi Kore 2025 goal. What she sets out in there and what the Maori Affairs Committee has heard from evidence about this is that in order to achieve this goal for 2025 we have to be very careful about the challenges at the World Trade Organization for example under trade rules where countries have been challenged on their tobacco regulation. We must be very conscious of the State-investor enforcement powers in international trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership which is currently being negotiated that give tobacco companies a great deal of power to challenge countries and to challenge nation States on the regulations that they want to put into place including potentially not just taxes but a whole range of measures in order to meet our goal of Auahi Kore 2025. We need the strongest regulation and the right to continue to put in place the strongest regulation in New Zealand’s law to protect the interests of our people and from our perspective in the Maori Affairs Committee to protect the interests of Maori. 
I would also say that there is a new development in drug law reform that Peter Dunne is proposing which I support and which I think will have some better uses in the future. He is recommending reform for a new regulatory regime to control the sale of psychoactive drugs in the New Zealand market. He is proposing to establish a regime where any new psychoactive product would have to be tested would have to meet safety concerns and would need to be proven safe before it is put on the market. That is quite a small industry and there have been very few deaths related to that industry. I would strongly suggest that tobacco should be subject to exactly that same regime. As a product that kills 5000 New Zealanders a year and a product from which there is enormous profit made off the poorest in our country it should be proven safe. If that is to be done they would then have to be transparent about the additives that tobacco companies use to increase addiction which was a major issue that we dealt with in the Maori Affairs Committee inquiry. 
We support this legislation. The Government is timid. It is terrible to see that not only are the Finance and Expenditure Committee and this Parliament rejecting serious taxes on alcohol for example but also this Government is rejecting serious taxes on tobacco when we know that these are major tools to help protect the health of New Zealanders which surely is what we are here for. 
MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I rise in support of the Customs and Excise (Tobacco Products—Budget Measures) Amendment Bill which will make a significant contribution towards making New Zealand smoke-free by 2025. This is a bill that was argued vigorously within the Finance and Expenditure Committee. The goal of achieving the 10 percent a year increase for 4 years is something we decided was good but we did not want it to stop there so we have recommended that the Government monitor the progress very closely and keep it going if necessary with further tax excises until after 2016 and for as long as it is required. 
I am on the Finance and Expenditure Committee which heard this bill. We received 94 submissions and heard 19 oral submissions many of them presenting very good ideas. We heard of some interesting smoking cessation programmes—electronic cigarettes—some of which were very good. But we have to be mindful that the World Health Organization has indicated that electronic cigarettes that contain nicotine should be regulated as medicine so we have recommended as part of our discussions that more research be undertaken into e-cigarettes that contain nicotine. We also considered duty-free tobacco concession but we did consider it outside our scope because this is a narrow bill. Generally this is a very significant contribution to attaining our goal of making New Zealand smoke-free by 2025. I fully support this bill. Thank you. 
Bill read a second time. 
Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. I thank the Justice and Electoral Committee for its careful consideration of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill. The committee recommends that the bill be passed with amendments. I consider that the recommendations proposed by the committee clarify the intent of the bill and will improve its implementation. The bill restores the title of Queen’s Counsel to the office currently known as Senior Counsel and in general restricts eligibility to that rank to barristers in sole practice. The bill also makes some minor amendments to enhance the functioning of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006. 
The committee received and heard six submissions from professional organisations interested groups and individuals. The majority of submissions commented on the Queen’s Counsel provisions. The main issues raised in submissions related to reinstating the title of Queen’s Counsel the restrictions on eligibility and the mode of practice once appointed. Restoring and protecting the independence of Queen’s Counsel in New Zealand reflects the public purpose and status of the position. It identifies leading advocates in New Zealand and provides official recognition of excellence. The bill also places practice restrictions on Queen’s Counsel. Once appointed to the rank Queen’s Counsel will be required to continue to practise independently. The restriction on practice is to ensure that Queen’s Counsel are able to independently advise and represent their clients without the pressure and conflicts of interest that arise more often when working in a partnership or incorporated firm. 
The bill contains savings and transitional provisions in relation to practice arrangements entered into by Senior Counsel and Queen’s Counsel between August 2008 and the commencement of these provisions which is planned for 3 December 2012. The bill clarifies that any practice arrangements entered into by Senior Counsel and Queen’s Counsel during this period will be unaffected by the new provisions. The right to title and to retain the practice arrangements entered into during this period remains for those appointments. The bill also preserves the Governor-General’s power to appoint other lawyers as Queen’s Counsel in recognition of extraordinary contributions to the field of law. 
The committee has recommended some technical amendments to the provisions relating to Queen’s Counsel to more accurately reflect the policy intentions of the bill. I thank the committee for its excellent work in analysing these provisions and for its recommendations to ensure that the policy intent of the legislation is clear and unambiguous. I support the committee’s recommendations. The bill also allows a qualifying trust to be a non-voting shareholder in an incorporated law firm or incorporated conveyancing firm. This arrangement will avoid the need for a proliferation of relatives having to hold shares in their own right. It will also enable children and grandchildren who are minors to benefit from income through distributions from the trust. 
The select committee has recommended one minor amendment to clarify the definition of a qualifying trust to make it clear that any one or more or all trustees could hold their shares in the firm as trustees of a qualifying trust. I support the select committee’s recommendations. I also intend to table a Supplementary Order Paper at the bill’s Committee stage proposing further minor amendments to the bill. Once again I thank the members of the Justice and Electoral Committee for their careful and thoughtful consideration of the bill. I commend the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill to the House. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 The Minister of Justice thanked the Justice and Electoral Committee for its work on this Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill and that is good of her but most of that work was completed over 2 years ago. Most of the members of the committee who served on it who heard the submissions that she mentioned are now—well looking at the list—either not in the House members of the executive or members of other committees. So— 
Hon Jo Goodhew 
: It doesn’t make them any less worthy Mr Chauvel. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: We have just had an interjection from Jo Goodhew saying that none of that matters. Actually it matters for this reason Ms Goodhew—it matters for this reason. This Government needs to actually take justice legislation seriously not progress it through with the leisurely pace that we are seeing. It might be helpful to have people who actually heard the evidence speaking on the bill rather than what I apprehend will happen tonight. But that is all right because we will just see the Government members reading the notes from their research unit as we always do rather than actually debating the merits of this bill on the basis of the evidence they heard. That would actually be something that would be a novel experience for this House and probably quite a good experience; never mind that we are not going to get it tonight. 
The bill is divided into two parts. The Minister touched very briefly in her concluding comments on the second part of the bill which actually does contain some sensible amendments. She said she was going to move a Supplementary Order Paper to those parts. It will be interesting to have a look at what the contents of that Supplementary Order Paper will be. But the problem with this bill is that it will do what it does in Part 1 and that is to restore the title of Queen’s Counsel to our most senior lawyers. The last Labour Government ended a number of our links to our colonial past. We did away with the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council appeals. We did away with the award of knighthoods and other honours of British origin and we did away with the annual practice clouded in obscurity of appointing certain senior lawyers to the rank of Queen’s Counsel. 
In respect of that last reform what we did was we opened up the process. We made it very transparent. We said that it was not just senior barristers practising at the Bar who could apply for this status but any lawyer practising anywhere in the profession and we said that rather than call them Queen’s Counsel we would follow the practice of Canada Australia the rest of the Commonwealth and particularly those states in Australia with which we are trying to harmonise our legal practice and we would refer to these most eminent lawyers from now on as Senior Counsel. One round of appointments to Senior Counsel rank occurred under the Labour Government and then there were no more appointments. There have been no appointments to that rank under this Government since it took office. 
Why does that matter? Well the Canterbury earthquake is a big part of that. There has been a lot of opinion work for insurers and reinsurers. There has been a lot of litigation. One of the conditions that international commercial organisations often put on the qualifications of those who ought to lead such opinion work or lead such litigation is that they should hold the rank of Senior Counsel or the equivalent. We have seen New Zealand lawyers over the last 4 or 5 years miss out on work that they ought to be doing which they are qualified to do simply because the Attorney-General has not felt moved to exercise his powers under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act to appoint Senior Counsel because he is determined and his ministerial colleagues are determined that we will revert to this archaic title of Queen’s Counsel. We oppose that and I just want to run through some of the reasons for that opposition. 
There are three reasons why the Government says that we should do this. The first is that it speaks of a historical link that we should preserve. The restoration of the title of Queen’s Counsel is said to recognise that historical link between certain senior lawyers and the Crown. It is true that in ancient times in England the rank of Queen’s Counsel denoted the existence of a barrister who would work solely for the Crown and not necessarily for reward. But for many centuries now and in all jurisdictions to which the rank has spread Queen’s Counsel have acted for a wide variety of clients including private individuals corporates and quasi-government organisations. Most QCs who practise in New Zealand today have acted only occasionally if ever for the Government itself. If they do they do it on instruction from the Crown solicitors because they are members of prosecuting panels in the big cities or on instruction from the Solicitor-General as chief executive of the Crown Law Office. The original notion of a special relationship between the Queen and Queen’s Counsel is simply redundant. 
Some submitters who did support reinstatement of the rank argued that while New Zealand continues to recognise the Queen as head of State and to award royal honours such as knighthoods it is logical that the rank should be retained but that is not the practice in Australia. We are trying to harmonise as much as possible on a commercial basis our legal practice and profession with Australia’s. Why would we retain this anomaly when Australia has done away with it many years ago? 
The second reason that is advanced for going back to the old archaic title of Queen’s Counsel is that this will somehow enhance the independence of the legal profession. It is never made quite clear when this argument is advanced how this will occur or where the threat to the independence of the legal profession comes from. If it comes from the Government then the assertion would actually contradict the first argument in favour of going back—that there is some sort of special link between the Crown and Queen’s Counsel. Well either there is a special link or they are independent. You cannot actually have it both ways. If the threat to independence comes from commercial interests then what we should remind ourselves is that we have one of the best regulated and most ethical legal professions in the Commonwealth probably in the common-law world. Every barrister and solicitor who practises in New Zealand is subject to very very strict rules of conduct that are enforced both by the High Court because all lawyers are officers of the court and by the New Zealand Law Society to which lawyers generally belong and which operates professional discipline organisational requirements. 
Then there is this odd monopoly that having this title actually gives to certain senior lawyers. What Judith Collins proposes is to take back the title and give it only to lawyers who choose to be barristers and practise at the Bar. So you have to uproot yourself from your law firm you have to go to the Bar and you have to hope that under some new but archaic appointments process the nod will somehow be given and you will become a Queen’s Counsel. Well the third reason for opposing it is that we opened up the selection process. We made it transparent. Everybody could understand how it was possible to become a Senior Counsel and it was possible to do that whether you were in a firm at the Bar in Government service or practising elsewhere. This move would close the appointments procedures back up. We would go back to the nod and the wink and all the mystery and the club of the single-gendered monochromatic appointments that we have seen in the past. 
This is a great leap backwards. It is largely symbolic but it will have some important commercial side effects that I have tried to outline in my speech. I think that it will be interesting to see how Peter Dunne a republican votes in respect of this legislation. It will certainly be interesting to me how the Maori Party which has negotiated a constitutional review with the current Government—which this move seems to me to cut straight across—will vote in respect of this legislation. I certainly hope that sanity will prevail and that there will be a careful consideration of whether this is really the direction that we want to take New Zealand’s legal profession in. I for one do not want to see it and I want to put on the record now that this is one of the moves that the next Labour-led Government will make it a priority to reverse. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I am very happy to support this bill the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill at its second reading. I agree that it is good to see this measure back before the House. It was first considered by the last Parliament and then as has been noted it was referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee which at that time was chaired by the Hon Chester Borrows. It received detailed consideration and the hearing of submissions and it has been returned to the House after a very thorough process. As I am now the chairman of the Justice and Electoral Committee—and Mr Chauvel has noted that there have been a number of changes and I was not on the committee in the previous Parliament—I do therefore acknowledge the work not only of the Hon Chester Borrows but also of all members of the committee in the previous Parliament. I thank them for the very careful attention to detail that is reflected in the report that was produced for the House. 
I think it is disappointing to hear that the Labour Party remains opposed to the bill given that it sees so much of value in it. Indeed when I look at its minority opinion in the select committee’s report I see that it indicates that the Labour Party said that the bill “contains some sensible changes.” and so it does. But still as we have just heard the Labour Party will nevertheless vote against them. I believe that that decision will be regretted by the many members of the legal profession who submitted in favour of this bill and who raised valid and significant concerns about the changes that the previous Labour Government introduced without a mandate it has to be said and without any evident public support at the time it introduced its Lawyers and Conveyancers Act of 2006. 
The title of Queen’s Counsel has a very long and proud history. It is widely recognised not just in New Zealand but internationally as indicating that the person upon whom the title has been bestowed is a lawyer of considerable experience and ability. That cannot be said of Labour’s replacement title of Senior Counsel which may suggest experience but says nothing of quality. It is right that the profession should have its traditional badge of honour restored for it is an honourable profession steeped in tradition and administers the Queen’s justice. Mr Chauvel was disparaging about that a few moments ago but I want to say to Mr Chauvel that we should be proud of that aspect of our culture rather than always seeking to belittle and overturn anything that reflects the heritage that many of our ancestors brought to these shores from Britain. 
Labour MPs and some others seem to think that traditions such as the title of Queen’s Counsel or a royal honour reek of colonialism and are therefore something to be consigned to history. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: Those limey colonisers. 
TIM MACINDOE 
: My view and that of many other New Zealanders is that our justice system like our political system is world leading because it originated in Westminster. So let us celebrate that fact rather than scoff at it. 
Phil Twyford 
: Let’s bring back feudalism. 
TIM MACINDOE 
: It is a gift and a guarantee of quality of which all New Zealanders may be proud. Mr Twyford called out “Let’s bring back feudalism.” What a fascinating concept but what an intriguing insight that is to the mind-set of the Labour Party. 
As I have just said I am very proud of our heritage. Mr Horomia interjected a few moments ago—something about Maori colonisation or something. To my mind we are a richer society for the fact that we blend our Maori ancestry and our British ancestry and the many other cultures that come here in a way that has enriched us all. Let us celebrate all of it and not be disparaging about the aspect that the majority in this country are still descended from. 
I want to conclude by saying that the Minister of Justice has indicated that the Government has accepted the recommendations of the previous Justice and Electoral Committee in its report and the bill now reflects the changes the committee proposed. We will have a chance obviously to discuss those proposed amendments during the Committee stage of the bill as it progresses through the House along with the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister has foreshadowed she will be introducing at that point. 
At this stage I want to say that the Government warmly welcomes the return of this measure to this House and I look forward to contributing further to the detailed discussion of it during the Committee stage. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 We all know that if National had its way it would be abolishing the Supreme Court and taking us back to the Privy Council but the only problem with that is that actually we would need the permission of the British Government to do it and it would not have us. The reason National is doing this is that it does not need anyone’s permission. It is a nonsense that we are going back to this old-fashioned term of Queen’s Counsel rather than Senior Counsel. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Embarrassing. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: It is embarrassing is it not? You know have we got no more important political agenda in this country than changing the name of senior lawyers back to Queen’s Counsel? 
