Volume 703 Week 10 - Wednesday 11 March 2015Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 703 Week 10 - Wednesday 11 March 2015[Sitting date: 11 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2113. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Wednesday 11 March 2015Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.Points of OrderSuperGold Health Check Bill—Leave to Table LetterMAHESH BINDRA (NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek leave to ask the House to table a letter from 176 members of the Bhartiya Samaj Charitable Trust to the Rt Hon Winston Peters in support of the SuperGold Health Check Bill.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table this particular letter to the Rt Hon Winston Peters. Is there any objection to it being tabled?There is.Questions to MinistersDairy Products Infant and Milk Formula—Contamination ThreatMr SPEAKER: Question No. 1 Ian McKelvie.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Mr Speaker. My—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! My office did receive complaints yesterday about the level of interaction the level of noise between the two sides of the House. I do not want a repeat of that today.1.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei) to the Minister for Primary Industries: What steps has the Government taken in responding to the criminal threat to New Zealand’s infant and other milk formula products?Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): Although the threat has been assessed by police as being low and possibly a hoax the Government is treating the nature of the threat seriously. As soon as this threat was received in late November last year an all-of-Government response was initiated and every resource has been made available to treat this issue as a top priority. Since that time every possible step has been and is being taken to respond to this threat and ensure the ongoing safety of our food products.Ian McKelvie: What specific measures are in place that will ensure the integrity of our infant and other formulas?Hon NATHAN GUY: Over the last few months we have taken expert advice on how to respond to a threat of this type and made considered decisions. Officials have analysed the supply chain in meticulous detail right through from cow to can and have worked with manufacturers to put in place additional security measures. On top of our normal thorough testing auditing and verification system we have a comprehensive new 1080 testing regime for dairy products which gives us a high degree of confidence in the safety of New Zealand infant formula. It is extremely unlikely that anybody could deliberately contaminate formula during the manufacturing process and there is no evidence of this ever having occurred.Ian McKelvie: Why did the Government not go public as soon as the threat was received?Hon NATHAN GUY: This is first and foremost a police investigation into a criminal threat. The Government took advice from police and officials on the timing of the announcement. The threat was assessed by police as being low and possibly a hoax. If there was any serious risk to consumers this would have changed the approach. The Government has taken this time to work closely with manufacturers to bring in a new testing regime and further improve security. Thanks to this work we are now able to give every reassurance to mums and dads both here and around the world that infant formula they are using is as safe today as it was prior to the threat being received.Ron Mark: Is it customary with a bioterrorism threat to reveal that police have no leads and to alarm the general public and our trading partners while also giving massive publicity to the perpetrators of the crime?Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Nathan Guy in so far as there is ministerial responsibility.Hon NATHAN GUY: That is an outrageous allegation from that member. If the member listened to the answers and the questions he would have known the thorough process that the Government has been through and the reasons for that.Ron Mark: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am seeking your assistance Mr Speaker. My question was whether it is customary. I heard all the other explanation but I have asked him whether it is customary.Mr SPEAKER: Order! No. On this occasion it is questionable whether it was even of ministerial responsibility—addressed to the Minister for Primary Industries. The question has been addressed.Hon Damien O’Connor: Why then did the Minister and his colleague the Prime Minister use the term “ecoterrorism” which has heightened the international concern and publicity over an incident that the New Zealand Police has called criminal blackmail?Hon NATHAN GUY: It is definitely both. I stand by the statements that I made yesterday.Hon Damien O’Connor: You’ve overblown it.Hon NATHAN GUY: No we have not.Ron Mark: Given that the Prime Minister has told us that this was kept quiet by over 1000 people for 3 months and that the supply chain has been secured is the only reason it was revealed yesterday like with the Government Communications Security Bureau and the Iraq deployment that some reporters have been tipped off to make this an issue in the middle of a tight by-election?Mr SPEAKER: Again in so far as the Minister feels he has ministerial responsibility the Hon Nathan Guy.Hon NATHAN GUY: No that is completely incorrect. I think that member has been travelling on a bus in Northland going round a roundabout the wrong way.Ian McKelvie: Why did the Government alert overseas markets prior to the announcement yesterday?Hon NATHAN GUY: When the Government says that overseas markets were notified in advance we are not saying that overseas consumers were notified ahead of New Zealanders. We briefed overseas authorities prior to the notification of the threat in the same way that New Zealand authorities were briefed. It is important to remember that a large quantity of our infant formula is exported and consumed by families overseas. It is prudent that overseas regulators were also able to answer any questions that overseas consumers may have had as soon as the news broke to help mitigate any adverse reaction to New Zealand dairy products. So far I must say this reaction has been very measured.Child Poverty—School Food Programmes2.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.Metiria Turei: Does the Prime Minister still consider that the number of children in low-decile schools who “actually require lunch is the odd one or two.”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member would have to go back to the full interview that she is quoting from. I do not think that is a direct quote but what I did say was that the vast bulk of youngsters actually do come to school with lunch and I stand by that statement.Metiria Turei: How can it possibly be true that only the odd one or two kids in low-decile schools need lunch when since the beginning of this year alone 1000 more children have joined the KidsCan waiting list meaning that 7500 children are now waiting for KidsCan’s help?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The starting point of the member’s question is wrong and she knows it is wrong because I just corrected it in the first answer. Putting that to one side actually this is the Government that supported KidsCan. This is the Government that has enabled it to have more resources to do the very good work that Julie Helson does.Metiria Turei: Does the Prime Minister still think that the number of kids in low-decile schools who require lunch is still just the odd one or two when nine schools in Northland are now on the waiting list for help from KidsCan?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member obviously has a hearing problem because she did not hear the answer to the first question or the second one. I know—that is right. She just likes to make things up as she goes along which actually destroys her own argument. If you cannot come up with decent statistics that actually stack up or decent quotes by definition you defeat your own argument.Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question was explicitly about the nine schools in Northland that are now on the KidsCan waiting list and the Prime Minister did not address that question.Mr SPEAKER: Order! That was not the specific question. The question also included an opening comment asking whether the Prime Minister still thinks the numbers involved are just simply one or two. That was the part the Prime Minister certainly addressed in his answer.Metiria Turei: Will the Prime Minister commit to spending just a fraction of the cost of the 10 new Northland bridges on the nine Northland schools so that the children in those schools can have lunch to eat every day?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think it is important to understand what the Government does spend which is billions and billions and billions of dollars a year supporting low-income families and low-income New Zealanders. But one thing I do know is that a stronger roading infrastructure in Northland under a National-led Government will lead to stronger job growth. We already saw the GDP numbers for Northland this year as very very strong. We know that 7500 jobs have been created in Northland in the last 12 months. We know that this Government has spent three-quarters of a billion dollars on roading over the last 7 years in Northland which is 40 percent more than Labour did. Actually even on this side of the House we are in the slightly novel form of knowing which candidate we are going vote for.Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question asked the Prime Minister whether he would commit to new funding for the nine Northland schools whose kids go without lunch every day. He did not address that question.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Again can I invite the member to carefully look at her question after question time. She included a statement around a fraction of what was being spent on the bridges announcement that was used in the House yesterday by the Government. The Prime Minister addressed that. He also addressed spending on education. The question was addressed.Metiria Turei: Will the Prime Minister vote for the “Feed the Kids Bill” in Parliament next week so that all political parties can work with experts to develop the best legislative solution so that all of our kids are being fed at school?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No and no for a very good reason. The vast majority of kids are actually fed by their parents. Their parents irrespective of their economic circumstances actually do a very good job of providing breakfast and lunch and the Government would far rather direct those resources on a targeted basis to those in need. The Government already supports the breakfast in schools programme. I am advised that 791 schools out of the 2500 schools approximately in New Zealand take up that programme in some part and I think the Government has got its target in the right direction.Metiria Turei: Will he at least commit to his Government working with cross-party agreement to provide food in schools given that KidsCan says that 23 percent on average and up to 90 percent of kids in schools are going without lunch every day?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I look forward to the quote from Julie that says that 90 percent of kids going to school in the approximately 2550 schools in New Zealand are going without lunch. I hate to tell the member but I reckon I have been to way more schools than she ever has. I have been a prolific visitor to schools in the 7 years I have been the Prime Minister. I will tell you what. Of the 500 schools I have been to if 90 percent of the kids did not have lunch I would be pretty surprised because I tell you what I have seen a lot of them munching their way through lots and lots of lunches. If the member wants to come with me to a school and I will name the school and 90 percent of the kids do not have lunch I personally will buy them lunch for the whole year.Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am not in a position yet to hear the point of order.Metiria Turei: I would like to take the Prime Minister up on his invitation.Mr SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. The member is welcome to communicate with the Prime Minister later.Prime Minister—Reserve Bank Independence and Auckland Housing Market3.ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement in relation to the Reserve Bank that “it’s not an option for the bank to raise interest rates”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): First of all as I said at the time that is a matter for the governor but I do stand by my statement which simply reflects what just about every market commentator is saying.Andrew Little: To the Prime Minister not the market commentator—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just ask the question to the Prime Minister.Andrew Little: Why did he put public pressure on the Reserve Bank Governor to use his power to not raise interest rates when the whole point of the Reserve Bank independence is to protect the governor from partisan interference?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I did not put any pressure on the Reserve Bank Governor. As I said it is a matter for the governor. But is the Leader of the Opposition telling us that in an environment where inflation is at 0.8 percent and probably going lower where our base rates are 3.5 percent where seven countries in the developed world this year alone have cut interest rates and where three-quarters of the world have base rates between zero and 1 percent he seriously wants the governor to raise rates in which case no wonder he has thrown Willow-Jean Prime under the—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I remind the Prime Minister that when I rise to my feet it is important that he then resumes his seat.Andrew Little: In light of that answer if he thinks that megaphone diplomacy with the Reserve Bank is OK why did he not intervene to exempt first-home buyers from the Reserve Bank’s loan-to-value ratio restrictions?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well actually I am glad the member raised that because that was going to be one of my points so I may as well cut straight to it. That is exactly what the Labour Party did when the loan-to-value ratio came out. It ripped straight into it with David Cunliffe and said: “Oh by the way it shouldn’t be doing it.” And in 2014 Labour—Mr Parker will know this because it was his policy—actually went into the election with a variable KiwiSaver contribution which would have meant that actually politicians would have to decide part of what was happening in terms of interest rate - setting not the governor.Andrew Little: Is he aware that house prices in Auckland went up by almost $90000 on average last year alone and is that not a sign that his half-measures on housing affordability are a failure and the only real solution is to get out there and build affordable homes?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It seems pretty well wide of the mark in terms of the question but you know the Government is building a lot more—insisting on building a lot more homes. I think 84 of the 100 special housing areas that have been consented are actually in Auckland. What the member Andrew Little I assume seems to be saying if we tie the two together is that interest rates should rise. That is a remarkable thing to think. If that is your level of economic understanding I am shocked that you want interest rates to go up. Fair enough.Tim Macindoe: What reports has the Prime Minister seen that explicitly question the Reserve Bank Governor’s independent judgment in setting monetary policy?Grant Robertson: Has he used this answer?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well actually no he has not. Actually I have seen a number of reports regarding monetary policy decisions over the years. They include: “The Reserve Bank Governor is out of order.” “We’re disappointed by the Reserve Bank’s decision to raise the cash rate.”—OK—and best of all “Politicians must stop cynical point-scoring in these matters.” Those comments were made in a press release by Andrew Little.Andrew Little: Point of order. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This will be a point of order that will be heard in silence.Andrew Little: I seek leave to table a print-out from the QV.co.nz website confirming that average Auckland house prices rose $90000 last year.Mr SPEAKER: As I have ruled on many occasions if it is freely available for members to go and search on the web themselves I do not intend to put the leave.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I seek leave to table the press release “Reserve Bank Governor out of order” by Andrew Little.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Such press releases are also freely available.Hon Member: Has anybody read it?Andrew Little: Widely read. Widely read. Just so we are clear: does he dispute the figures from Harcourts chief executive officer Hayden Duncan and from ASB economist Jane Turner showing that current rates of building consents are not high enough to cope with Auckland’s population growth?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: There has been an explosion of building activity in Auckland and around New Zealand.Hon Members: Ha ha!Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well members might laugh but actually it is true.Phil Twyford: Where are they?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: There are quite a few actually and they will continue to happen. Actually they will happen under a National-led Government that has allowed special housing areas to take place which the Opposition was opposed to. They will happen because interest rate settings are affordable for New Zealand which by the way the Opposition was opposed to. But if the member really cares about Aucklanders here is an idea: join with us and vote with us on the Resource Management Act reforms. Oh that is right you will not.Andrew Little: Why not just be straight with the people of Auckland and admit there are more people per house than before it is projected to get worse in the years to come and his tinkering will only send house prices higher and higher again and again?