Worse than the name change is the change in principle being made here to restrict those who can be Senior Counsel—now to be called Queen’s Counsel—to those of the separate Bar. You cannot be appointed a Queen’s Counsel under this Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill unless you are a barrister sole. What does that do in the provinces? It effectively means that very few people in the provinces can ever be Senior Counsel because those smaller towns generally cannot support people with an adequate living who are at the separate Bar alone. Generally the best lawyers in provincial centres—and this is a generalisation but it is true of a lot of smaller centres—are actually the lawyers who are in firms. The barristers sole are more often in the smaller centres confined to the criminal legal aid roster. On some occasions they are doing Family Court work but predominantly they are doing minor criminal work on the legal aid roster. They are not the top lawyers in the regions—not always the top lawyers in the region I should say because I do not want to insult some of them; there are some very good barristers in smaller towns. But the general rule is that the top lawyers would be in firms of barristers and solicitors and they would be both. They will never be able to be under this legislation appointed Senior Counsel despite the fact that they might be the best practising barrister in the whole of the province. What a nonsense that under this legislation those people will never be eligible to be considered to be Senior Counsel! 
It is not a problem in just the smaller centres. You know there is not much doubt that one of the most capable barristers in this country is Jack Hodder at Chapman Tripp the former editor of  
The Capital Letter 
 a leading legal publication that was produced by Jack Hodder for many years. He wrote the editorials as well as putting it together. He is the leading counsel still in many cases in New Zealand’s highest courts. Under this legislation because he is in a firm of solicitors and operates as both a barrister and a solicitor he can never be appointed Senior Counsel. That is true of a number of other barristers and solicitors. In my own city of Dunedin the most senior barristers and solicitors were every bit as competent as the people who were appointed Queen’s Counsel. It is a nonsense that the list of people is limited to those from the Bar alone. 
What is the idea behind this? National says that those people are the only people who can be truly independent. Well if that were the case we would not allow people who were barristers and solicitors in legal firms to be appearing in courts in the first place because somehow they would be bringing an inferior level of independence or service to the courts. It is just not true. 
So this is a retrograde step. In market analysis of course if you limit the market of any good or service you actually drive up the price or you are going to decrease the quality. So assuming here that you have got the same number of Queen’s Counsel as there would have been Senior Counsel under the old system you are actually going to jack up the price for Queen’s Counsel. Queen’s Counsel are very very expensive to employ in New Zealand in part because we have too few of them. We drive up the cost of Queen’s Counsel services by not appointing enough of them and this bill will further entrench that extra revenue that goes to Queen’s Counsel to the detriment of their clients. It will not be improving the quality of justice; it will actually again be limiting the pool of Queen’s Counsel and I do not think that is appropriate. 
The other point which Charles Chauvel has already made well is that the appointment process is now going to become less transparent. What is wrong with transparency? What is wrong with transparency? Some bad things have happened in this country under this Government in terms of the standards that we have in various institutions and I am going to list them because this is part of a long list of things where standards are declining in New Zealand. We had this Government appoint the chairperson of John Key’s electorate committee to the Broadcasting Commission which is also known as New Zealand On Air. A political appointee to that role is inappropriate. Those people should be apolitical and he showed his politics when during the election he tried to influence the timing of a programme on child poverty. That was a black mark for this Government along the lines of this lack of transparency around Queen’s Counsel. It was a lot worse than this in fact. 
Then we had the National Party using the police against the media during the election—the teapot tapes. After the election when the case was going to go to trial the Prime Minister found it convenient to drop the prosecution. He said that he did not want it to proceed and that Mr Ambrose had been deemed guilty by the police. That was a terrible thing to do. He was never tried by a court and he had defences. The reason that it was dropped was that it would have been embarrassing for Mr Banks and Mr Key to turn up in court and try to allege that it was illegal. 
David Bennett 
: Get out of the gutter and speak to the bill bro. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: What is that? Speak to the bill? Actually I am speaking to the number of examples Mr Bennett of things that your Government oversees that are inappropriate. Then we have got the lack of— 
David Bennett 
: You’re lost now are you Parker? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: What is that? Then we have the lack of transparency around other processes like giving contracts for extra pokie machines in Auckland. 
David Bennett 
: Oh you would know about that. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I would know about that would I? Actually I am not a gambler Mr Bennett so I would not know about that. What I do know is that it is inappropriate to effectively sell regulatory favours to get a convention centre built and if you are going to do that you should put it out to tender so that other people can actually have a crack and say: “Well give us a regulatory or tax holiday and we’ll build you a convention centre without the pokies.” [ 
Interruption 
] They are still carrying on with that Mr Horomia. Now we have this additional lack of transparency. 
What else have we seen recently? We have seen the Government in respect of the State-owned enterprise legislation put mixed-ownership model companies beyond the purview of the Official Information Act which has been criticised by the Ombudsman as being inappropriate— 
Darien Fenton 
: Don’t believe in transparency. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: No it does not believe in transparency. Then we had this Government vote down a member’s bill that would have in respect of council-owned companies that are port companies brought those companies into the Official Information Act as well. Again the Government does not like transparency and it voted against that notwithstanding the fact that in any case where there was commercial sensitivity or other things to be kept confidential there are already defences under the Official Information Act that stop that information being made public. 
Again we have a process here that is going to become less transparent. Why is that? Well it probably suits the club of existing people who are more likely to be appointed Senior Counsel because they come through a certain route. That is not to demean their capability; our Queen’s Counsel in New Zealand are very capable. But it really should be more transparent so that justice can be seen to be done rather than there being a club of insiders who can always get the nod. I do not think there is any reason to move away from the transparent process that the prior Labour Government set up. 
So in terms of some of the changes to conveyancing we agree on this side that they are appropriate. We are not speaking against those. But there are fundamental problems with this bill and for that reason the Labour Party is opposing this. 
STEFFAN BROWNING (Green) 
: 
 I am pleased to take this opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill because it is an issue that the Green Party held strong curiosity in as it was heading to the Justice and Electoral Committee. We voted for it to progress to that stage because we wanted to hear some more of the detailed arguments around the reasoning behind the proposed changes. I will not speak much to the second part of this bill except to say that they are primarily sensible uncontroversial amendments that we probably would have been able to support had Part 1 lived up to our hopes of reasonable discussion. Unfortunately we have not been suitably convinced that the amendments contained in Part 1 of the bill had proceeded from a rigorous contest of ideas. Rather they seem to hail more from a quaint—indeed anachronistic—state of mind. It is a state of mind that does not recognise the strong independent streak that runs through New Zealand culture. It is from these concerns that our opposition stems. 
In 2006 the Labour Government replaced the title of Queen’s Counsel with Senior Counsel which still allowed for recognition of exceptional performance without harking to the monarchy for validation. Although New Zealand maintains links to the United Kingdom we also have a distinct national culture and some unique constitutional arrangements. The Statute of Westminster Adoption Act passed in 1947 and more recently the Constitution Act 1986 stand as both practical and symbolic measures from which we have set out enhancing our independence. Although we still retain the Queen as our head of State—a position that is not uniformly supported in this House or by the public at large—the momentum of our country has been one of embracing a destiny that is uniquely New Zealand in nature. Such was the reasoning behind our acceptance of the Labour Government’s change in the area of titles and the title of Queen’s Counsel is a colonial relic that does not reflect the distinct character of New Zealand’s cultural diversity or identity. Although we cannot deny our colonial past—indeed it would be harmful to do so—we have the potential to walk into the future with the assurance that we are staying true to ourselves in Aotearoa. 
One reason that the Government has advanced for the change is a supposed reciprocal relationship between the Queen’s Counsel and the Crown. It is one that is derived from ancient English origins but this is not a relationship that exists in name only. The relationship continues whether the lawyers concerned are titled Queen’s Counsel or Senior Counsel. All the important qualities of the position remain untouched. The independence seniority and credibility are not put in question by a change in the title. Indeed because most Queen’s Counsel in New Zealand rarely or never act on instruction from the Solicitor-General or Crown solicitors and in fact represent a wide range of private individuals or groups changing the name to Senior Counsel actually imbues a broad sense of serving the community with skill and independence better than whatever vestige bestowed by an outdated colonial title such as Queen’s Counsel might do. 
Perhaps the more interesting arguments are those concerning eligibility. Labour legislated to allow the full profession to be considered as potentially worthy of having the rank of Senior Counsel bestowed upon them rather than barristers solely which had been the tradition until that point. 
Darien Fenton 
: “Coun-sel”? 
STEFFAN BROWNING 
: That is what I say—“coun-sel”. I have been caught plenty of times. 
David Bennett 
: It hasn’t done you much good. 
STEFFAN BROWNING 
: On the right side. It was rather than barristers which had been the tradition until that point—just pop into the Environment Court I say to everybody. This widened the pool of eligibility from a narrow selection comprising only a few hundred out to 12000 wider practitioners excepting the bush lawyers I must admit. Once again the reasoning for the change back is not sufficiently articulated. Vague allusions to a threat to the independence are made but not well substantiated. 
Kennedy Graham during his call in the first reading of this bill made reference to Simon Power’s statements when the original changes were made that opening up eligibility would capture senior lawyers who undertook substantial commercial work for the Government. This is potentially a reasonable concern but it is not one that has been ostensibly proven to occur to such a degree that the very integrity of the position has been called into question. The original shift was made in a seemingly egalitarian spirit that removed enjoyment of commercial privilege to only a select few and allowed meritorious practitioners from a variety of backgrounds to be considered eligible. Objections such as Mr Power’s would need to be sufficiently demonstrated before slimming eligibility back down. 
 Another change that we have come to disagree with is another regressive step this time in regard to the selection process. This bill removes the selection panel for the Queen’s Counsel and replaces it with the requirement that the Attorney-General consult with the New Zealand Law Society and the New Zealand Bar Association. Ironically in light of the Government’s concerns around independence this seems to open up the process to political influence more rather than less. Although this is hardly the stuff that tabloid controversy is made of conceptually it is certainly inconsistent. 
In short the bill does not seem to engage with the discussion of legitimate arguments around the best way to make the role of Senior Counsel or Queen’s Counsel more effective and independent but rather is an ideological knee-jerk reaction. Of course this is perhaps partly true in the reverse too but the key point of difference is that the original changes made were done so with a progressive view to engage with our unique New Zealand perspective which has increasingly sought to distinguish itself from the leftovers of a colonial heritage. The way to forging a national identity that is true to our multifarious heritage and incorporates a diversity of perspective in this country is not to cling desperately to the relics of the past but to embrace new traditions and put our own stamp on the ones we wish to keep hold of. Thank you. 
Dr CAM CALDER (National) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise and take a brief call on this Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill. In April 2000 the Labour Government abolished knighthoods and damehoods. In 2006 the same Labour Government looking through a similarly selective misanthropic lens at any honours that smacked of vestiges of the British Crown abolished the rank of Queen’s Counsel. I am proud of those links. The Queen is our head of State and I applaud the maintenance of recognition of our ties. 
The submissions made by the New Zealand Law Society and the New Zealand Bar Association on the bill at that time make for interesting reading. The Law Society commented that although the nature of the submissions in 2006 was relatively neutral the submissions of the New Zealand Bar Association were strongly opposed to the 2006 change and it seemed apparent to the Law Society that these changes were in large part policy based and not in response to any increasing call for change from the public or any professional body. The Law Society makes a comment on appointing a Queen’s Counsel that the objective must be the appointment of only the best people distinguished by their outstanding all-round qualities of excellence integrity judgment and leadership. This is the intention. The Bar Association’s current submission strongly supports the intent of this bill because it restores the historical status of the rank of Queen’s Counsel in New Zealand. 
We listened carefully to the legal profession and this legislation is also in response to its concerns that the title of Senior Counsel does not adequately reflect the nature and status of that rank. I mean let us face it the title of Queen’s Counsel is instantly recognisable throughout the greater part of the English-speaking world as providing certainty of a high standard of legal advice. 
This move will also protect the essential independence of the inner bar as we have heard before. The looser rules of eligibility of Senior Counsel introduced by the previous Government threaten to dilute that independence of our most senior advocates. The bill restores the rank of Queen’s Counsel and restricts the eligibility of that rank to barristers sole as we have heard. This is an important step. 
I want to take up Mr Chauvel’s point briefly. He may be interested to know that my understanding is that in Australia quite recently the Government of Queensland no less has indicated it is looking very closely at dispensing with Senior Counsel and bringing back Queen’s Counsel. That is just a small aside and of course it has not influenced us in the least—it is just a point of information for you. I commend the bill to the House. 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 This Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill I think should be entitled the “Lawyers and Conveyancers (Back to the Past) Bill”. This takes us back to the pre-2006 days when QCs were appointed by some mysterious non-transparent process which was all too susceptible to inappropriate influences and even to political interference. For those and several other reasons that I will mention New Zealand First opposes this legislation. 
It is not about what is good for the legal profession and it is not about what is good for the community; what it is about is the National Party’s philosophy and ideology and some of us do not have too much regard for that. What it should be about is a system that is designed for the future and not for the past. New Zealand will be moving backwards with this legislation when all comparable jurisdictions have moved on. Those of course are especially Canada and most of the states of Australia although not all. 
I actually question whether it is really even necessary at all to award either Queen’s Counsel or Senior Counsel positions in this day and age. I think it is something of an anachronism and is no longer necessary during an era in which it is generally accepted that markets should be free of discriminatory and anti-competitive rules imposed by Government. That is actually what this does and it seems so out of place today. 
However if we are to persist with the ranking of legal practitioners in this way rather than relying on reputation and the market then it is very important to fairly define those members of the profession who have achieved a level of experience and competence in an area of expertise that should be officially acknowledged. This may assist in the effective operation of the legal system and the way lawyers organise themselves as a profession and it may assist with public confidence in the profession but it should not be about status or reward or cronyism in the way that too often it has been in the past and it should never be seen in the same way as the award of knighthoods and honours generally has been seen in the past—and probably still is. 
New Zealand is no longer since 1947 a British colony with all of its traditions and peculiarities. Our system must fit our needs and be relevant useful fair and transparent. This bill does not appear to be designed to do that and as I said before I question whether the entire thing is necessary at all. It appears to be designed to perpetuate elitism as distinct from meritism by which I mean the recognition of a status well earned instead of one simply awarded in the manner of some sort of honour or worse some sort of favour. 
Under Part 1 the term “Queen’s Counsel” is returned to replace “Senior Counsel”. This is unwise because the public can more readily understand the term “Senior Counsel” but have usually never understood the term “Queen’s Counsel” very well. Understandability is important for our legal system. People tended in the past to think the term “Queen’s Counsel” still meant a senior barrister who had the function of supporting the Attorney-General—as indeed it once did in the UK. But these days that is far from how it works. So “Senior Counsel” would be more descriptive and not have the connotations of some overhang from the old English legal system. 
The idea that there is in any real sense some operation of royal prerogative also needs to be put firmly out of the question. New Zealand needs a thoroughly modern legal system and it needs to be seen as such. None of this is assisted by the term “Queen’s Counsel” and “Senior Counsel”—if we need them at all—is certainly better. Nor is it assisted by the assertion that somehow the reversion to QCs will enhance the independence of the profession. If independence means independence from the Crown—meaning in effect the Government in this country—then the bill is more likely to do the opposite by restoring the old system under which the scope for political and other inappropriate influences is actually worse. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
DENIS O’ROURKE 
: In the first part of my speech I questioned whether Queen’s Counsel or Senior Counsel as an institution was really called for in this country in this day and age. But to the extent that it was necessary I said that it should be done in a fair transparent and non-discriminatory way. 