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think actually if we go back to the primary answer I was very straight. As I said it is a matter for the governor but in my opinion raising interest rates at this time is not the right thing to do. But when it comes to being straight here is the answer: Mark Osborne. Because—guess what—Andrew Little does not know the answer to the question: Winston Peters or Willow-Jean Prime? He does not know the answer. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order!Andrew Little: Making question time too much fun! When is he going to stop doing the Reserve Bank’s job start doing his own job and realise that under his watch homeownership has plummeted prices have skyrocketed and for hundreds and thousands of Kiwis the dream of owning their own home just now lies in ruins?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am doing my job and one of my jobs is leader of the National Party and as leader of the National Party I am voting for Mark Osborne. As leader of the Labour Party that member does not have a clue whom to vote for. Interesting. Here is the answer: Willow-Jean Prime. She has got “Labour” on the bottom of her billboards—Tracey Martin: Point of order.Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! There is a point of order called by Tracey Martin.Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Just some clarification Mr Speaker. Previously the Prime Minister has denied—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order and it will be heard—so I can hear it—in silence.Tracey Martin: Previously the Prime Minister has declined to answer questions because he was working in his capacity as the leader of the National Party. We now have the Prime Minister standing and as the leader of the National Party making statements in the House in answer to questions. Can I ask you to clarify when it is suitable and when it is not.Mr SPEAKER: It is a very difficult line for me to clarify but on many occasions when I go back through Hansard I note that various Ministers or Prime Ministers have declared that they have made statements as party leader and therefore should not be questioned because that is the basis on which they have made the answer. The Prime Minister in this particular answer brought in the fact that he was a leader of a political party which is not out of order. When I considered the question “Why won’t you do your job?” or words to that effect I gave the Prime Minister a fair amount of latitude in the way he did then answer that question.District Health Boards—Rural Health Services4.BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) to the Minister of Health: Does he have confidence that the Ministry of Health is providing the best public health service for rural New Zealand communities?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Yes. Last year the Government provided record funding of $11.4 billion for district health boards including specific funding to support the rural communities that they serve. Rural health service delivery has been particularly strong in Northland where last week I met with hard-working Bay of Islands Hospital staff and primary care providers. They were just part of the extra 74 doctors and 99 nurses employed by the Northland District Health Board under this Government.Barbara Stewart: Can the Minister confirm that the Waitematā District Health Board will not close down the Wellsford community health office after the 6-month lease expires meaning that Wellsford residents will have to travel 21 kilometres through to Warkworth in order to receive their necessary health care?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: What I can say is that the Waitematā District Health Board has had a huge increase in funding in the last year. It is very well chaired and basically it is having to put its services where the public is best placed to access them. It is all about delivering the best possible health care for New Zealanders.Barbara Stewart: Why has the Ministry of Health allowed the Wellsford community health office to be relocated to a public space where people now need to walk through the so-called office to use the bathroom facilities?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Look I am not familiar with the bathroom arrangements in the Wellsford health office but I am sure the district health board is doing its very best to make sure that both health and bathroom facilities are made available for the people of Wellsford.Barbara Stewart: Is the Minister concerned that more rural health offices will be forced to close or be forced to move to unsuitable locations once the additional $200 million in spending cuts are made to district health board budgets later this year; if not why not?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: What I can tell the member is that there has been an extra $95 million poured into the Northland District Health Board in the last year and more doctors more nurses and much more elective surgery. We have had free under-13 doctor visits there. They are doing very well on immunisation so basically health provision in Northland is improving all the time.Joanne Hayes: What progress has been made in delivering better access to elective surgery for Northlanders?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: A very good question. Over the past 6 years a remarkable 9367 extra Northlanders received elective operations over and above the level that Labour was delivering in 2008 including an extra 2616 Northlanders who received surgery last year. This Government is delivering more and more surgery for Northlanders and that is a direct result of our proactive approach to delivering health care services in Northland.Tracey Martin: Can the Minister confirm that he understands that Wellsford and Te Hana are in the Northland electorate and in the Northland area and can he explain why spending is being cut in Wellsford and Te Hana if the rest of Northland is doing so well?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: The member is right. The rest of Northland is doing very well as is Wellsford and the people in Wellsford have access to top-class health care services.Government Financial Position—Reports and Revenue Forecasts5.Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he received on the Government’s finances and how does this compare with forecasts in the Half-Year Update in December?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): It is a very good question. This morning Treasury released the Government’s—[Interruption] Just listen. This morning Treasury released the Government’s financial statements for the 7 months to January. These show that in the year to January the Government posted a surplus of $77 million. The surplus was driven by higher than expected tax revenue and lower than expected expenses. The out-turn was $712 million better than forecast by Treasury in the half-year update in December. Although it is too early to say whether we will have a surplus at the end of the 2014-15 year this is a part-year surplus—the first one for some years. It demonstrates that the Government has made significant strides in managing public finances.Hon Judith Collins: What are the implications of this result on the full-year surplus for 2014-15?Hon BILL ENGLISH: One of the implications is it looks a bit more likely we could get to a full-year surplus than perhaps we thought back in December. Corporate tax and source deductions are both ahead of forecast but actually these are both pretty difficult numbers to forecast accurately. It remains to be seen whether the higher than expected growth in revenue continues through the rest of the financial year. The Government still considers that the strong economy and responsible fiscal management can deliver a surplus when the final accounts are published in October despite the fact that Treasury’s latest forecasts in December show a $572 million deficit. We will not know whether we have achieved a surplus for the whole year until the final accounts are published in October but it is nice to have one for at least 1 month.Grant Robertson: In light of those answers about the surplus was then ACC Minister Judith Collins correct when she said that the Government had ignored ACC’s recommendations for bigger cuts for the third year running because we needed to get to surplus?Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I answered that question yesterday every Minister thinks that the decisions that are made in respect of their Budget bids—or in this case the ACC bids—every Minister believes that it is their bid that is going to put us over the line or not over the line. In the case of the Minister’s statement it is one of many decisions made by a Government that add up to a surplus or a deficit. But I have to say the former Minister for ACC did a great job of reducing levies and we now levy $1.5 billion less than just a few years ago.Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Mr Robertson’s question was a very direct question that has not been answered once again by this Minister—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume—[Interruption] The member will resume his seat. The Minister addressed the question. I accept he did not answer the question as to whether the Minister was correct but he pointed out that every Minister has a different perspective as they argue their case around the formation of a Budget bid.Hon Judith Collins: What have been the trends in revenue forecasts in recent years and how has this impacted the return to surplus?