I would like to move on now and say that concerning eligibility it is not clear to me why only barristers sole are favoured in this legislation. I do not see any reason why other practitioners should be excluded if they practise in law firms whether incorporated or not as indeed is allowed in comparable jurisdictions. Nor should candidates be excluded if they are barristers and solicitors. In New Zealand the position in that respect is quite different from what it is in the United Kingdom. 
However the strangest section I think is new section 118A(2) in clause 6 which substantially overrides the other sections in the legislation in respect of the royal prerogative. I think that is complete nonsense. It is exactly the kind of provision that we should avoid. The royal prerogative in New Zealand really means the Government prerogative and all of the disadvantages I mentioned earlier: unfairness discrimination anti-competitive behaviour and the scope for cronyism. It is a bad process which would be entrenched by this subsection. It is thoroughly objectionable and even if passed now will need to be repealed at a later time. 
The need for transparency has also not been achieved in this bill. This is not what modern best practice requires. These days people rightly insist on a transparent selection process for these kinds of things. This will be a closeted Government process that the public could not have full confidence in. 
New Zealand First therefore objects to the entire concept of this retrograde bill. It is misconceived and is a step back to the bad old days of the past. It is a barrier to the development of a modern legal system. It is devoid of proper process. It is unnecessarily restrictive and it is based on discrimination for no good reason when the proper objects to the extent they may be useful are negatived by eligibility rules and rules of practice. The object should be to define senior practitioners in specialist areas so that the public and other members of the profession are assisted in knowing to whom they may best go for specialist services. If that is not the objective then there is no reason for Queen’s Counsel—or Senior Counsel for that matter—at all. Any way you look at it this bill is bad law and should not be passed. 
ALFRED NGARO (National) 
: 
 I stand to support the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill in its second reading. This bill implements the Government’s policy on Queen’s Counsel. It also makes minor amendments to provisions in the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006. There are several other matters in the bill. Simply this bill restores the rank of Queen’s Counsel and restricts eligibility for appointment to that rank to barristers sole. It also amends the provision in the Act relating to a conveyancing practitioner holding non-voting shares of an incorporated law firm. Finally it makes minor and technical amendments to enhance the functioning of the Act. This is an important step in reinstating the status and independence of the top rank of advocates in New Zealand. I commend this bill. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 There are two parts to this bill the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill one of which will be supported by the Opposition the other thoroughly opposed. Part 1 does three things. First of all it replaces the title Senior Counsel with Queen’s Counsel. That is an anachronism. It is not accurate it is not relevant and it has been dropped by most other countries. Secondly it reimposes the restriction on where you can appoint Senior Counsel from. Previously it was predominantly only from the bar—barristers sole. It was broadened out to include those working in law practices and other fields of law. This is a move backwards. Thirdly it reverses the transparency of the appointment process. For all three of those reasons we are opposed to the bill and I want to come back to them. 
Part 2 of the bill is largely concerned with practical measures and I think they are reasonably sensible. They include “grandchildren” in the definition of relatives who are able to be shareholders in an incorporated law firm. They ensure that control of an incorporated law firm is maintained by the lawyers and conveyancers who work in it. 
Hon David Parker 
: Grandchildren working a tax rort! 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Could well be! It provides a power of attorney becoming effective where a sole practitioner is an undischarged bankrupt and it clarifies that applications for a review of a decision by the standards committee have to be within 30 days. All of those are quite sensible moves and that is the sort of legislation that we as a responsible Opposition would support. 
But I want to go back to Part 1. Part 1 is unnecessary it is a retrograde step and there is no justification for moving in the way that the Government is intending to do. Let us take the first one and perhaps the least important of the three issues I mentioned before which is that once upon a time people who aspired to this title would be known as Queen’s Counsel. We changed that—in fact I changed that as Minister of Justice in drafting the law that was ultimately introduced and passed after I ceased to be the Minister. There were good reasons why we did it and we did it after consultation with the Law Society. For a start when the Government says there is a historical link between Queen’s Counsel and the past that is true. In the 15th the 16th and the 17th centuries this was an accurate title. If you were a Queen’s Counsel you were there to do the King or Queen’s bidding depending on who was on the throne at the time. But that changed in the 18th century. In the 18th century people who took up that role if I can use the words of the Bills Digest “ceased in any real sense to be counsel to the Crown and became simply a class of counsel who by eminence or favour had been given a rank superior to that of ordinary barristers.” That is from the Bills Digest. That sets it out absolutely accurately. 
These days Queen’s Counsel or Senior Counsel as they became known no longer operate for the Crown. They are not instructed by the Solicitor-General or by Crown solicitors in most cases. They represent a wide range of clients: private individuals and private businesses. So the term “Queen’s Counsel” ceased to be an accurate reflection of the sort of work they do. Why would you want to go back to the term “Queen’s Counsel”? In other mature Westminster-style democracies—in Australia in all but one state and in Canada—that title has been dropped and they are known as Senior Counsel. They are countries that are proud of their independence proud of their sovereignty and they want to have titles and laws that reflect the 21st century not the 16th century. This is a bit of snobbery on the part of the National Government. That is the only reason for it. There was no justification given and there was no justification given before the Justice and Electoral Committee apart from a group of people with a self-interest in the bar who say “Well if it’s restricted to us as barristers sole then we get the benefit of that title and we accrue the financial rewards from it.” Of course they would be in favour of that monopoly but that is to suggest that only people who are barristers sole have the ability and the excellence and the advocacy that would entitle them to carry such a title. So there is no argument for going back to a term “Queen’s Counsel” that is about three centuries out of date. 
 Secondly the bill moves to restrict appointments to the title of Senior Counsel or Queen’s Counsel as it might become to people who are barristers sole. Well the argument they make is that if you are a barrister sole you are more likely to be independent. When you examine what it actually means you find that there is absolutely no justification for the Government’s position on that. Actually the term “Queen’s Counsel” suggests that you have a relationship with the Crown which is the opposite of independence. But if you look at the commercial interests again there are strict rules governing all lawyers in terms of conflict of interest. They are bound by statute under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act section 4(b) to be independent. Restricting the appointment of somebody as a Senior Counsel because they are a barrister sole because they are more likely to be independent is a nonsense when every lawyer is bound by the statute they are bound by the oath that they take and they are bound by the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008 requiring independence in the promotion of their client’s interests and requiring independence in terms of their professional responsibilities to the court. Jack Hodder made some comments to the select committee about that which I think are particularly pertinent. He also made the point that in the United Kingdom where this law originated in Canada and in Australia they all recruit Senior Counsel or Queen’s Counsel from across the board in terms of people working for law firms or people who are barristers sole. He said that surely if there was a problem with independence it would have emerged in one of those jurisdictions. Has there been any problem in those other mature democracies? No there have been no problems at all. 
This again is pure pretence by the National Government. This is legislation put forward without an ounce of evidence to back it up and that is no way to make legislation. Legislation should be evidence based. I searched the submissions and I searched the report of the select committee. There is no evidence to sustain the restriction of the position of Senior Counsel to people who are barristers sole. In fact the law even contradicts itself because it makes an exception that perhaps you can appoint somebody from a law firm if they are an extraordinary individual. Well if the Governor-General can appoint somebody who is not a barrister sole and that does not offend against independence then that undermines the Government’s own rationale in bringing forward this bill that takes us back to the past. 
The third section of the bill that I want to touch on is the selection process. I have got to say that before 2006 the process of appointment as Queen’s Counsel and now Senior Counsel was shrouded in secrecy. The Attorney-General had the responsibility. He or she could initiate that. They would consult with the Law Society or the Bar Association but in essence it was the Attorney-General making the decision. That led to concern and suspicion about political patronage. And by God would not you worry about political patronage today? Even New Zealand On Air is appointing the political chairman of the Prime Minister’s electorate. In foreign affairs they are taking away the professionals. They are appointing more and more people on a political ground—some of them obviously not up to the job and I will not go into that. But the fact of the matter is that in 2006 we made the law more transparent. We made the process more transparent. There was a panel consisting of the Solicitor-General two people from the Law Society and two people from the Bar Association. Everybody could see it it was above board and that was the way to go. I have got to say that in every respect this is a backwards movement in our legislation. It is unnecessary. It is unjustified. It is wrong. When Labour is re-elected it will go. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 I am very pleased to speak to the second reading of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill. The bill was looked at and reviewed by the Justice and Electoral Committee in the last term of Parliament. It makes an important change to the Act by restoring the title of Queen’s Counsel which I support and replaces the office currently known as Senior Counsel. 
It is very interesting to know having read the submissions from the Bar Association that it strongly supports this change. Even the Law Society even though it admitted that its submissions were quite neutral made the comment that the changes that had been made by the previous Government were largely policy based and not in response to any pressing call for change. 
The bill will repeal that arrangement by reinstating the title of Queen’s Counsel. Really the Queen’s Counsel title has its origins in our history and reflects the public purpose and the status of this position. It identifies leading advocates in the legal profession. It is a rank and title to aspire to. It is synonymous with excellence and is instantly recognisable in New Zealand and internationally. I commend this bill to the House. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I understand that this is not a split call. So Louisa Wall you have the call. 
LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa) 
: 
 Kia ora. Thank you for the opportunity to speak in the second reading of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill which was referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee after its first reading and was reported back on 13 April 2011. I will begin by saying that Labour does oppose this bill and I will talk about why we oppose this bill. The objection as outlined by my colleague the Hon Phil Goff is really about Part 1 of the bill and the reinstatement of the title of Queen’s Counsel—Moana and I were just talking actually about whether that is Queen’s council or Queen’s Counsel—within the hierarchy of the legal profession. There is no other profession that seeks to reward certain of its members by giving them an elevated position conferred by a Government process. 
On 17 June 2009 the Attorney-General the Hon Chris Finlayson announced his intention to reinstate the title of Queen’s Counsel. At the time he said: “… the government is taking these steps to protect the essential independence of the inner bar. The looser rules for eligibility as Senior Council introduced by the previous government threatened to dilute the independence of our most senior advocates.” That intention was echoed in the majority report of the select committee but what this bill does is restrict the senior title to barristers sole. Such a move is archaic and not reflective of the modern society most of us now live in. 
Queen’s Counsel as its name indicates is about royal patronage. The first Queen’s Counsel was appointed by Elizabeth I as her legal adviser. That is the foundation of the process that this Government is seeking to reinstate. In 2006 we made significant changes to reflect our own developing legal system which was no longer tied to the systems that had developed in England. A number of cases had recognised that development and the Privy Council in  
Invercargill City Council v Hamlin 
 in 1996 declared that New Zealand law should not be deflected from developing its own course in isolation to England. Why then would we take this backward step of trying to re-tie ourselves to England? 
It kind of does not make sense even to someone who has had nothing to do with this bill up until this point in time. There is no logical or reasonable basis to argue that reinstatement and restriction will result in independence. The title Queen’s Counsel clearly conjures up a connection with the Crown and Government. The title Senior Counsel does not do that. It is what we currently have. It denotes the recognition of people who have attained seniority within the legal profession. It speaks of independence not alignment with one of the Treaty partners. It is a practice followed in a number of Canadian provinces and the Federal Government. Senior Counsel is a title used in Australian states since 1993 albeit we seem to have encouraged however Queensland’s Attorney-General to look at reinstatement too. South Africa Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana all use the title Senior Counsel and Nigeria India and Bangladesh use the title Senior Advocate. 
As to restricting applicants for the senior position to barristers sole that too is not reflective of the wider processes available in law. We have lawyers who specialise in mediation in negotiation and in alternative dispute resolution as well as those in other areas. There are many aspects to giving advice but the suggestion that barristers sole are more independent than those in a firm company or organisation is ludicrous. Most barristers sole have spent a significant portion of their careers in firms companies or organisations before becoming barristers sole. They have the same obligations in terms of giving advice whether they are in a firm or are barristers sole. The public is entitled to that. The public is entitled to be assured that our senior counsel have a range of skills to meet the demands of the position and surely any suggestion that a nominee is not able to fulfil his or her obligations would discount any nominee from appointment. 
So in conclusion there seems to me to be no reasonable or logical basis for this backwards step and for undoing the positive steps taken in 2006 to allow Aotearoa New Zealand to develop its own legal structure and to cast off a title that reflects another country’s history and denies our country our own history that we have developed here in our country. Kia ora. 
IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 It gives me pleasure to speak on the second reading of the Lawyers and Conveyancing Amendment Bill. I will be brief and to the point. I am a traditionalist and I totally reject the claim of Mr Goff that this is all about snobbery. This is all about in fact in my view tradition and respect. Frankly if you look at this House this House operates on tradition and respect and that is the strength of it. 
Very briefly Part 2 of this bill offers the opportunity for the shareholding in legal firms to be tidied up and put in a practical manner and secondly it reinstates the appointment of Queen’s Counsel. I think Queen’s Counsel is a very important part of New Zealand’s legal history and a very important part of what is going on at the moment in this country. It certainly gives businesses the opportunity to acquire information and advice that precludes a lot of other expense. Senior Counsel of course remind me very much of my grandfather’s day when you went to visit an old joker with a wig and a quill. I very much support the second reading of this bill. Thank you. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill be now read a second time. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand National 59; Maori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1. 
Bill read a second time. 
International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Associate Minister of Finance) 
 on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move  
That the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. Following the first reading the bill was examined by the Finance and Expenditure Committee which recommended that it be passed with no amendments. The bill will amend the International Finance Agreements Act 1961. That Act allows the Government of New Zealand to meet its obligations as a member of various financial institutions including the International Monetary Fund the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. This bill updates the principal Act so that New Zealand legislation takes account of changes the IMF has made to its Articles of Agreement. These changes were agreed to by the IMF governors in 2008 and 2010. 
As the Minister of Finance stated in his first reading speech New Zealand sees clear value in being a contributing member of the IMF. As a small open economy we benefit heavily from a stable and prosperous global economy. The IMF supports this by providing a global safety net which can mitigate the effects of financial crises and helping to support trade and economic activity. The financial commitments that we have made to the IMF are effectively premiums to an insurance policy against damage to our economy from an unstable world. Contributing to the IMF and global financial stability is also important for New Zealand’s international reputation. Supporting the IMF in the work it does places New Zealand alongside countries that we often benchmark ourselves with internationally. 
The changes to the articles of agreement reflected in this bill are part of a series of governance reforms that the IMF has been undertaking over the past few years. The reforms are designed to enhance the IMF’s legitimacy and effectiveness by ensuring that members’ voting shares and representation reflect their relative economic weight in the global economy. In addition the IMF has linked the reforms that are incorporated into this bill to quota changes to improve the representation of emerging markets at the IMF taking account of their increased role in the world economy. The Government reforms also facilitate an agreed change in the membership of the IMF’s executive board. Once these new rules come into effect the five largest IMF members will no longer be able to appoint an executive director meaning that there will now be an all-elected board. 
In addition to updating the principal Act to take account of the IMF reforms this bill also updates New Zealand legislation by repealing some now redundant legislation. The bill also creates a regulation-making power in the principal Act so that future updates to the articles can be made by regulation. This power will simplify the process by which New Zealand meets its international obligations. For those members who may wish to query the regulation-making power I would like to note that the Regulations Review Committee advised that the committee was not concerned about the proposed regulation-making power on the basis that New Zealand is bound by changes to the articles of agreement once they come into effect whether or not we have incorporated those changes into domestic law. Furthermore any regulations made under the regulation-making power are also subject to disallowance under the Regulations (Disallowance) Act. 