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The revenue has gone up each year but we are in the unusual situation where we have solid economic growth but also historically low inflation so this is good for New Zealand households because it means their cost of living is increasing at very low rates but it makes it more challenging for the Government because higher inflation pushes up the tax base and enables us to collect more tax in a growing economy. However the Government’s management of expenditure has been disciplined and despite the fact that the tax base is not growing as fast as was expected we are able to manage expenditure and therefore stay on track for surplus.Hon Judith Collins: What were the main drivers of the better than expected financial result in the year to January?Hon BILL ENGLISH: In any given month things move up and down and of course they can change in subsequent months. But in the month of January corporate tax was $158 million above the forecasts and source deductions such as PAYE were $146 million or 1 percent above forecasts. Expenses were around a quarter of a billion dollars lower for the first half of the financial year with variances spread across a number of departments but it is likely that some of this lower expenditure will be due to timing differences and the money will be spent later in the year. These are encouraging trends: a slightly higher tax revenue than expected and expenditure is on track or a bit lower.Prime Minister—Northland By-election6.Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement regarding the Northland by-election that “last week we were looking through the various policies we want to announce so they were finalised I suppose last week. We’ve got another couple of announcements; we are making another this week on something else”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Those statements I made were as leader of the National Party. There is no ministerial responsibility for the comments I make in that capacity. I intend to reserve my long-term position as did Helen Clark of not answering questions undertaken in my capacity as leader of the National Party. But because the Clerk of the House has allowed the primary question through and as a courtesy to the House I will answer it. The answer is in my capacity as leader of the National Party yes.Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I took the quote not from the leader of the National Party but from the Prime Minister’s post-Cabinet conference. He did not do it as the leader of the National Party; he did it as the Prime Minister.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It is quite clear actually and it has been established over quite some time that comments I might make at my post-Cabinet press conference are made in a variety of different capacities. I make them in my capacity as Prime Minister. I make them in my capacity as leader of the party. In fact I have no doubt that next Monday I will be answering questions in my capacity as New Zealand’s home handyman Bunny Rigold too.Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is an important matter and the line between the Prime Minister answering a question in a prime ministerial capacity or as the leader of a political party is one that is not easy to decipher on some occasions. On this particular occasion the question was taken as a quote from the Prime Minister’s press conference. The Prime Minister was certainly then free to answer it the way he did but I do not think anyone could sensibly argue that it was not a legitimate question and the quote came from a press conference held by the Prime Minister in his capacity as Prime Minister.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would urge you to reflect on those comments later on because the important point here is that every week I do a post-Cabinet press conference. It is actually a post-Cabinet press conference. Obviously on many many occasions I answer those questions as Prime Minister. I also answer questions as I legitimately said as leader of the National Party. I have answered many questions in that regard. I also answer them as a citizen as a father and as a husband. But Mr Speaker if your ruling is to stand that comments I make at my post-Cabinet press conference are only ones that will always be interpreted as those made as Prime Minister I would have to inform members of the press gallery that I will be answering questions only in my prime ministerial capacity.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The question I was responding to is whether the question is in order. If the question takes a quote from a prime ministerial press conference subsequent to a Cabinet meeting then in my opinion such a quote means that it is a legitimate question. The way in which the Prime Minister then chooses to answer the question is entirely his decision. I am not in any way arguing against the answer that was given by the Prime Minister but I am certainly saying on this occasion that the question was a legitimate question to be accepted in the first place.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In making such rulings in the future too I would submit that where the Prime Minister is answering questions about the spending of money that comes from New Zealanders through taxes and levies and that he spends through the authority of this Parliament he is almost certainly speaking as Prime Minister.Mr SPEAKER: I will consider that at the time.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We can have a debate over the merits or otherwise of whether something is policy—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I just want to be clear. This is another point of order. I will be hearing it in silence.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: We can have that debate. Obviously the Clerk of the House has allowed the question on that basis. I am more than happy to answer the question as I said. But I would just go back to this point that I would ask you later on to review that because if you are saying that every comment I make at my post-Cabinet press conference could legitimately be used as a statement—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister will resume his seat. We have covered this ground before. I am not in any way critical of the answer. I am simply saying the question was in order. It is the Prime Minister’s job to justify any comments that he makes and in what capacity he makes them. That is a matter for the Prime Minister.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This is not in any way to dispute your ruling but to point out to the House that there is considerable written material on this question from the Ombudsman—and to indicate given the primacy of this House it is for you and not for the Ombudsman to decide what is relevant for the Prime Minister to answer.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I am making a comment only because Mr Mallard has tried to imply that there is something that members of the House should go and look for to get guidance on this. I would add to that that they should go and look at the Hansard for 2 August 2005 and subsequent days where in fact the then Prime Minister Helen Clark used exactly the same language the Prime Minister has used and made it very very clear and had it accepted by the then Speaker that there were occasions when she maybe on the one hand at that moment in her official capacity but then because of the question asked and the answer given was acting in her capacity as the leader of the party. Labour Party members need to realise that it was they who set that precedent.Mr SPEAKER: And if members are inclined—[Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. If members are inclined to do further homework they can also look at the Hansard of 21 February 2006 where a very similar argument eventuated in this House. It is interesting to note that the proponents for the argument on that particular case were on the other side of the House.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I just clarify that if this is continuing to relitigate the matter that is creating disorder.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No. I am not wishing to relitigate the matter but what I am asking—and what I have asked on a couple of occasions and I do not think you have actually answered—is for you to go away and actually give us a ruling. Because the way I interpret your current statements—and correct me if I am wrong—is that if I make a statement at a post-Cabinet press conference then that will always be allowable as a question in the House. My point to you is that I do those press conferences wearing a number of hats. That has been a very legitimate process. The Clerk has determined that this particular question for a variety of reasons fits the category of me speaking in my capacity as Prime Minister. I can debate that point but I accept that point of the Clerk. But my main point is that I do think you should give this House a written ruling or otherwise every question I answer at post-Cabinet press conferences could be subject to a primary question and I do not think that would be correct.Mr SPEAKER: And I think the Prime Minister makes a reasonable point. It is important I not get this wrong. I will give consideration to it a bit further but I am certainly not saying that simply because the answer is given at a press conference subsequent to Cabinet that it will automatically be a legitimate question. I am saying that on this particular occasion when I study the transcripts very very carefully—aware that there was some dispute about whether this was a legitimate question—I am quite satisfied that the question on this occasion was legitimate. Equally I am saying that I am quite comfortable that the Prime Minister in giving the answer he gave addressed the question.Hon Annette King: Does he think it is important to be straight with the people of Northland when talking about Government spending—Hon Steven Joyce: Straight with the people of Northland? How about Labour being straight about who they want to vote for?Hon Annette King: —in Northland Mr Joyce—and if so why has he—[Interruption] Mr Speaker I cannot even hear myself think.Mr SPEAKER: It would help if the member could ask a concise question.Hon Annette King: I am asking a precise question and will I start again?Mr SPEAKER: I think unfortunately the member will have to start again but that is unlikely to be a concise question. But if the member would just continue.Hon Annette King: Does he think it is important to be straight with the people of Northland when talking about Government expenditure in Northland; if so why has he claimed his Government has spent $750 million on roads in Northland when $240 million of the funding came from Labour’s 2007-08 Budget 2008-09 Budget—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question now is far too long.Hon Annette King: No it is not.Mr SPEAKER: Well I am saying it is.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Because I am advised that it is correct. Secondly if Labour members care so much about Northland maybe they would like to tell us which candidate they are voting for: Willow-Jean or Winston. It is pretty simple. Just answer the question.Hon Annette King: Is it honest to claim 30 percent of funding from a previous Government’s Budget as your own contribution to roads in Northland in an effort to get votes while at the same time claiming that this Government is spending 40 percent more? Could that not be called chicanery?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Is it honest to criticise a political party for for instance finding an accommodation with the ACT Party or United Future but then to be in exactly the same situation and be “so confused” about who you would vote for as the leader of the political party that you cannot work out whether you would vote for your own candidate or Winston Peters? If someone needs to be straight it is Andrew Little with the voters of Northland.Hon Annette King: When he told reporters yesterday that he “assumed that all 10 bridges promised in Northland were justified on a cost-benefit analysis” have his minders subsequently told him that only three were mentioned in the Northland regional land transport plan over the next 6 years and only one of the three could manage a medium priority rating? Would that not be called duplicity?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: What is becoming quite clear is that Labour members are opposed to the 10 bridges in Northland. I tell you what—if this keeps up by the end of the day Willow-Jean will not be voting for Winston; she will be voting for Mark Osborne.Tracey Martin: How many Ministers and backbench National MPs have visited Northland to promote these new policies and put up signs since the TV3 poll and how does that compare with the number of Ministers and backbench MPs who have visited Northland—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I cannot now hear the second part of the question. For the first part there was no prime ministerial responsibility.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There were two parts to Tracey Martin’s question. One was around Ministers and Ministers visiting Northland for which there is prime ministerial responsibility. I accept—Mr SPEAKER: Not for backbenchers.Chris Hipkins: You could rule that out of order potentially but it would be impossible to rule out Ministers.Mr SPEAKER: I will tell you how we will make progress here. We will have a bit more silence so I can hear the question. The member can ask one supplementary question. If there is an element of it that I do not think is relevant then I will rule it out of order.Tracey Martin: How many Ministers have visited Northland to promote new policies and put up signs since the TV3 poll compared with the number of Ministers who visited Northland in the 5 months prior to March 2015?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I would have to go and check so I can assure the House but I am pretty sure it would be a lot more in the 5 months prior. The interesting fact of course is that the member is having to ask that question because her leader on the taxpayer is up there campaigning in Northland. He is campaigning for Labour voters I have no doubt but he is nevertheless campaigning.Tracey Martin: Point of order.Mr SPEAKER: The question was addressed in the first part of the Prime Minister’s answer.Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order—or I hope it is.Tracey Martin: I seek your clarification Mr Speaker. I believe that as a member of Parliament I have every right to ask a question regardless of who is in my party on the day or not.Mr SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. The member asked how many Ministers have been up there recently compared with the last 5 months and the Prime Minister said he did not have that number with him.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is hopefully a point of order.Chris Hipkins: It is indeed a point of order Mr Speaker. There is a clear ruling around referring to the absence of members from the Chamber which the Prime Minister has just violated. His answer was actually out of order.Mr SPEAKER: And that is true. No member should refer to the absence of another member. That is true.Hon Annette King: Could the Prime Minister tell the House when does politicking for a by-election cross over to being a bribe to buy an election—for example when an unelected private citizen gets to announce $69 million of taxpayers’ money—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume her seat. The first part of the question can be answered.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The answer is very clear: zero percent student loans. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am about to move on. Has the member got further supplementary questions? [Interruption] The member will resume her seat. I will allow her to continue to ask simple concise supplementary questions but if we are going to have speeches then I am going to curtail the question and move to the next one.Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. At the end of question time I would like you to—in fact I will hand the questions over to you because you will find—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat. My patience will evaporate very quickly with that member. She will be leaving the Chamber early unless she continues with concise supplementary questions in line with the Standing Orders.Hon Annette King: How would Transparency International rate a Government on its Corruption Perceptions Index that uses taxpayers’ money 19 days out from an election to fund projects that are independently rated as very very bottom of a priority list?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think the member actually needs to take a step back—Hon Steven Joyce: Have a breath.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: —yes take a long breath—because political parties campaign on policies. Voters expect to know what parties are going to do. I go back to zero percent loans. Does the member remember that? I remember Trevor Mallard turning up sick as a parrot because the Ombudsman actually released the dodgy costings that the Labour Party had done and would not release them in the public domain before the 2005 election.Dairy Products Infant and Milk Formula—Contamination Threat7.BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country) to the Minister for Food Safety: Does she have confidence in the integrity of New Zealand’s food safety system in light of the criminal threat to contaminate infant and other formula with 1080?Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister for Food Safety): I have the utmost confidence in the integrity of our food safety system. There are both food safety and food protection aspects to this threat. I can reassure the New Zealand public that we are doing everything in our power to protect the entire supply chain to ensure the safety of all infant and other formulas. This criminal threat is designed to cause fear in order to generate a political outcome. It is using food as a vehicle but it should not undermine confidence in our world-class food safety system or in any manufacturer.Barbara Kuriger: What food protection measures have been put in place by the Government as a result of the 1080 threat?Hon JO GOODHEW: The ability for anybody to deliberately contaminate infant and other formulas during manufacturing is very low. New Zealand manufacturers maintain high levels of security as a normal routine. Security and vigilance have now been significantly increased since this threat was received. The increased vigilance has been a team effort with producers manufacturers transporters and retailers all stepping up physical security measures and surveillance to protect these products. We have also developed an accredited 1080 testing programme for New Zealand milk and milk products and have tested 45000 samples from all New Zealand formula producers dating back to September last year. The testing will be ongoing and the new testing is on top of our normal testing auditing and verification system. These measures give us the utmost confidence that there is no 1080 in infant or other formulas.Barbara Kuriger: What reassurances can she give New Zealand mums and dads about the safety of New Zealand infant formula and other formulas?Hon JO GOODHEW: As both the Minister for Food Safety and a parent I can understand why New Zealand mums and dads will be concerned by this threat. I want to reassure New Zealanders again that every step possible has been and is being taken to ensure the ongoing safety of our infant and other formula products. New Zealanders can be proud that our food safety model is among the best in the world. I am confident that the increased security and procedures put in place throughout the supply chain mean our products are safer than they have ever been.Barbara Kuriger: What advice does she have for consumers who have any questions about infant or other formulas that they are using?Hon JO GOODHEW: The first advice that I wish to give is to parents. I advise them to continue using any infant formula or other formula products as they have been. Our advice to consumers has always been to check for signs of tampering. We are reinforcing this advice as a result of this blackmail threat. So do not use the product if any of the seals are broken or if there are holes in the foil or plastic lid or the bottom of the can. In order to be sure about this advice and to reinforce it I urge people to look at the website . But for any parents or consumers who have questions that have not been able to be answered thus far I urge them to call PlunketLine or Healthline.Accident Compensation Corporation—Levies on Small and Medium Sized Businesses8.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) to the Minister for Small Business: What advice has he received if any on how much small and medium sized businesses will pay in ACC levies this year?Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister for Small Business): I am advised that this year small and medium sized businesses will pay substantially less in ACC levies thanks to almost $1 billion worth of levy reductions made by the National Government since 2012-13. In addition to the $1 billion of levy reductions already locked in I am advised that this year businesses will pay even less in ACC levies with a reduction in the work account levy from 1 April and the motor vehicle levy from 1 July. So from 2015-16 that is $1.5 billion in the pockets of New Zealand households and businesses. Small and medium businesses now benefit from a financially robust ACC system—Jacinda Ardern: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Minister has been speaking for some time. I asked how much small and medium sized businesses are paying in ACC levies. He has yet to come to that answer.Mr SPEAKER: Could the Minister get to the substance of the question?Hon CRAIG FOSS: Certainly Mr Speaker. Small businesses do benefit now from a sustainable and substantially financially robust ACC. All businesses pay levies on the basis of liable earnings and their industrial classification. I was advised it is not possible to break it down by small and medium sized businesses before question time today.Jacinda Ardern: Has he advocated on behalf of small and medium sized businesses that there be a further reduction in ACC levies to the level that ACC has itself recommended; if not why not?Hon CRAIG FOSS: I constantly advocate on behalf of small and medium businesses across New Zealand. I am particularly concerned about their cash flows and any threats to their cash flows—for example the $500 million additional cost that raising the minimum wage to $16.25 that Labour is proposing would substantially damage the cash flows of small and medium enterprises in New Zealand.Jacinda Ardern: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I will allow the member an additional supplementary question.Jacinda Ardern: Thank you. Can he name any initiatives he has introduced that would save small and medium sized enterprises up to $3000 per annum which is the amount some could be saving if their levies were reduced?Hon CRAIG FOSS: For example not raising the minimum wage to $16.25 would save small and medium sized enterprises substantially more than $3000; not introducing some complicated complex capital gains tax on small enterprises would save them substantially more than $3000 per annum.Jacinda Ardern: Does he believe that a reduction in ACC levies would make a difference to the ability of small businesses to increase their employment opportunities?Hon CRAIG FOSS: Last year 80000 new jobs were created mostly by small and medium sized enterprises so anything to help their cash flow and their ability to hire such as the 90-day trial of which 62 percent of businesses—Hon Members: Answer the question.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am going to invite the member to ask her question again. [Interruption]Order! If Mr Brownlee wants to stay for the balance of question time I would be grateful if we did not get that sort of interjection from him.Jacinda Ardern: Does he believe that a reduction in ACC levies would make a difference to the ability of small businesses to increase their employment opportunities?Hon CRAIG FOSS: That is a very naive question because on its own it cannot be considered. There are labour laws tax laws compliance and ACC amongst many of the conditions that small businesses have to consider before they think about hiring someone. But I do note that last year 80000 new jobs were created under this Government mostly by small and medium sized enterprises.Jacinda Ardern: Have small and medium sized businesses told him they have more money than they know what to do with and do not mind being overcharged by ACC?Hon CRAIG FOSS: No small businesses have not told me that but they have told me thank goodness a National Government was elected to prevent raising the minimum wage to $16.25 which would have cost them an additional $500 million per annum.Jacinda Ardern: Will the Minister advocate to Cabinet on behalf of small and medium sized businesses that ACC levies be reduced to the rate that ACC has recommended?Hon CRAIG FOSS: As previous Ministers have answered in relation to a similar question there are many matters that go into considering what the ACC levies might be. I do note though that Cabinet has made decisions that will have saved New Zealand businesses and New Zealanders around $1.5 billion this year with previous decisions made by this Cabinet. I also note that Labour opposed each one of those decisions.World War I Centenary—Commemorations9.PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National) to the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage: What is the Government doing to commemorate the centenary of the First World War?Hon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage): The Government has committed more than $10 million to the official elements of the WW100 programme. These include three official legacy projects: the Ngā Tapuwae heritage trails here in New Zealand and in Europe the Great War exhibition in Wellington and the Cenotaph database project which will hold the records of all New Zealanders who served in our forces. In addition a further $120 million has been provided for the National War Memorial project which includes major roadworks the Arras Tunnel and $23.8 million for Pukeahu National War Memorial Park which opens next week.Paul Foster-Bell: What are some significant First World War centenary projects to which the Government has committed?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: The soon-to-be-opened Pukeahu National War Memorial Park will be the national place for New Zealanders to commemorate and reflect on our country’s experience of war and how that has shaped our national identity. New Zealanders in communities all over New Zealand have organised more than 750 initiatives which are listed on the WW100 official website. The park which is opening next week will have garden memorials from countries around the world including Australia Belgium France the United States and the United Kingdom with more to come. The Government has also helped fund the national Great War exhibition which will be at the war memorial and it has been very generously supported by the creative genius of Sir Peter Jackson. As well as that there is an exhibition at Te Papa that will impress all New Zealanders—Lest We Forget.GCSB—Surveillance of Pacific Island Nations10.Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that he had not heard from any Pacific leaders following the allegations of GCSB mass surveillance within the Pacific “And that will be because they understand completely that either things are sensationalised fundamentally not true or of no concern to them”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.Su’a William Sio: Has he picked up his phone and spoken to the Tongan Prime Minister who declared publicly his discomfort about the allegations of spying by New Zealand on the Pacific?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No.Su’a William Sio: Do New Zealand citizens in the Pacific including Niueans Cook Islanders and Tokelauans have the right to know whether their emails text messages phone calls and personal data are being gathered up by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and passed on to the United States?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The law is very clear when it comes to New Zealanders. In fact in the open session today I thought it was interesting that the acting Director of the Government Communications Security Bureau made a number of things clear. Firstly the level of information gathered by the GCSB over the last 7 years that I have been the Prime Minister is less than the level of information gathered in the previous 7 years by Helen Clark as Prime Minister; that the countries that might broadly have been places of interest have been consistent over that 14 year period; and that the level of oversight that now occurs with the GCSB is much stronger under my Government.Su’a William Sio: Will the allegations of blanket surveillance of the Pacific have the potential to go as far as to “diplomatically damage New Zealand’s reputation” as Professor Robert Patman professor of international relations at Otago University pointed out last week?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No because if one looks at the public comments from the countries involved or the countries at least that are claimed in the articles they are—as I believe I said earlier in the week—sensationalised fundamentally not true or of no concern. I would strongly urge the member to have a high dose of scepticism about things he reads in these particular articles.Su’a William Sio: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know we have gone past the third question I asked but it seems to me as I have pondered on what the Prime Minister has said that the question was very straightforward: do New Zealand citizens in the Pacific—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member should have perhaps raised it at that time.Su’a William Sio: Does he think the revelations of spying in the Pacific will comfort Pacific communities now that they know there is at least one Government agency listening to them?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The first point I would make is that the GCSB and the Government do not comment on the particular countries where information may be being collected except to say that the GCSB is a foreign intelligence service. But I go back to the comments made in an open session today by the acting director—that the level of information gathered by the GCSB in the 7 years that I have been Prime Minister is less than in the 7 years prior to that and there has been no noticeable change of countries from where the information may be collected.Business Confidence—Job Creation11.BRETT HUDSON (National) to the Minister for Small Business: What reports has he received on small businesses hiring more employees in the coming year?Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister for Small Business): I have seen a number of reports on small businesses hiring more employees in the coming year. Earlier this month the MYOB Business Monitor came out and outlined that small to medium sized enterprises are still hiring and paying staff more: “In a sign of continued confidence over a fifth … of SME operators will look to increase the amount they pay their staff in the next year while 7 per cent will take on more full time employees and 11 per cent will increase their part-time roster.” These sentiments were also highlighted in the most recent ANZ Business Outlook which stated that a net 23 percent expected to hire more. On top of the 80000 new jobs created in the past year small businesses continue to benefit from a strong economy creating more jobs for New Zealanders.Brett Hudson: What factors have contributed to small businesses looking to employ more Kiwi workers?Hon CRAIG FOSS: The ANZ Business Outlook states that profit expectations have firmed: “More money in the till is positive for expanding employment and investment.” The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion in January stated that “The economic recovery is flowing through to increased hiring (which surged in the last quarter to the fastest pace since December 2003)”. In addition to the voluntary 90-day employment trial period introduced by this Government that reduces the risk for businesses of hiring an employee and has been invaluable for small businesses.Brett Hudson: What reports has he seen that give differing views on this Government’s changes to allow small businesses to operate in a more flexible labour market?Mr SPEAKER: In answering the question the Minister can answer with regard to ministerial responsibility. It is not an opportunity when answering a question like that to respond to any other political party’s policies.Hon CRAIG FOSS: This National Government introduced the 90-day trial period which has been of great benefit to small and medium sized businesses—and in fact large businesses—across New Zealand. I have seen reports that state that we do not need the 90-day law and I have seen reports that say that there has been a myth put about for a long time that Labour does not support trial periods or probationary periods. Small and medium sized enterprises across New Zealand need to know where the Leader of the Opposition—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon CRAIG FOSS: —stands on this matter. I welcome Andrew Little’s U-turn on the 90-day trial but he cannot have it both ways.Mr SPEAKER: Order! That answer has gone far enough.Resource Management Act Reforms—Native Trees12.EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister of Conservation: Does she stand by all her statements?Hon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister of Conservation): Yes I do.Eugenie Sage: When the Minister said yesterday that she was concerned that Auckland Council had allowed the felling of centuries-old kauri is she also concerned that her Government plans to strengthen landholder rights change the Resource Management Act and further weaken environmental criteria in that Act?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: That is not what I said and Resource Management Act issues are not my ministerial responsibility.Eugenie Sage: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The functions of the Department of Conservation under section 6 of the Conservation Act include “to advocate the conservation of natural and historic resources generally:”. That is part of the Minister’s responsibility.Mr SPEAKER: The member asked two questions. That is the difficulty. If she had asked one I might have been able to help. But she asked two questions about comments the Minister said yesterday and the Minister said: “I didn’t make those comments.” The question was therefore addressed.Eugenie Sage: Does the Minister believe that it is acceptable under the Resource Management Act for private landholders to be able to cut down centuries-old kauri trees when less than 1 percent of the original extent of kauri forest remains in New Zealand?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: I do not support the felling of mature kauri trees. That is not something that as the Minister of Conservation I would ever support.Eugenie Sage: Is the Minister comfortable that in the case of the Titirangi kauri forest the Resource Management Act has totally failed to ensure the protection of New Zealand’s most treasured species and habitat on private land and the Act is likely to be even weaker in future when the Government amends it to strengthen private property rights and strip out environmental criteria?