Overall passing this bill will signal New Zealand’s support for reform additional resourcing and better legitimacy in an important international financial institution. I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 Thank— 
Hon Member 
: I think that’s a very good call Mr Speaker. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Ha ha! Thank you for your tolerance Mr Speaker and my whip. I rise to speak in support of the IMF legislation. There are a couple of points to be made. First of all what is happening here is that because of the change in the relative wealth of nations the split of the payment that is made to the IMF that goes to support countries in trouble is changing because the relative weight of different countries has changed. China is a bigger part of the world economy and New Zealand is a smaller part of the world economy. It is a sad reflection on New Zealand’s relative lack of growth compared with other parts of the world over recent decades that our share of world output has dropped. That is not just because of changing population trends; it is because we have not performed as well as some other countries. On the one hand the allocation of the amount to be spent by the IMF is changing in a way that decreases New Zealand’s share of it as the other countries’ share increases but on the other hand the total amount of the pool that is able to be spent through the IMF is growing so the net effect for New Zealand cost-wise is that we pay a smaller percentage of a larger amount which works out to be about the same as it was previously. So there is not a great additional cost to the New Zealand taxpayer as a consequence of this. 
It is notable that New Zealand generally does support the work of the International Monetary Fund and I think that would cause me to reflect on the fact that the International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard thinks that monetary policy that focuses on inflation targeting to the detriment of other aspects of economic management is past its use-by date. So although I am supporting this bill the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill I would note that the current Government the National-led Government is a bit selective as to the advice it takes from the International Monetary Fund. 
The IMF thinks that New Zealand’s economy would be improved if we had broader targets for the Reserve Bank so that instead of putting the primacy of control of inflation ahead of all other matters of economic management it would have a broader set of objectives including the health of our export sector and our exchange rate. Why is that important? That is important for New Zealand because unless we address some of these fundamentals New Zealand is going to do next year and in the next decade what it has done in the last three decades which is import more than we export or to be more specific not cover the cost of our imports and interest from the value of our exports. 
In every year New Zealand does that it runs a current account deficit or a balance of payments deficit. That external deficit hole as it is sometimes called can be plugged in only two ways either through borrowing more money from overseas or by selling assets that were previously New Zealand - owned to a foreign buyer. New Zealand has been doing that now consistently for over three decades and as a consequence our net international liabilities have grown. Unless New Zealand has an exchange rate that reflects the fundamentals of our economy we will not be able to overcome that current account deficit and we will continue to get poorer as our net international liabilities grow every year. 
Treasury’s projections on behalf of the Government in the latest Budget have New Zealand’s net international liabilities growing to negative 80 percent of GDP over the forecast period ending in 2016. Those net international liabilities are already high by international standards. Indeed you would have to say that they are at European levels and they are set to get worse. So in order for that not to happen New Zealand would have to earn more in its exports relative to its imports and interest costs and in order to do that we need a few changes. The IMF says we should be introducing a capital gains tax. The Government rejects that advice. The IMF like the OECD and Treasury and the Reserve Bank and just about every other Western Government thinks it is a good idea because then people will invest on the basis of the profitability of an enterprise rather than on a tax bias that lies in favour currently of certain classes of investment. That acts to the detriment of our productive export sector because too much money goes into land-based purchases and not enough money into export-related businesses be they services or manufacturing exports. Those businesses suffer as a consequence of the bias which puts too much emphasis on other parts of the economy. 
The IMF also says that inflation targeting has been exposed by the global financial crisis as being wrong or inadequate and thinks that broader targets are needed for countries. Instead of just focusing on the control of inflation other matters of economic management are important. Steven Joyce on the other side has insulted people who have been pursuing this alternative viewpoint recently be they manufacturers or politicians. He has accused them of voodoo economics and of being snake oil merchants but of course you cannot accuse the head of the IMF Olivier Blanchard of that nor various Nobel Laureates who think that inflation targeting has run its course. I met recently with a number of these economists overseas including a renowned expert in monetary policy Jeffrey Frankel at Harvard. He made a couple statements to me that I found to be common sense to be honest. He said that no one system of monetary policy is right for all countries of the world—that is obvious—and that no one system of monetary policy is right for any one country all of the time. Again that seems a pretty common-sense thing to say.  
If you look back at the history of the world we have actually gone in the last century through a number of iterations in monetary policy. Until the Great Depression and World War II we had the gold standard which was the way in which monetary policy was effectively controlled. That ran out of time. You know it stopped working properly and so post - World War II and the Great Depression we had Bretton Woods and we introduced a different form of control that focused on exchange rates and had capital movement controls as part of it. That stopped working and as a consequence the world moved on and it tried to control monetary policy mainly through controlling the supply of money. That ran out of rope and then the world moved on to inflation targeting.  
Inflation targeting when introduced in New Zealand was probably appropriate. We had entrenched inflation under Muldoon. We had real problems in the economy and the Government needed to focus on the control of inflation being the primary problem. So the Reserve Bank was charged with fixing that problem and it was told that the primary aim was the control of inflation and that other things like the exchange rate were subsidiary. Now that has run out of rope. It is no longer necessary. In fact it is hurting New Zealand to give primacy to inflation targeting over other aspects of management of the economy.  
There is no doubt that the Reserve Bank would make different choices if its objectives were broader than giving primacy to inflation targeting. If other matters of economic management were given equal weighting including the health of our export sector and our ability to earn enough in our exports so that we did not have a current account deficit well you know New Zealand would be better off with the Reserve Bank using the tools at its disposal differently. So that is one of the lines of advice that we are having from the International Monetary Fund that is being ignored by this Government.  
I want to say one further thing about this legislation and that is that although Labour will be supporting this bill we would prefer that the ability to make future changes to the ratios or the amount that is committed to be contributed by New Zealand to the International Monetary Fund is by way of statute which comes before this Parliament rather than by way of statutory regulation as is proposed by this legislation. Until now any time there has been an amendment to the articles of the International Monetary Fund that New Zealand has agreed to it has had to come before this Parliament and the Minister of Finance has had to justify to this Parliament why that should happen. It has consequences for New Zealand in a monetary sense and those consequences should be brought before Parliament so that Parliament has the opportunity to vote it up or down. In reality it is very unlikely that Parliament will vote it down unless the agreement that the Minister has entered into is wrong. The Minister will have the Treasury benches and so will have the Government’s votes to vote it through anyway if he has convinced his own Cabinet and caucus that that is the thing to do.  
So what is wrong with it having transparency around these issues and requiring these amendments to come before Parliament? They do not happen every year. If this was just an administrative thing that happened every year well yeah do it by way of statutory regulation but it is not. In fact I think the number of times that this legislation has been amended since it came into force just after Bretton Woods—because the International Monetary Fund was formed after Bretton Woods—is only about four or five times so it is not like once-a-decade legislation is too much for this Parliament to cope with. We oppose the regulation-making power. 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to speak on this bill the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill. I want to make a couple of points as to why this is important and then I will touch on the issue raised by the last speaker Mr Parker around whether regulation-seeking powers should be in place or not. 
The bill itself amends the International Finance Agreements Act of 1961. That Act of Parliament allows the Government to meet its obligations as a member of various financial institutions and in this case we are talking about the IMF—the International Monetary Fund. What that means is that New Zealand is a part-owner of that fund—it is a part-owner of that bank. The bank does very important work around the world and during the last few years as the global financial crisis has affected many countries not only New Zealand—and thank goodness we have got the Government we have to help shepherd us through these difficult times—but in many other parts of the world—[ 
Interruption 
] People watching television cannot see but heads were vigorously nodding up and down on the other side of the House then! In many parts of the world they have not been so fortunate and the IMF has had to step up and provide important funding and financial instruments to other Governments to keep them going to keep them working. 
New Zealand has not had to request anything like that because of the sound financial management of our Minister of Finance and the stewardship of our Prime Minister. However as a part-owner of the bank we have obligations to that bank and therefore to other countries of the world. Therefore within that what this piece of legislation does is recognise a change that has been made in the terms of ownership—if we would call it that—of the IMF. It is a way that New Zealand recognises that and it enters into force. 
Mr Parker said that these issues should always come before the House but in effect it happens anyway. What happens is the Government is part of the negotiating process it is agreed by all IMF members and when it is signed by all those members—New Zealand has signed it—and when it is ratified by a certain number or percentage of those members then the new agreement enters into force anyway and the obligation is upon us. 
 So actually what has happened here is that the Government has negotiated. It has negotiated through the ministries it has that represent us overseas. An agreement has been reached between all of the countries and in this instance it is to share out that ownership or the obligation to provide funding by way of loans to the IMF to on-loan to countries that have issues in their economies. It is shared out more fairly and more equally and in this New Zealand has its ownership its part to play. So whether or not this was to come before the House the agreement enters into force and obligation is forced upon New Zealand. We canvassed the issue widely with advisers and others in the Finance and Expenditure Committee but reached the conclusion that the most appropriate way to deal with this was for it to be done in the way this bill now proposes. And of course it is up to Governments and Cabinets to decide what is in the best interests of New Zealand. 
We will be able to delve into this in much greater detail in the Committee stage but I commend the bill as it stands to the House. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill to reiterate the comments made by my colleague David Parker that Labour supports this bill. It supports the ratification of the changes to the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund. It does not however support the change that would allow future updates to the articles to be made by regulation. The reasons for that are quite simple: that our commitments to the IMF and its special drawing rights are very substantial in terms of their fiscal implications; and that this is a core part of the international financial institutional structure and it requires the consideration of this House should significant changes be made to its Articles of Agreement. 
Having noted those formalities I wish to concentrate the bulk of my remarks on the contribution to economic debate currently being sponsored by the IMF because the IMF has become a voice of reason at a time of great turmoil in international economic debate. Members will know that the former director-general Dominique Strauss-Kahn had quite a reputation. He had quite a reputation— 
Chris Hipkins 
: Not necessarily in a good way. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: —for a number of things but one of the best things—perhaps the best thing that he had a reputation for—was for thinking a little differently about some of the dogmas of economics that had been the hallmark of the IMF for decades until his tenure. That may have ruffled a few feathers—who knows it may even have contributed to his downfall—but let us not ignore the huge change in what the world’s probably leading classic financial institution has been telling us. For years since the mid-1970s and the oil shocks and the rise of neo-liberalism the International Monetary Fund was a champion of monetarism of light-handed regulation of fiscal rectitude of balanced budgets and of a very very conservative style of economic management. It represented par excellence the economic orthodoxies of the 1970s 1980s and 1990s. It was the gold standard for conservative economics. It was famous for imposing its view of the world on struggling Third World countries forcing for example massive fiscal consolidations massive cuts to State sectors massive lay-offs massive economic contractions in order to achieve fiscal targets. 
Hon David Parker 
: Russian oligarchs. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Russian oligarchs spring to mind and Central American banana republics crashing and burning to name a few. 
Times have changed. The old orthodoxies the Washington Consensus have been swept away by a little something that the National Government does not seem to have noticed—unless it wants an excuse—and it is called the global financial crisis. One of the things that it swept away was the so-called Washington Consensus on monetary policy. The idea was that the only thing that mattered and it may have made sense immediately post the oil shocks of the 1970s was price stability and the control of inflation—that somehow price stability according to the then IMF equalled financial stability and that financial stability equalled economic stability and economic stability equalled social stability. If you controlled inflation all the rest would take care of itself said Milton Friedman and the Chicago school acolytes. And then in 2008 the immense asset bubble built up by shonky real estate loans magnified a 100-fold or a 1000-fold by derivatives like collateralised debt obligations and other things that were supposed to spread risk but actually magnified it and all of the orthodoxies about lowering interest rates that Mr Bernanke and Mr Greenspan had been following in the US were swept away. 
The IMF to its credit had the courage to say “We were wrong; we were wrong.” There is an old saying that only a fool when confronted by new information refuses to change their mind. To the IMF’s credit it did and Mr Strauss-Kahn deserves some credit as does his successor Christine Lagarde for having the courage to say times have changed. What does it mean for us? Well is it not interesting that New Zealand and the shared history between both sides of the House was the poster child for the IMF prescription of the 1980s—Rogernomics and then the shiraz full-bodied version Ruth Richardson were the most extreme and pure form of neo-classical economics and neo-liberal politics almost anywhere in the world. It was IMF textbook. And where are we now? 
Hon David Parker 
: And then Don Brash took over— 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: And then Don Brash who was the ultra-orthodox Governor of the Reserve Bank took over the National Party and it has never recovered. 
Hon David Parker 
: Then ACT. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: And then ACT. So while the doyens of this world view have moved further to the right across the New Zealand political spectrum—I think Don Brash flirted with Labour youth when he was a pimply teenager or something— 
Hon David Parker 
: Oh don’t tell me that. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: No no; I’m sorry. But some people dry out so far that it becomes almost laughable. But the point is this and it is a very serious point: what was once absolutely mainstream has now been stranded like a fish on a receding riverbank flapping around gasping for air. That is what is left of the monetarist consensus. And almost the only people who still believe in it are the New Zealand National Party and the ACT Party. The IMF does not believe it. Olivier Blanchard their chief economist whom my colleague Mr Parker has just been to visit does not believe it and he has just co-authored a book about why it no longer applies. It builds on a whole lot of other literature including Kahneman and Tversky and Rogoff and Reinhart with  
This Time is Different 
 which is a history of 300 years of financial crises. This time is different they said and every time a bubble bursts a society takes a decade to work its way out of the heap of bad debt. In those circumstances institutions like the IMF become very important. 
What has the IMF said of New Zealand? What advice have we received from the IMF? 
Hon David Parker 
: CGT. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Well let us just note. My colleague Mr Parker is getting rightly excited by this because we part-time economists think this is pretty juicy stuff. Let us first note what it has said is wrong. Is it our huge public debt? No. Does it think we have a public debt problem? No. Why? Because our public debt is less than a quarter of the OECD average. We do not by relative terms have a significant public debt problem. That does not mean we do not want value for money; we do. But the issue is not that. The issue according to the IMF is that we have two key problems: a lack of private savings and too much private debt and an under-diversified commodity-driven low-value export profile that is getting the country further and further behind the guard. And what is the National Government doing about those two key problems? Nothing. Would it support a strong savings policy that would build our savings up? Would it support a capital gains tax that would help us to save in real assets? No. Would it support monetary reform that would help our exporters close the current account deficit? No. Would it take any of the advice of the International Monetary Fund about how to fix the New Zealand economy? 
Hon Members 
: No. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Why then is it paying the bill? If it is not listening to the doctor why is it paying the tab? Why are we here saying that we agree to pay the tab when the New Zealand Government is not listening to the answer? The answer is clear: New Zealand needs a change of direction. The old orthodoxies are not working. But do not take the Labour Opposition’s word for it. Talk to the Spring Creek miners talk to the guys laid off at Nuplex Industries this week and talk to the guys and girls laid off at Tiwai Point or Norske Skog. Talk to the people all around the country whose livelihoods are drying up and whose children are at the departure gates. Then ask yourself: is it not time we listened to the IMF? 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak on the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill. This is a relatively small bill but it has some interesting dimensions to it particularly in relation to the International Monetary Fund. 
The Greens will not be supporting this bill for the simple reason that we do not agree with the regulation-making powers that are contained within this bill. If New Zealand as a country is to agree to changes to the voting rights at the International Monetary Fund then we believe that it should come back to the New Zealand Parliament rather than simply being a regulation enacted by the executive. We think that is a fundamental principle. 
David Bennett 
: What have you actually achieved while you’ve been in Parliament Russel? 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN 
: I hear the heckling there from whoever it is from Hamilton who has no idea about this bill or pretty much anything else. 
What this bill does around the regulation-making powers is to make sure that the New Zealand Government does not have to come to this House to seek changes to the agreements around the IMF. We think that is wrong. But I think the bigger picture here is that there is a global shift in terms of the policy agreements and arrangements around monetary policy fiscal policy and other policy which the New Zealand Government is completely missing. There is actually a very significant shift in what is the global consensus and unfortunately the New Zealand Government is missing the boat. It feels like the New Zealand National Party can stand up against the whole world in holding on to an outdated monetary policy framework so it thinks it can take on the whole world. Even while the IMF and others are embracing alternative kinds of policies the New Zealand National Government thinks it can take on the entire world and somehow beat it when it comes to currency. But of course you cannot do that. What the IMF and others are saying is that we need to change the framework. 
I think it is important to look at the last report on New Zealand from the IMF which was released in June. I would not expect anyone in the National Party to have read it. What this says if you read it is that New Zealand has some vulnerabilities and some external liabilities risks. It says that “New Zealand’s large net liabilities present a risk.” and “the current account deficit is projected to increase over the medium term”. Of course we have seen this in the last current account deficit figures where the current account deficit is heading towards 5 percent. The report says further: “To contain this increase and limit a further buildup of foreign liabilities over the longer term the New Zealand dollar would need to be weaker than its current level.” 
That was back in June. Of course since then the New Zealand dollar has appreciated. We are now in the situation where New Zealand businesses in the tradable sector—those that are exporting or competing with imports—are screaming out for the New Zealand Government to break with its orthodox position where it thinks it can take on the whole world and to do something to bring down the value of the New Zealand dollar. The IMF of course has warned us that if we continue with a strong dollar it will have very detrimental effects on the tradable sector in New Zealand and it will have very detrimental effects on the current account deficit and our net external liabilities. 
We have actually seen that happen already since this report came out. So in this respect the IMF’s report was quite prescient. It identified one of the key problems with the New Zealand economy in terms of the level of the exchange rate and it identified that it needed to come down. Instead it has appreciated. Having just tonight been talking to some of New Zealand’s large exporters what they tell me is that they can maybe survive at the current level of the dollar but were it to increase any further large numbers of exporters—even more further exporters—would be driven out of business. Yet the Government does nothing. 
The whole world is devaluing its currencies. All of our major trading partners are adopting policies to devalue their currencies but somehow the New Zealand Government thinks that it can stand up like King Canute and hold back the ocean that somehow New Zealand can stand against the world and not do anything while all of our trading partners are devaluing their currencies and that somehow the New Zealand tradable sector can simply stand there and survive. 
Well the Government should talk to real people for a change. If it talked to real people who are actually involved in the business of exporting or competing with imports what it would find is that those real people—manufacturers and others—are having real trouble because of the current policy settings meaning that the New Zealand dollar is too high. 
So while the National Party lives in the neoclassical economic bubble where the economy is doing extremely well in theory in practice of course the New Zealand economy is doing very very poorly. 
David Bennett 
: What have you done in your time Russel here? 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN 
: The National Party rabble whom people may hear gabbling away in the background who simply have no idea about economic policy or what is going on in the real world can yell as much as they want and try to shut down the voices that are saying that we need to take action. Of course the reality is that they can sit there and watch the economy get destroyed but the Green Party will not support that. 
The other element that I think has been interesting in terms of the development of the thinking at the IMF is around green economics. For those of you who read a publication that is put out by the IMF  
Finance and Development 
 it put out an issue a few months ago called “Going Green” which is looking very much at investment in basically mostly renewable energy. The argument it makes is that in spite of the global financial crisis there has been a huge boom in investment in renewable energy and in fact it has continued to grow even in spite of the pressure that has been on the sector. When you look at the statistics it is putting out we are seeing a dramatic increase in the amount of annual investment from about $7 billion a year back in 2002 to well over $150 billion a year now. So there is very significant growth in investment going into renewable energy. That is what the IMF is reporting. 
The reason why this is very significant for New Zealand is that one of the strategic advantages New Zealand has is in the renewable energy field because of our background particularly in hydro but also our emerging technological advances in geothermal. And this is a sector where our State-owned enterprises have some real expertise and ability to excel. Unfortunately the Government is selling them into foreign ownership—or is planning to or would like to sell them into foreign ownership—right at the moment that those State-owned enterprises can take advantage of this global boom in renewable energy investment. 
We need as a society and as an international community to have a boom in investment in clean technologies and renewable energy because it is only if we have that that we stand a chance of reducing our greenhouse emissions and surviving through this period of anthropogenic or human-caused climate change. So the IMF I think not only is playing a valuable role in challenging the if you like monetarist consensus or neoclassical consensus in economics which has dominated the economics field now for decades but also is challenging the consensus in terms of the environment around showing that green investment and green economics is one of the most rapidly growing sectors internationally. And it is saying to people like the New Zealand Government which unfortunately is deaf to it that this is one of the great opportunities as well as one of the great adaptations if you like of the economic system because it is only by having this level of investment into the renewable energy sector that we can have the kind of transition— 
David Bennett 
: Tell us about the carbon price Russel. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN 
: —to sustainability. Once again the National backbench members start shouting out because they have no idea about green economics or the IMF or they do not read any of the publications coming out from the IMF. That is why all they can do is sit there and shout abuse from the back of the Chamber which is pretty standard in this Parliament. We have the National MP from Hamilton David someone or other who shouts abuse pretty much in every debate in this House when anyone tries to make a rational argument and in the background you will be able to hear him shouting— 
Maggie Barry 
: Well you’re not giving a rational argument. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN 
: Oh Maggie Barry has joined in as well. She is also very good at shouting abuse. But of course the National Party does not want to engage in the real arguments. The real arguments are about changing the neoclassical consensus in economics and embracing the turn towards green economics and the green economic opportunities for New Zealand. That is a future focus for our country. 
If we embrace those things which you can read about in the IMF reports then that is a positive future for our country. It is a pity that the National Party wears such blinkers that it cannot see that the world is changing. 
Maggie Barry 
: Go back to Australia. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN 
: And Maggie Barry yells out “Go back to Australia.” because she abuses people who are migrants. That is what you get from the National Party. Maggie Barry says “Go back to Australia.” because she abuses people who are migrants. That is the level of debate from the National Party. Instead of debating the issues this is what we get day in and day out on the Finance and Expenditure Committee from the abusive National Party. They hate migrants. They hate anyone who is different. They do not like it. Well I tell you: you need to embrace the future because it is going to be diverse and it is going to be green so get used to it. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 That was a pathetic speech from—I do not know who it was—somebody in the Green Party. He mentioned the green economy. I would like Russel Norman to talk about the price of carbon and how the New Zealand economy would have done so well with the price of carbon. He will not answer that question will he because he knows the price of carbon is going down to a dollar and that is effectively what is happening in the world. 
The Green Party talked about our trading partners devaluing their currencies. Well I look forward to the Green Party submitting evidence of our trading partners devaluing their currencies because I have not seen any. I do not see the Australian economy devaluing its currency. That is the voodoo economics that you get from the Green Party. It has no idea of what it is talking about. It comes into this House and it can only do personal attacks to get its arguments across. It is completely unfair to this Parliament that the Green Party engages in that. 
The Labour Party on the other side—we had a problem there; we did not know who to believe. Was it Parker or Cunliffe—David Parker or David Cunliffe? Who is the finance spokesperson for the Labour Party? It certainly is David Parker but I think David Cunliffe was going in there and saying “I know better than David Parker today.” There are cracks within its finance team that are huge. It is a shame for the Labour Party because it is a fine party of tradition. It is sad to see the Labour Party not being able to put its economic policy together and to have a cohesive approach to it. That is a bit of a shame for New Zealand politics. It means that we have to have the Green Party come in with its madness to fill in the gap. 
The Labour Party talks the rhetoric. It says all these things about having a productive economy and at the same time it wants to put a capital gains tax on the most productive parts of our economy. The things do not add up. The New Zealand economy is in the best shape of many of the Western economies in the world. That is why our dollar is valued so high. It is because New Zealand is seen as having a strong economy. It is seen as having strong economic management from its Government and it is seen as having as strong fundamentals as other Western countries can have at the moment. Those are good things. The Labour Party and the Green Party talk about this rhetoric to change it. It is rubbish. Do not believe it. You have got the best you can get. We are delivering. This International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill is part of that. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill. I would like to bring it back to what we are here for this evening in the House the subject of the bill rather than the petty politics and slanging that we have heard in the last 5 to 10 minutes. 
This is a bill that basically brings New Zealand into line with other IMF members around the world many of which have already voted in regards to this type of legislation within their own jurisdictions. It says in the bill that “the shareholding (quota share) of many IMF members has not kept pace with the members’ relative positions in the world economy and many fast-growing emerging market countries have become substantially under-represented.” at the IMF. As we heard earlier in the evening there are situations such as those where China has grown substantially and other economies have not performed in the same way and where the IMF has not realigned its various quota shares in line with the size of those different economies. 
In terms of this particular legislation it says that an “Order in Council will be made when three-fifths of the IMF members”—being 85 percent of the members of the IMF—“have accepted the changes” in accordance with this. Therefore once 85 percent of the members of the IMF have accepted this it will be enacted through our legislation. This basically is bringing New Zealand into line with international best practice in terms of the IMF. We are a strong supporter of the IMF and we have been a longstanding member of the IMF. The New Zealand Crown the New Zealand Government and our jurisdiction here are best represented on the IMF by paying our fair share into the IMF fund and being a good partner of the IMF in that respect. 
But it is interesting that although this National Government is very much wanting to see this legislation go through—and New Zealand First supports the legislation—on the other hand the Government likes to be very selective as to what it picks and chooses from the IMF. Where in recent weeks and in recent months the IMF has made comment and is on record as saying that the New Zealand dollar is overvalued and the New Zealand dollar should be at a lower level—and where other eminent financial institutions around the world similarly have made similar comment that the New Zealand dollar is overvalued—it is interesting that the blinkers go up from the National Government and it does not want to hear those sorts of things from the IMF. But that is a fact. The IMF has said that we are something in the order of I think it is 10 percent or 15 percent at least overvalued in terms of our New Zealand dollar. 
In that respect of course New Zealand First is trying to address that situation. Again the National Government does not want to look at it but the Rt Hon Winston Peters does have a member’s bill which is entitled the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Amending Primary Function of Bank) Amendment Bill which is basically intended to review the Reserve Bank so that its sole purpose— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Order! The member cannot talk about another bill that is on the Order Paper. You can talk only about the bill that is currently before us. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: Yes I agree but what I am saying is that the IMF has said that the New Zealand dollar is overvalued. I am talking about the New Zealand dollar. One way that the New Zealand dollar could be reduced in terms of meeting what the IMF has recommended as well would be the member’s bill that serves to change the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act to allow for more than just inflation to be taken into account when the Reserve Bank is setting its parameters. 
So in that respect we do have to be cognisant of the fact that the IMF is a very eminent financial institution around the world. We are about to move this particular Government bill through in support of the IMF but on the other hand we just seem to find within Government circles that it does not want to listen to other very sage and good advice from the IMF that the New Zealand dollar needs addressing. 
This week we are seeing more and more and more people losing their jobs in New Zealand. Today we had the miners coming to Parliament. In Huntly 63 miners are losing their jobs and several hundred down on the West Coast are losing their jobs. This all comes back to New Zealand’s position in the world in terms of our monetary position much of it reflecting back on the high value of the New Zealand dollar and our exporters being able to compete on world markets being able to export their coal and export their products and export all sorts of other goods from New Zealand. Again it is reflective of a situation New Zealand is finding itself in increasingly where we are uncompetitive because we have a very high dollar which is increasing all the time. The way things are going we will be seeing almost parity with the US dollar in the coming year. 
I can recall back in 1979-80 when the New Zealand dollar was worth more than the US dollar. I remember the time when the New Zealand dollar first went under the US dollar and shudders went around and we thought this was terrible that the New Zealand dollar was going to be worth less than the US dollar. However in those days we sold our lamb and butter and primary products basically only to the UK and that was it. We did not have to compete on world markets. Today we have to compete on world markets against very very aggressive competitors and the New Zealand dollar as a result is at a very very high level and making it more and more difficult for our exporters to compete. 
In terms of this the IMF has got a lot of wisdom and a lot of advice. We hope that the New Zealand Government in putting this bill through in the future—when it finally does become law—will take on board that with this legislation goes responsibilities towards the IMF. Perhaps when the representatives of the IMF come to New Zealand and they sit down with the Minister of Finance when they sit down with our Reserve Bank and when they sit down with our Treasury people they will actually listen. Perhaps they will listen to the IMF because we do not sign up to these things just for the sake of signing a bill and signing a piece of paper just to be part of the club. We do actually sign up to these things in order to also get international advice on where we stand in the international financial community. In that respect New Zealand First will support this bill but certainly there is a long way to go for this New Zealand Government to reflect the fact that New Zealand is in dire financial straits and that we have to start listening to some of the people like the IMF on the world stage. 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
: 
 I need to say to Andrew Williams the last speaker that in fact New Zealand is not in dire straits and he could start by looking at the difference in the unemployment rates between here and Spain for example. I have got to say to him that he knows nothing about exchange rates. The reason the US dollar has depreciated vis-à-vis the New Zealand dollar is that the Americans have been printing dollar notes. That is their problem; it is not our problem. I think he should go and look at a statement that came out today from Business New Zealand that was talking about the importance of our not fiddling with the exchange rates. It was an article talking about the cross rates between the New Zealand dollar and the Australian dollar where we have a 25 percent margin and most of our exports go to Australia. I wish that you would go and learn something about economics because you should not be talking to the community here in New Zealand as you are. 
But let me come back to the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill. This Government believes it is really important to be an active participant in the international system. Whether it is by being an active member of multilateral organisations like the United Nations and like the Pacific Islands Forum or economic organisations such as the IMF we need to be internationally engaged. Why? Because we are a small open economy. We benefit considerably from a stable global economy. Our commitments to the IMF are a bit like paying your earthquake premiums. I am trying to put it in words that you might understand. They are effectively like paying a premium on an insurance policy against damage to our economy from an unstable world. Contributing to the IMF and global financial stability are also necessary for New Zealand’s international reputation. I thoroughly support this bill and commend it to the House. 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Let me note that I heard this evening a commentary provided by you and Mr Clayton Cosgrove about a rugby game in Dunedin. In the unlikely event that you are not made the future Speaker you may have a career in Dunedin narrating rugby. There were some fine players however in the team not the least of which was the Richie McCaw of New Zealand’s Parliamentary Rugby Team politics Mr Damien O’Connor. 
Anyhow let me come back to this bill the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill. Labour supports this bill but beneath the words of this bill really is a debate that is gathering traction and it is a debate about monetarism. It is a debate about the orthodoxy that has prevailed in New Zealand since the mid to late 1980s. It was pushed as a consequence of Thatcherism and Reaganomics. It took root here. It found institutional expression in our Reserve Bank and it is now the subject of a very public tussle between the two teams that will lead the next Government. 
I have no compunction whatsoever unlike our colleagues from the Greens in supporting this piece of legislation because I feel you cannot pick and choose which international accords you want to commit your country to. You can take on with a level of religious fervour certain environmental accords but then sniff at things to do with financial security. So I have no compunction whatsoever in supporting this knowing yes you do rely on the Government of the day just as Winston Peters in his time intervened on our behalf and provided funding at the time of the Asian crisis back in the mid to late 1990s. 
But I want to come back to what underlies this bill. It is a debate about monetarism. A monetarist will insist that we run an austere hawk-like fiscal policy and they will insist that nothing must be done to manipulate the supply of money that might lead to a growth in the value of assets or inflation which is just too much money chasing too few goods. The other countervailing view is that from time to time pump priming—using the inflationary target and letting it float a bit—lifts a wrecked ship off a reef. So as we go forward over the next 2 or 3 years there is going to be a genuine debate. How much of the public will actually be interested in it remains to be seen but it is a legitimate intellectual demanding political debate that has gathered momentum and I salute my colleagues who have managed to get it up as an agenda item. I accept on the day of plausible deniability etc. for the Prime Minister and the deputy leader of the National Party that they have got other things to worry about but this debate is not going to go away. 
Over the last week as the IMF prepares for its annual meeting a debate has broken out between the reserve bank in Germany and the IMF. What is at the centre of that debate? What is at the centre of that debate is that the IMF has consistently said you cannot lift the wreckage of the economy and the stranded ship unless you actually take a Keynesian approach—unless you move away from this hawkish austerity and actually generate cash flow so people have got money to buy goods and services. Firms then have the confidence to invest and start to actually employ people. 
It is rather interesting that that debate at far more elevated levels than what we are talking about is gathering momentum because the IMF realises that there are risks as money is extended to countries etc. that have got in the proverbial. But without that type of intervention you cannot leave a society or an economy to implode on itself and not be surprised that more nefarious forces associated with violence mayhem terrorism drugs destruction death— 
Hon David Parker 
: Fascism communism. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: —fascism communism and totalitarianism occupy that space. So a modern economy—and when I think about it how we have approached this bill and how we approach the role of the IMF—actually sees a large role for the private sector in any economy. For some of us it may be larger than for others; for me I see a very large role. But when you are in the midst of a long protracted period of depression—sort of basically trees dying as a consequence of actually not having enough fiscal liquid in them—you have got to intervene and one way of intervening is actually enabling the whole monetary settings to be recalibrated. And why not? No generation—just as no religion and just as no institution—can enjoy long-term life if it fossilises or it allows itself to desiccate. So that is why the debate that underlies this relatively straightforward regulatory response is a very good debate. 
It will be said from that side of the House that really what you are talking about is making New Zealanders poorer. Well I can tell you that I was chair of New Zealand’s largest fishing export company when the dollar got to US39c and US46c. We know that we probably wanted it at the 10-year average of 55c and I should imagine it is over 60-odd cents now in terms of a 10-year average but it is a fiction and it is a self-serving quite destructive approach—which unfortunately still persists in the likes of the person I like to debate with occasionally Don Brash—that we are destroying the country’s wealth. When you have these debates some lose some gain. Inflation actually helps those who want to trade assets. Inflation actually can penalise those people on fixed incomes etc. But no economy at any given point in time has all winners so the fact that we are pushing from this side of the House something that is now actually being amplified by the current leader of the IMF speaks to the prescience etc. of our two senior spokesmen not the least of whom has had the good sense to wander over and check out the thinking of senior economists and senior policy makers only to learn that it is time for change in our country. 
What can you do in maintaining growth and jobs where you are crippled by an excessively high exchange rate? What solution or what remedy is coming from the other side of the House? I will tell you what it is. It is a hawkish approach a very mean-spirited approach—I might be charitable and say for some of them a flinty approach—to shrink the size of the fiscal contribution from the Government to the economy and to society. But you can do that only so much and then the whole economy starts to wither. You can do that only if you are actually taking out of circulation funds and resources. Where is it going to come from? Because the jobs and the investment at this stage are not coming from enough firms. 
 Go and ask a firm as I did yesterday—several of them up in Marsden Point—and they will tell you: “Oh if we only had a quantity of commitment and a quality of leadership from the Government of the day many of the regions of the country would get up and get going again.” They are being crippled. They are struggling to keep ahead both of creditors and in their banking relationships at a time when the banks actually have a lot of money because the dollar is squashing confidence and squashing energy. We are right to say some parts of the country are in a depression because people are depressed. They are depressed about the absence of any hope the absence of a tone of positive stewardship from the current Government. 
So have no doubt: as we move to the next election underlying what the IMF represents is a deeper debate on what direction we are going to take our country. We are not going to take our country in the right direction while we watch ongoing unemployment the destruction of jobs and the inevitable loss of too much talent to Australia and are stuck arguing about the shibboleths that are served from the other side of the House. Some may actually understand them. Whether they believe them or not they are ideas that are no longer relevant. They are ideas that no longer generate the results that will sustain New Zealand families in a quality of life and a volume of income that makes life meaningful in Aotearoa which is why we are watching so many of them go to Australia. 
We will support this bill but in particular we support more the debate that both is overdue and will be outstanding because it will pinpoint what we as a Government in the future will do to revive the fortunes of our economy by driving the export sector. Thank you very much. 
MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill. This is an bill that allows the Government to meet its obligations as a member of various financial institutions including the IMF. The Finance and Expenditure Committee which I am a member of recommended that the bill be passed without change. 
We heard earlier from one of the more ambitious and less able members of the Green Party—the Australian one who has acquired a doctorate I think on the history of the Alliance Party or something relevant and of great moment like that. Anyway week after week at the Finance and Expenditure Committee we watch him as he struggles with the concept of New Zealand keeping its place in the world. He has proved again his lack of understanding of economics his watermelon variety of economic philosophy where he is green on the outside but bright red to the core. He refuses to acknowledge that New Zealand as a small open economy benefits tangibly from a stable and prosperous global economy—none of the isolationist Green stuff. 
Our commitments to the IMF are essentially premiums. They are an insurance policy against damage to our economy from an unstable world and they are also an important part of our international reputation. Again that is something that the Greens in particular have not understood well. We understand it only too well and I support this bill. Thank you. 
Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I have pleasure in speaking to this bill the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill which the Labour Party will support. I believe this is a split call so I shall limit my comments to what is necessary. Had I more time I would stray on to other aspects of international obligations such as the obligation to protect the Maui’s dolphin. I understand New Zealand was the only country recently to oppose greater protections for the Maui’s dolphin in a gathering that happened here in New Zealand. I fear that if I do not take this opportunity now I will not have another chance to express my discontent at that decision because we know that there will be no legislation coming before the House to strengthen protections— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Order! 
Dr DAVID CLARK 
: I will not speak today about that Mr Assistant Speaker. 
I will instead focus on the purposes of the IMF which we know is there to provide economic stability. It has 188 member countries and it is there to protect the stability of the international monetary system the system of exchange rates and other international payments that enable countries and their citizens to transact with one another. It also has a mandate for promoting sustainable economic growth and for increasing living standards and reducing poverty. It has total quotas of $360 billion and it has pledged other commitments of $1 trillion. It is a big organisation. It is important to our world economy and New Zealand has a place in that world economy which is important of course to us as it is to others. We take our responsibility in the Labour Party seriously as an internationalist party that believes that New Zealand should honour the international obligations and agreements that we have entered into. 
I want to also note for the record my appreciation for the contributions of the Treasury officials who appeared before the select committee during the process of reviewing this bill. I thought they did a sterling job of researching our requests and reporting back. We see the good work of officials on a daily basis in this Parliament but I thought that the officials who worked on this legislation and sought to answer the questions we had did a job that was worthy of particular mention. 
One of the concerns about this bill that we in the Labour Party have is the way in which future changes will be made. The future acceptance of updates to IMF articles will be ratified by regulation rather than by legislation that comes before this Parliament. We believe that it should come by way of a statute that comes before the House and is given due consideration right here by all members of this Parliament so that we can take those international obligations seriously debate them and decide upon the appropriate way to take them forward. When we get into a position where that transparency is removed there are always risks involved and we do not have to look too far. We look at the lack of transparency around the extensions proposed to Skycity and see what kind of furore that creates in the wider public and concern about the way in which the Government transacts its business. If we also look at the asset sales agenda of the Government and its claim that it has a mandate to sell off our State assets we again see the protests and the upset that it has caused amongst members of the public who voted in support of this Government but now find that it is doing things with which they do not agree. 
The importance of transparency remains. We are not comfortable with the fact that these decisions will be made by the executive rather than coming before the Parliament although we do agree that we need to meet our international obligations and the agreements we have made in terms of our commitment to a trading environment that is stable and in the interests of sustainable growth in the wider world economy. Thank you. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I call Kennedy Graham. I will ring the bell at 4 minutes. 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) 
: 
 I also will not address the issue of Maui’s dolphins tonight in this speech; nor will I talk about New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy which may be under siege the Government’s education policy or the Government’s position at the moment on the Government Communications Security Bureau. None of those issues will I address tonight but rather the issue that is before us which is the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill which is seeking to amend the articles of the IMF. I would recall the stated reason by my colleague Dr Russel Norman for the opposition of the Green Party to the bill and that is among other reasons that it creates a regulation-making power so that future updates to the articles can be made by regulation. Let me also address the other reasons why the Green Party will be opposing the bill. 
I must say that it is always interesting to come late into the debate and listen to what members have said to date. For example I think we in the Green Party agree with John Hayes—[ 
Interruption 
]—yes. When he said that “we need to be internationally engaged” we agree. And we would even go as far as to agree with Maggie Barry who said that we must not be isolationist. We agree too. Nobody should be isolationist in the 21st century. The point is what the nature of the engagement is and that is what the nub of this debate is about. 
We agree with Shane Jones. We are agreeing with everybody you will understand. Shane Jones said that the debate is over Thatcherism and Reaganomics which has come to influence the IMF and the debate is essentially revolving around monetarism. That is the nub of it and that is the issue of engagement—the debate over the nature of the IMF. Where we diverge from the Labour Party is that having agreed that the debate is about monetarism we would seek to engage with the world in reforming the IMF from that in various ways whereas Labour is disposed to support it none the less. 
We have for some time now called for the fundamental democratic reform of the IMF and this bill essentially invites us to comment on the requirements for the reform of the IMF. Let me give three examples. The first is that the stated intent of the reforms is to move towards a more democratic and equal representation model. There is some critique of the reforms that they are not fulfilling that goal. The reforms for example remove the ability of the US Japan Germany UK and Italy to appoint directors—one-quarter of the total positions—putting them on the same playing field as other nations in voting for directors. But their voting share remains large none the less. There will in fact be little change. The US for example will hold 16.5 percent of total votes and the Group of 77 between them will account for 41.2 percent. How do we reconcile that: one nation gets 16 percent and the better part of 120 nations gets 41 percent? 
Secondly the agreement also would change the voting allocation. There is a 6 percent shift increase in vote of the dynamic countries like Brazil Russia India and China but approximately 2.4 percent of this shift comes from other developing nations losing their voting share. What kind of reform is that? Thirdly the agreement also leaves in place the de facto US unilateral veto over some IMF decisions. Some large developing countries opposed the European proposals to lower the special majority voting threshold to eliminate the US veto because they feared they would lose their ability to block things as a group. 
When there is inadequate reform of an organisation a political party has a choice. You support the bill while criticising the bill because the bill does not go far enough and then you support it or you say that the bill does not go far enough in reforming it and because of that you will oppose the bill. We are taking the latter approach to this and we will continue to oppose the bill notwithstanding the report back from the Finance and Expenditure Committee. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 In the spirit of the agreement that Dr Kennedy Graham has articulated and because I was very strongly in support of the comments made by Mr Jones this is a necessary discourse. It may well be overdue as he said but I think he credited his colleague David Parker with having a reasonably intelligent discussion about monetary policy and where it might go. I do note however that it has been a couple of years now since the Labour Party signalled its intention to unhook itself from the monetary policy accord but we are none the wiser about what the alternative monetary policy framework might be so I look forward with interest to that. 
It was a little unfortunate that the discourse between Dr Norman and some backbenchers was a little bit acrimonious. I want to pick up on one point he made in respect of National backbenchers not reading IMF reports. Well I have read the IMF report that he quoted and sent a press release out in fact in early July around the IMF stating that the New Zealand dollar was overvalued by 15 percent. In fact it did not say that. I cannot find anywhere where it said that. What it did say was that the dollar was 13 percent higher than its 1998-2011 average and it is quite another thing altogether to draw an inference that that means that the dollar is overstated. It may well be uncomfortably high as the Prime Minister has described it but I also want to quote that report in respect of monetary policy—and Mr Parker probably knows this but has not said it. The IMF said: “The current accommodative monetary stance is appropriate. If the recovery remains on track and downside risks dissipate monetary policy will need to tighten gradually to contain inflationary pressures.” So at a time when Mr Parker advocates a loosening of monetary policy and a widening of the parameters for inflation which would be very hard on our lower-income New Zealanders particularly if that results in a lower exchange rate and then higher import prices like in respect of fuel in fact the IMF was advocating quite the opposite. So I think this is a case often of picking a statistic to suit a point of view rather than taking a neutral stance and looking through the numbers. But in supporting this bill I certainly support the continuation of that discourse. 
Bill read a second time. 
Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill 
Third Reading 
Debate resumed from 13 September. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Members when we were last debating this bill Jacqui Dean had the call and has 4 minutes 30 seconds remaining if she wishes to speak. The Hon Phil Goff. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 I do not blame Jacqui Dean for not taking up the call. It is a fairly insubstantial bill and it is very hard for a Government member to fill in 10 minutes speaking on it. 
Jacqui Dean 
: Oh I made a brilliant speech. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Having said that and wound the member up as I intended I need to say that Labour supports this bill. When I said that it is insubstantial I mean it was not of sufficient impact to warrant a regulatory impact analysis or statement so that is simply a statement of fact. It is not a significant bill. It has been sitting on the Order Paper for 18 months since it was introduced so the Government has not been in any hurry to pass it. 
The bill does some useful things that bear comment but it is not going to shake the world. The first thing that it does is that it prevents people who have served home detention sentences for 3 months or more from qualifying for jury service for 5 years. I think that is a sensible provision. It brings it into line with the fact that if you have served a jail sentence you are prevented from serving on a jury and there is a very good reason for that. If you are the sort of person who has committed an offence serious enough to have home detention for more than 3 months you are not really in a great position to stand in judgment of another person’s guilt or innocence for that period of time. So I do not think there was any great controversy around that. I think it deals with a problem in the earlier Act and it closes a loophole. 
The second thing that the bill does is to empower registrars to permanently excuse from jury service people who either have chronic ill health or are 65 years or over. Where a person has chronic ill health it makes sense that there be a permanent excusal. If the person is repeatedly ill they are not going to be in a position to serve and it is a burden on them and a cause of anxiety if they keep getting summonses to appear on juries. 
The question of an over-65-year-old was somewhat more controversial when discussed at the Law and Order Committee. That was because from Labour’s point of view although we acknowledge that there is nothing in this bill that says a person over the age of 65 cannot serve the bill as it was originally introduced said that if you are permanently excused because you are over 65 then that is it—you will never and you can never go on a jury again. We had some problems with that. One is that it stereotyped older people and suggested that when you get to 65 you are past serving on a jury—and I am sure you would agree Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch that you are not past serving on a jury. In fact in 20 years’ time there is going to be something like a million people over that age and if you are going to have a jury of your peers you are going to need to have a lot of those people with considerable experience and most important a little more time than others in the community to serve on the jury. 
I think the real problem we are going to have with juries is that as more and more people seek to be excused because they have to work they cannot afford the time off or the jury fees are not sufficient for them to serve on a jury for a week or 2 weeks without suffering from financial hardship you might find that your juries become less and less representative of the communities. 
But anyway our problem was—and the report from the select committee suggested that the select committee was uneasy with the fact—that once you had been excused because you are over 65 you could not reverse that process. Well finally the Minister of Justice saw sense on that and she introduced Supplementary Order Paper 94. That enables people who are excused permanently from jury service because they are of or over the age of 65 to resume being qualified and liable for jury service by having their permanent excusals cancelled as of right on a written application. I think that was a sensible thing to do and that resolved the concerns that we had with that particular aspect. 
The third thing was a more serious problem and that was the concern that defendants could have access to the jury list. The jury list provides the name the occupation the birth date and the address of members on a jury. If a lawyer representing a defendant has access to that information the lawyer is conscious of the obligations on him or her and is liable to keep that information secure and not divulge it to the person whom they are representing. 
But we have a problem—and it is going to be a growing problem because of cut-backs to legal aid—in that more and more people are representing themselves in court. I do not think that is a good idea and I do not think judges think it is a good idea because it makes the court process more drawn-out. If you are going to have a fair trial and a person does not understand the law but they are representing themselves it will take much longer it will cost a whole lot more and you will find that the cuts to legal aid are actually pretty counter-productive. 
Hon Shane Jones 
: False economics. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: It is false economics as my colleague Shane Jones has just commented. The provision that has been made in this bill is as a result of a man who was representing himself in court who had access to the jury list and subsequently decided that he would contact one or more of the jurors. That is a situation that cannot be tolerated and it is a contempt of court. 
This bill makes an effort to try to improve the privacy of jurors by ensuring that a defendant who is representing himself or herself does not have access to the particulars of the jury list. That is good—we support that—but let us not exaggerate the degree of protection that that will provide to the jurors. A person who is a defendant is going to be in court to hear the names of the people called out in the courtroom and it does not take much of a detective act to then—well if your name is John Smith I suppose it might provide a difficulty in determining which John Smith in the phone book or on the electoral roll is the John Smith who was on the jury. But if you have a name like—I think I have mentioned it once before—Lindsay Tisch there is not a lot of them about and you would be able to— 
H V Ross Robertson 
: Hope not! 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: That is unfair coming from an Assistant Speaker Mr Robertson. But you are not going to have much difficulty in tracking that person down. 
So although this bill is worthwhile in what it does it does not apply a great deal of effort or imagination to how you stop people googling somebody how you stop them looking up the electoral roll or the telephone book and I think that it leaves the problem at best only partially addressed. 
So let us sum up what we have got in this bill. We have a situation where you can treat people who have been on home detention in the same way as you would treat a person who has served a jail sentence and that would be that you prevent them from serving on a jury for a period of time. You have the empowerment of registrars to excuse people who cannot and do not want to serve on a jury for a very good reason but we have compensated for that by saying that an older person who is excused can apply to come back on to the jury list and you have partial protection for the privacy safety and security of jurors but just that—only a very partial protection. 
So this is a bill that we will support but this is a bill that is not going to make a huge difference to the system of justice in this country. It deserves a third reading. The Labour Party in Opposition has supported the bill through each of its readings and will support it in the third reading but it is not going to have earth-shattering consequences for the jury system and the people within it. 
JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Tena koutou e te Whare. I rise to speak on the third reading of the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. This bill has three main purposes. One is to prevent certain people sentenced to home detention from serving on a jury. The second is to empower registrars to permanently excuse people with chronic ill health with a permanent disability or who are over the age of 65 if they choose to be permanently excused from jury service. Thirdly it seeks to protect more stringently the address particulars of jurors which I think is a laudable goal. 
I would echo the comments just made by the Hon Phil Goff who made quite a great case that actually this bill probably does not go far enough in today’s world of quick information particularly in the context of reducing availability of access to justice whether that be through downsizing community law centres or reducing people’s ability to access legal aid which will likely result in an increase in the number of defendants who are self-representing. It is entirely possible that we will see increased occurrences of defendants trying to access jurors and that is certainly something we want to discourage. 
The other main purpose that I would like to speak to—because it came up and was quite controversial in the Committee stage of the bill—was the question of whether or not it is discriminatory to allow people over the age of 65 to be permanently excused from jury service if they elect to be permanently excused. During that debate we heard arguments from the Labour Party and the New Zealand First Party that it was discriminatory but we found it hard to see how it would be discriminatory because it simply gave those people the choice. They already had the ability to be excused from jury service every single time they received a call to be on a jury and on every single occasion they would have to apply for dispensation. So this provision was giving the registrar the power to say that those people who had decided that they did not have the capacity desire or ability to serve on a jury would have the ability to make that application just once and not have to continually send in letters. Also thanks to the Minister of Justice’s acceptance of a suggestion that my colleague David Clendon made during his second reading speech there was the addition to the bill of a provision whereby if somebody had applied for this permanent dispensation from jury service and they changed their mind they could be put back on the roll. We thought that that was quite reasonable. 
But I think there is a significant public policy question which was raised by some of my colleagues on this side of the House. It is a separate question and it is not one that is addressed by this particular bill. It is whether we are doing enough to ensure that the population of New Zealand is able to serve on a jury that they are empowered to serve on a jury and that it is a thing of civic pride to actually be on a jury. The right to be judged by a jury of one’s peers is fundamental to our concept of democracy. It is true that as we go forward as we have an increasingly ageing population and as we face all sorts of pressure that families and working adults are under so they are often not able to serve on a jury because there simply is not the financial ability for them to take that much time off work we are going to have to do a lot of thinking as a nation as to how we make it possible and attractive for people of all ages to serve on juries so that we do continue to have this right to be judged by a jury of our peers. 
In conclusion the Green Party has no problem supporting this bill as it stands. We voted for it at all stages but we do think we are going to be facing challenges that are not addressed by this bill. It is really essential and fundamental to our democracy and the health of democracy that we find ways of addressing these issues about on the one hand access to justice and on the other hand the attractiveness of jury service to the citizens of New Zealand. Thank you. We commend this bill to the House. 
JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity. This bill the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill is a good bill. It will be good to see it pass through its third reading—hopefully tonight. 
I think it is rather unfair to characterise the bill as being inconsequential. I do not think that the juror whose details were utilised by a defendant where that defendant wrote to the person to give them a good scare would think that a change like this is inconsequential. There is an important change that is being made here whereby jurors’ address details their personal details will be kept confidential and will not be able to be passed to the defendant. Even if the defendants are defending themselves they will not be able to see the jurors’ details and it would even be an offence for a lawyer representing them to pass the details on to them. We do need to take it very seriously that jurors’ private and confidential details their address details should be kept confidential to them and should not be passed on to a defendant because there is the potential—it has happened before—that a defendant may misuse that information. 
Also I think we should take seriously the changes that we are making around those aged 65 and older. I have heard the comments throughout the second reading the Committee stage and earlier tonight about 65-year-olds. I struggle to see the argument that some are making that it could be discriminatory because at the end of the day those people will be choosing whether or not they wish to be excused permanently. It is completely at their choice. No one is going to force them to be excused permanently. If they decide for themselves that they feel they are in a position where they wish to be excused permanently from a jury they can choose that. No one will be forcing it on them. 
Otherwise these issues have been well canvassed by the House previously. It is a good little bill. I would not say it is inconsequential. It has got some important changes for those serving on a jury. It will be good when it is passed. Thank you. 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 With one exception which relates to the exemption as of right for people over 65 years New Zealand First supports the bill the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. I would like to deal with Part 2 first with the provisions relating to the protection of jurors from invasion of their privacy especially of course by accused persons and those acting for them. 
We think it is high time that provisions of this kind were put into legislation to protect jurors from the release of private information relating to them especially of course their address or addresses. We do not think this compromises the right of the accused to challenge for cause or without cause and where an accused represents themselves a barrister can be appointed under this new law to handle juror challenges. It all seems to be perfectly sensible to us. These measures assist jurors to maintain their privacy and for that reason may help to arrest the unpopularity of jury service. As we know four out of five people called for jury service seek to avoid it which I suppose is not surprising. People lead busy lives and do not wish to spend this magnitude of time on this sort of task. But it is an important public duty and our justice system depends on people doing that duty. 
So as I said it is high time we had this bill to ensure information about jurors is restricted as it is to eligible persons. The registrar must not reveal the protected particulars as defined in the bill to anyone other than an eligible person a judge necessary members of the court staff and so on. The registrar must take reasonable steps to see that a prohibited person cannot copy the particulars. 
So without going into a great deal more detail it is obvious to see that there are some important and really worthwhile provisions in the bill relating to privacy and the protection of jurors from the publication of information concerning them. As we know there have been problems from time to time with that over recent years. But I would like to turn now to Part 1. Part 1 of course relates to excusals and disqualifications. New Zealand First does support the new provisions concerning disqualifications especially the disqualification of a person on home detention for over 3 months within the last 5 years which we think is consistent with disqualification for imprisonment. New Zealand First also supports most of the new provisions relating to excusal especially those relating to excusal for health reasons. 
But New Zealand First does not support new section 15A(2) in clause 10 which grants an exemption as of right on application by a person over 65 years of age—the registrar must excuse such a person as of right. Compare that for example with section 15A(1)—the registrar may excuse at the discretion therefore of the registrar for other reasons such as state of health. This distinction does not seem to be very sensible to us. In fact there are four reasons we see why the 65 years provision in section 15A(2) should not be there. 
First of all there is a matter of principle—an important one though—which is ageism. Ageism is rife in the community and this bill will further entrench it. Those people who are trying to get work for example after reaching the age of 60 let alone 65 would find that very difficult to do. It is one of those things we in this House should be combating rather than encouraging yet this legislation encourages it. 
The argument was recently made by a speaker just before me that this is only an option. However if that was correct in principle then it would be correct at any age and not at the age of 65 only. Worse still the amendment will make it possible to come off the jury list then go back on it then off again on again and so on. Nor should it do that. It is not very sensible. People whether they are 65 or over or under 65 as I have said have a duty to perform jury service if they are able to do so. Over-65-year-olds are just as often able to do so as those who are for example 60 years of age. 
The problem here is that using 65 years only as a reason for exemption is not a substantive reason. After all a person over 65 would still be able to apply for exemption on the grounds of ill health under the bill. Secondly we think it is irrational to single out over-65-year-olds. They are not disabled by that age for reasons of mental incapacity physical incapacity or indeed any other incapacity. In fact the opposite is the case. A person of 65 years of age or over has a wealth of life experience to offer for jury service. That makes them actually more valuable rather than less valuable as a juror than younger people. 
Thirdly the retirement age is actually irrelevant. Why pick that age simply because it is the age of eligibility for superannuation? What on earth has that got to do with it? Nothing whatsoever. They are better equipped from the point of view of experience and judgment to be a juror than much younger people are. For all of those reasons New Zealand First feels that that particular provision should not be in the bill. However that is not in itself sufficient reason to vote against it. We are disappointed that that provision has survived to the end. However we do believe that the other provisions in the bill relating to excusals and exemptions and relating to the protection of the details and particulars of jurors are very sensible and well overdue. 
For those reasons New Zealand First will be supporting the bill and voting in favour of it even though it does contain that rather objectionable provision which we think is ageist relating to 65-year-olds and over. For that reason as I said New Zealand First will support the bill but we do hope that in the course of time people will see that that particular provision relating to 65-year-olds is not correct and eventually will be removed and we would be in favour of the bill as a whole. As it is however the bill is sensible and we will be supporting it. 
MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call on the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. Congratulations Minister Collins for bringing a bill to the House that improves both the system’s administration and the integrity of maintaining juries’ privacy safety and security. 
Part 1 of the bill is very good in that it tightens up rules around disqualifying people from jury service who have been sentenced to home detention for 3 months or more in the preceding 5 years. It provides both judges and registrars the discretion to excuse people from appearing as jurors if they meet the criteria as laid out in the bill. 
Part 2 of the bill deals with the removal of addresses of potential jurors from jury lists and prevents the accused from ever seeing potential jurors’ addresses by prohibiting the defence lawyer or court appointed adviser from showing the addresses to the accused. It can be daunting and intimidating for members of the public to embark upon jury service. For many it may be their first experience in a courtroom setting and to give them the peace of mind that their personal information is protected is very important. 
People over 65 can be permanently excused if requested in writing. This is a very good clause in the bill as it gives retirees a choice. Many will choose to be available for jury service but others will be able to remove the stress of worrying about having to appear as a juror. People over 65 are still very active in our communities and many of our important voluntary and community services are kept afloat by our senior Kiwis. There will still be many over-65s who will choose to take on jury service but it is great that they will have a choice. 
Again I would like to congratulate the Hon Judith Collins on this bill which is part of a comprehensive programme of reform that is making Kiwis safer. Thank you. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 Can I congratulate Mr Mitchell on his remembering his lines so well and also the Minister of Justice Judith Collins on her impeccable timing in coming into the House at just the right moment to hear that particular comment not once but twice today. I would like to tell the Minister that that probably has been the highlight of the third reading of this Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill—yes indeed of the third reading of this bill. One would have expected you know that at the end of an important process like this which has taken I heard somebody say about 18 months we would have members of the Government stand up and dutifully take their full time to defend and explain. I am sure that the backbenchers particularly would have the time to explain to those who are listening that here they are making the arguments showing their understanding of the bill in detail showing how it really improves our justice system and that that is what they would do. But that is not what we have heard. We actually have heard very very short speeches and no real defence of this bill. Again as I said to Mr Mitchell not once but twice repeating the congratulations to his Minister as a way of ensuring that the 2 minutes were taken up fully is a learning in itself. 
But there are as both you and I Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch will understand some important provisions in this bill particularly to do with age. I guess some difficulty had been perceived with the age of 65 and with some people finding it difficult to get to fulfilling the request to attend for jury service. So the bill has addressed that and I think that is a good thing. You know in this day and age as the demography in that particular bracket is changing—remember the 65-year-old today is the 45-year-old of yesterday—I wondered whether that had been factored in. But I guess that some of the adjustments have been made. There is the option of the over-65s staying on the list and that is a good thing. But I do believe that I would not want to see 65-year-olds written off just yet. I think the Hon Phil Goff makes a good statement that with the change in our demography this age group still has a longer shelf life and a much more important role to play in the future and I think that also ought to be taken into account. 
The second provision of the bill is that there is a loophole that had been identified. People who were on home detention were somehow still caught by jury service so the bill fixes that up and you know that is a good thing. Thirdly probably the most serious part of this bill is the accidental release—I guess defendants being accidentally made aware of information about jurors— 
Jacqui Dean 
: This member should have read the bill. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I beg your pardon? 
Jacqui Dean 
: I said this member should have read the bill. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: This member has read the bill and this member is going to take the full call. If that member would like to take a call and explain what I am missing out that would be great because I do not know what the member is talking about. But certainly there is indeed the opportunity for that not to happen. 
Jacqui Dean 
: It is not accidental; it is deliberate but the member does not understand that. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Well that member seems to understand a lot. Why does the member not take a full-time call like none of the Government members have done and explain? Maybe I have got it wrong and maybe the member will take the next call and explain that. Will the member Jacqui Dean—will you do that? Will you take the next one and explain? Then do be quiet because I do have a serious point to make as well. You can chip away chip away for next to nothing but take a call—that would be quite nice. There is plenty of time. We are here until 10 o’clock and I am sure that member might like to use that as well. But certainly the bit that has not been factored in— 
Jacqui Dean 
: That member doesn’t understand Standing Orders either. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: —instead of chipping in Jacqui Dean might like to listen—because there still is as others have also said the opportunity for somebody a defendant to get that information by other means and I am not sure that this particular amendment has taken that into account. 
So those are the three provisions. But perhaps much more seriously these provisions seem to be somewhat reactionary and one has to reflect on the justice portfolio and the justice policies that are coming up. Here is a bill with three provisions taking 18 months to get this far and one wonders why. Is this how we are going to do justice with little bits and pieces every now and again? Maybe that does reflect the Government’s approach to justice because often the Government will very quickly respond to something so as to give a perception of it being tough on crime and there is an element of that in this particular bill especially with information about jurors becoming available. So there is that tendency of the Government to react to something to be seen to take a very strong line and to link it to the Government being tough on everything else. 
 But this bill has languished for 18 months. It was not that important but it is hardly a well-thought-out set of provisions around the justice portfolio that we can see in this particular bill because we do not. What we see like we have seen in other places in the justice portfolio as well is bits and pieces coming through and bits and pieces going out but a well-thought-out set of provisions in the justice area is not what we see. 
Perhaps we ought not to be surprised because that is also the approach of the Government in other areas as well. I liken this one to the attempt to bring in a code of social responsibility for welfare beneficiaries and I am only just likening those two one to the other because here in a sense is this notion of being tough on crime. There we can see that there are approaches to sounding tough on welfare beneficiaries being very very punitive knowing if we are to take the Minister’s comments on  
Q+A 
 over the weekend that there is no point at all there is no provision at all and there is no ability at all to service that. In the same way this bill is the same. This bill is addressing something to make a bit of noise to get a bit of limelight to be seen to be tough on crime but in the end it does not go very far. The provisions of this bill do not represent a comprehensive approach to a number of the things that in the justice area need to be examined and need to be looked at. That is the ideology of Government. That is the way it has approached it. 
There is no reason not to support this bill but there is every reason to use the third reading of the bill to reflect on the extent to which the members of the Government have been reluctant to defend this bill to defend this bill in any great detail—apart from somebody chipping in every now and again—to defend these provisions in any significant way. Simply to take a 2-minute call— 
Jacqui Dean 
: Only 2 minutes to go! 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I am sure Jacqui Dean will soon take a call and put me right where I have got something wrong. I doubt it will happen—I doubt it will happen—but I do invite the member to take a call. There is plenty of time and there is another National call still to come— 
Jacqui Dean 
: Minute and a half! 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: It will take that to explain that so please do that. The member might also like to show how this is not a piecemeal approach to the justice portfolio. But there is not enough here for us not to support the bill so we will be supporting it. Thank you. 
IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 It is a great pleasure to take a very brief call on this bill the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. I cannot help but comment on the last speaker’s comments about the Government taking 18 months to get the bill here when the last speaker Dr Rajen Prasad spent 10 minutes speaking about all sorts of things and about 2 minutes speaking about the bill. 
I have got no problem defending this bill. I think it is a very good piece of legislation. It extends the Government’s great record in respect of law and order and it sets juries up for them to be I guess much easier and much more likely to attract people to jury service in the future. So I have got no problems supporting this bill and it is a great pleasure doing so. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: This is a split call. I will ring the bell at 4 minutes. 
RAYMOND HUO (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you. 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: This is the relaxation tape starting. Sit back and chill back everybody. 
RAYMOND HUO 
: That probably reflects well the attitudes of the National backbenchers. 
I rise to take a call to support this bill the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. Having listened to the contributions from members across the board it is fitting for me to wrap up. Basically the bill addresses three main issues. Firstly it allows certain people to be excused from jury service on the basis for example of their disability or their health or if they are over the age of 65. The Human Rights Commission is of the view that the proposed amendment will have the effect of perpetuating stereotypical ideas about older people’s ability to contribute constructively to society. The National Council of Women of New Zealand had reservations with regard to the proposed changes. The New Zealand Law Society also emphasised that the fundamental principle that must underlie all criminal justice legislation is that the right to a fair trial is an absolute right. 
Secondly it prevents persons who have served a home detention sentence of at least 3 months from qualifying for jury service for 5 years. There is a loophole in the Sentencing Amendment Act 2007 which created home detention as a sentence in its own right but failed to amend the Juries Act. This means that those who have served or are serving a sentence of home detention could still sit on a jury panel. 
Thirdly as the title of the second part of the bill suggests it provides protection of particulars of jury list information in order to maintain the privacy safety and security of jurors. Much has been said about the incident where a self-representing accused corresponded with persons whose names and addresses were on the jury panel for his trial. This raised concern about the privacy safety and security of jurors and it was therefore decided to amend the Juries Act to restrict access to jurors’ details. 
Although the bill is limited in its real impact it does introduce some necessary changes and it is worth supporting. Thank you. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Are there any further speakers? 
MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) 
: 
 Sorry I thought the members would take the opportunity to speak more on this bill the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. Can I just say as a former police officer that the importance of juries cannot be overstated in the New Zealand justice system. This bill really goes to the heart of providing pragmatic measures to ensure their safety and that the way in which they interact with the justice system can be achieved as best it can in the service of justice. So that is a win-win not only for jury members in my view in terms of the changes being made here but also I believe for justice as it stands in this country. 
There have been some comments made about it not going far enough it going too far and it taking too long to get to the House. I suspect that it has more to do with members on the Opposition benches trying to find a way to fill up 10 minutes than it has to do with this bill. This bill will make good sense to New Zealand citizens and I have no problem in commending this bill to the House and commending the Minister of Justice for her work. Thank you. 
Bill read a third time. 
Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill 
First Reading 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Energy and Resources) 
: 
 I move  
That the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill be now read a first time. 
 I nominate the Commerce Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 30 January 2013 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 188 and 191(1)(b) and (c). 
The Government’s Business Growth Agenda is an ambitious programme that will work to support New Zealand businesses to grow in order to create jobs and improve New Zealanders’ standard of living. Natural resources represent a key component of this agenda with a key focus of the work programme being on a review of the regulatory regime for Crown-owned minerals. The review also sees through an action plan from the Petroleum Action Plan of 2009 which aims to ensure New Zealand is able to maximise the gains from the responsible development of our oil and gas resources. 
The production of oil and gas and the mining of minerals is the backbone of many local economies. Taranaki’s petroleum industry employs almost 4000 people directly and a further 1500 jobs are created by the flow-on effects of sector development in the region. Mining generates about one-third of household incomes on the West Coast of the South Island. Since 2008 the mining sector has generated almost $2 billion in royalties paid directly to the Crown to fund essential services. Collectively oil gas and minerals contribute over $4 billion in GDP. Crude oil is New Zealand’s fourth-largest commodity export. 
Proposed amendments to the 1991 Crown Minerals Act are intended to encourage the responsible development of Crown-owned minerals so that they will contribute even more to New Zealand’s economic development. They will also streamline and simplify the regime where appropriate bring it into line with the regulatory reform agenda and make it better able to deal with future developments. The bill will insert a purpose statement into the Act that demonstrates the Government’s commitment to growth of the sector. The purpose of the Act will be to promote prospecting for exploration for and mining of Crown-owned minerals for the benefit of New Zealand by providing for the efficient allocation rights to prospect for explore for and mine Crown-owned minerals and for the effective management and regulation of the exercise of those rights and for a fair financial return to the Crown for its minerals. 
The effective management of regulation of prospecting exploration and mining of Crown-owned minerals will be provided for through the introduction of a two-tiered system for permit management. Tier one operations which include petroleum metallic minerals and phosphate permits will be subject to a more hands-on coordinated management regime. This will enable regulatory effort to be focused on the high-value higher-risk minerals while providing for a simplified regime for lower-value lower-risk operations improving efficiency for both regulators and permit holders. Regulatory attention will be focused on key industry work programme deliverables that will have the potential to generate significant value to New Zealand. This will reduce focus on administrative processes with attention turning to more flexible oversight of permit holders’ work programmes. Equally tighter controls are introduced so that when non-compliance arises swift and decisive action is possible. 
The Crown Minerals Act is not primarily about health and safety or environmental regulation. This maintains the independence of health and safety and environmental regulation to completely avoid possible conflicts between the Government’s dual roles of promoting resource exploration and production and also regulating the effects of those activities. This fundamental premise was introduced in 1991 when the permitting regime was separated from environmental consenting. This is being retained in the current amendments. However current best practice suggests that an initial assessment of permit applicants’ health and safety and environmental management capability without replacing or duplicating the stringent requirements under relevant legislation will ensure that permits are awarded only to applicants who are equipped to give full effect to their work programmes. The bill provides for this. This will cut out the processing of applicants that we know will not meet our high environmental and safety expectations or provide a return to New Zealand for its mineral resources. 
Although regulators retain distinct functions they must work together to ensure that operators are held to the high standards expected in New Zealand. This bill also introduces the requirement for tier one permit holders to attend annual work programme review meetings that are attended by other regulators. This will be supplemented by provisions to allow for the sharing of information across agencies if it will assist them in their role of regulating activities in the sector. 
Good operators maintain positive relationships with communities and local iwi because it makes good business sense. This bill will encourage such behaviour. It includes a requirement for permit holders to report their engagement with iwi and hapu. This requirement sends a strong signal to permit holders of the Government’s expectations for community and specifically iwi engagement. This expectation will be supported at an operational level by New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals. 
The Waitangi Tribunal’s  
Report on the Management of the Petroleum Resource 
 identified a number of gaps in how the Government engages with Maori on petroleum issues. I note that the tribunal recognised that the legislation is sound but it recommends a number of changes to offer even greater protection to Maori interests. The tribunal’s report has been taken into account in the review of the Crown minerals regime with many of the tribunal’s recommendations picked up in the minerals programmes and operational policies of New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals. Taken as a whole this represents a substantial involvement and I do not expect to make further changes in response to the tribunal’s report. 
The bill also implements changes agreed to as part of the stocktake of schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act 2010. To this end the bill provides for automatic inclusion of certain areas of land into schedule 4 and updates the processes around approval of mineral-related access arrangements over Crown land. Notably economic considerations are introduced into decision-making criteria for granting access to conservation land for mining activities. 
A review of the royalty rate applicable to certain minerals operations is currently under way with proposals due for release in the coming weeks. The Act once amended is to make it clear that royalties that apply to a mineral at the time a permit is granted will be grandfathered for the life of the permit. 
The bill improves the process for preparing minerals programmes under the Crown Minerals Act and clarifies the status of these programmes. Minerals programmes set out and describe how the Minister or chief executive will interpret and apply the Act in relation to Crown-owned minerals. New programmes for petroleum minerals will be released for public consultation shortly. It is essential that the Commerce Committee industry and the public can see how the regime will work as a whole in order to give full consideration to this bill. 
Finally the bill sets out provisions for transitioning existing permit holders to the new regime. I want to ensure that the high expectations for tier one permit holders and streamlined process for tier two permit holders apply to existing permits whilst minimising disruption to existing activities. I am also determined to ensure that the sector is not hampered by unsafe protest actions by a small but vocal minority. I have asked officials to look into ways we can protect vessels from such unsafe behaviour and to report back some recommendations through the select committee process. 
This bill is critical to the future responsible development of New Zealand’s oil gas and mineral resources and will ensure the future contribution of these resources to the New Zealand economy. I commend this bill to the House. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I want to start off by saying that there is much in this Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill that is very very commendable. There are also some things that do concern the Labour Party. If I can start on the positive there is a lot in here that streamlines the system. I think that that will provide a lot more certainty for everyone involved in the process whether that be industry or whether that be those members of the community who want to have a say in mining projects that are going ahead particularly in the exclusive economic zone which is where a lot of the public concern is often around and where a lot of the contention exists. 
I think that one of the things that members are going to need to look at very seriously at the Commerce Committee is whether this piece of legislation does address a number of the concerns that were raised when the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill was going through the Local Government and Environment Committee. As the Minister of Energy and Resources well knows there are many many pieces of legislation that sit on top of each other all governing the same activity all for different reasons and it is a matter of making sure that nothing falls through the cracks between those pieces of legislation. Not only do we have this Crown minerals legislation which issues the permits that allow for the exploitation of the resources but also we have the exclusive economic zone legislation just recently passed into law which monitors and attempts to mitigate the environmental impacts of any economic activity that occurs in the exclusive economic zone including but not restricted to oil and gas exploration and mining. We have health and safety legislation we have biosecurity legislation and we have maritime legislation which are triggered in the event of anything going wrong. 
It is for the Commerce Committee to determine whether or not this piece of legislation is going to adequately compensate for the exclusive economic zone legislation because when we were at the select committee on that bill a lot of what we heard was: “Well you don’t need to worry about this because it will be picked up in the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill.” Certainly I know that I have had discussions with the Minister and it appears that a lot of those concerns have been picked up and it will be a matter of going through it far more carefully at the select committee. 
Can I say one other thing and that is that I am very appreciative that this piece of legislation is getting a decent time at the select committee—unlike the previous one that I mentioned. It really is important on these very technical process-driven bills that we get the time to go through and see what that looks like. We also have more of an idea now what the regulations are going to look like for the exclusive economic zone legislation which we did not have when that particular piece of primary legislation was going through. So we are in a far better-informed place to make decisions around this. 
The introduction of a two-tier system certainly seems sensible as does the idea of pre-vetting applicants so that those who simply are never going to make it through are told up front as early as possible not to bother. Hopefully that may allay the concerns of some of the people who are worried about what I think you can probably accurately call the lowest common denominator operators. It may be that at the very first hurdle they will be told “No do not bother.” Then we will not go through a very expensive and lengthy process of Resource Management Act consents and consents under this legislation where community organisations where members of the community and where environmental groups spend a lot of their time and money opposing permits that were probably never realistically going to get through in the first place. 
Where our concerns lie is again around the division of control of the conservation estate. We were not sure whether that was going to be in this piece of legislation. It is unfortunate that it is because that has been a big issue. The Minister of Conservation is rightly the person who should have the say on concessions on the Department of Conservation estate. A lot of the criticism of the treatment of mining on conservation land thus far has been that it does get an easier ride than for example tourist activities that go through the process under the Conservation Act whereas mining goes through a process under this particular piece of legislation that does not involve community consultation. 
The Government did promise that community consultation would happen for concessions for mining on Department of Conservation land. I note that it goes part of the way in this piece of legislation. The Minister of Energy and Resources and the Minister of Conservation have joint responsibility for deciding whether or not it goes to public consultation. That is not quite what was promised. What was promised was that just like any tourism operation that wants to get a concession on Department of Conservation land mining would also have to go through a similar process where the public could have their say— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair. 
Debate interrupted. 
The House adjourned at 10 p.m.