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: The Resource Management Act is not under my ministerial responsibility. However I would say this: the changes the reforms that we brought in around the Resource Management Act in 2009 have not weakened in any way or changed the protection of these trees. The laws that we have put in place are left to the councils and their communities to decide what it is that they want to do with trees. The Auckland Council in this case has the responsibility for this particular tree. I would urge it to re-examine what it is doing and my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith has spoken with the Mayor of Auckland who has undertaken to look at the options. He expressed surprise which I share that the Auckland Council chose to use its discretion not to notify around that particular tree. I would hope that that can be changed. The council is meeting tomorrow to have further discussions as I understand it.Debate on Budget Policy StatementDAVID BENNETT (Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee):I move That the House take note of the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committeeon the Budget Policy Statement 2015. New Zealand lives in very exciting times. We have a Government that has delivered the best economic results that are possible in this time. We have a Government that has delivered economic growth at a very very difficult point in our country’s history and it has delivered the ability for this country to grow even stronger in the future. This is a country that now experiences some of the best economic growth in the Western World.When we look at actual economic growth of 3.2 percent and forecast growth of 3.5 percent in the Budget Policy Statement we see an economy that is delivering for all New Zealanders. We see an economy that has got the fundamentals there for all New Zealanders to prosper and grow—for example the Consumers Price Index was at 1.5 percent in 2014 and is forecast for 1.3 percent this year. Unemployment is now at 5.7 percent and that is forecast to go down to 4.5 percent in 2018. The current account deficit as a percentage of GDP is now at only 2.7 percent and is expected to go to minus 5.3 percent in 2015. Compare that with what we encountered when we came into office. Compare that with a country that was in recession before the rest of the Western World. Compare that with a country that had interest rates of around 11 percent for our homeowners and our business owners. Compare that with a country that had a current account deficit at around 7.9 percent.This Government has delivered the economic results New Zealanders have been looking for. It has delivered the economic results that have set us up for the future going forward. Some of those results—the growth rate of over 3 percent—are better than the European area the US the UK Japan and Canada. Interest rates are staying lower for longer with mortgage interest rates at 50-year lows. Household disposable income is increasing faster than inflation rising 9 percent in real terms over the last 4 years. Recent job growth is expected to continue. There are 80000 more people employed now than there were 1 year ago and 217000 more than 5 years ago. Those unemployment rates are staggeringly low at 4.5 percent for New Zealand going forward and a lot of that is driven out of the growth in Christchurch.Those economic results are not an accident; they represent prudent economic management and the Budget Policy Statement is part of that prudent economic management. They show a country that has strong economic management that has an economic plan that is following it and that is delivering in that economic area. If we go and have a look at my local city of Hamilton we can see that economic growth and we can see the economic change that is happening. Just this week there has been a huge announcement in our city in regard to roading infrastructure which has been important—Tim Macindoe: An excellent announcement.DAVID BENNETT: An excellent announcement which is important for the growth of that city going forward. There has been $972 million committed to the Hamilton bypass of the Waikato Expressway. That is part of a $1.08 billion project that has just been announced and supported this week in the funding.Grant Robertson: Must be a by-election coming up.DAVID BENNETT: No there is no by-election there. But I would remind members on the other side of the House that some of the other parties that may be contesting a by-election do not believe in the roads of national significance. I would like to see the members of the Northland community hear what the New Zealand First Party actually said during the election campaign. During the election campaign New Zealand First campaigned against the roads of national significance.Tracey Martin: That’s a lie. That’s a lie.DAVID BENNETT: OK. “That’s a lie.” This is what Tracey Martin says: “That’s a lie.” Those are her words. Well I am going to read out the New Zealand First transport policy that came from Winston Peters on Sunday 13 July at 2 p.m. in Gisborne. It says: “We are calling for a thorough review of National’s bloated and hugely expensive “RONS” programme which is massively extravagant given all the other areas of necessary spending that are being cut to fund it.” Did you say that was a lie Tracey? I do not believe so.It is amazing that Winston Peters can now support roads of national significance in Auckland but he could not do that during an election campaign. It gets better when you look at the transport policy of New Zealand First because it had a plan: it was going to take away the roads of national significance and the Pūhoi to Wellsford road was one it was taking away. I was in election meeting after election meeting with the New Zealand First candidate. He stood up and he said: “We are taking away that road.” New Zealand First was going to replace it. It had something to replace the road with: “… New Zealand First will develop a programme of Railways of National Importance (RONI).” OK they brought Ron back but they did not get the RONI and Winston is against the road from Wellsford to Pūhoi. I have it in writing here and I will table it for this country so that people can see. That is what the voters of Wellsford and Northland need to remember when they come to the by-election because New Zealand First did not support that infrastructure which Northland needs.And when we come to the Budget Policy Statement we are looking at the growth of the New Zealand economy. We are looking at those fundamental economic bases that are there. And if you do not invest in that infrastructure then there is not the ability to deliver that economic growth. And to all those voters in Northland remember that we need that economic growth to happen and that that will come through investment in infrastructure. I can tell you from a voter in Hamilton that the Hamiltonians realise the importance of the roads of national significance because the Waikato Expressway is the defining difference between National and Labour. It is the defining difference between Hamilton growing and not growing and the same applies in Northland. Remember the words of Tracey Martin: “That was a lie.” Then you look at the reality of what New Zealand First members actually said during the campaign and I would like to see them revert on that.Tracey Martin: No no no—it’s a lie.DAVID BENNETT: You cannot do that line Tracey. You have tried it OK? It did not work. Try another one next time OK?Today Treasury released the Crown accounts for the 7 months to January which show a part-year surplus of $77 million. That is the first time since 2009 that New Zealand has been in surplus. This is in the most difficult of economic conditions. We have a situation where there have been decreasing commodity prices in the last year where we have a very tenuous and delicate world economic situation where we have a Government that has maintained social spending and has increased spending in health and education and the areas of priority where New Zealanders want to see an increase in expenditure—all the while being able to deliver a small economic surplus for the first part of this year. That may be difficult to translate into a full economic surplus over the full year but those are the economic conditions that we have to deal with. That prudent economic management has been led by the Minister of Finance the Hon Bill English and I would like to pay credit to him and his leadership for making that happen because this is an important part of the economic management of New Zealand.In the Budget Policy Statement we set out four priorities that this Government has followed. Responsibly managing the Government’s finances which I have talked about and how that will lead to surplus in times to come—and we are already at a current surplus now. Building a more competitive and productive economy to create jobs raise incomes and provide more opportunities and we see that in the infrastructure investments for things like the Waikato Expressway and the Wellsford and Pūhoi roads. Delivering Better Public Services so that people can get better and more convenient health care so that beneficiaries are supported into work and so that the streets of New Zealand are safer. And rebuilding Christchurch which has been a crucial part of the New Zealand Government’s agenda for the last few years and will continue to be so because it is our second-biggest city and we need to rebuild it.New Zealanders have much to risk from a change in economic policy and that would be the last thing we need in this country. The economic policy that we have has worked and is working and is delivering the opportunities for all New Zealanders going forward. We do not need a country that has higher taxes spends more on social welfare just for the sake of it limits immigration stops infrastructure growth and does not provide the economic base for New Zealanders to go forward. National has delivered and this Budget Policy Statement is an example of that delivery. Thank you.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): It is quite difficult on this side of the House to take a lecture on prudent economic management from National Party members in a week when they have decided that it is OK to go out and bribe the people of Northland and buy a by-election with tens of millions of dollars for the bridges of Northland. It is like some kind of tragic latter-day Simon and Garfunkel song as Simon Bridges and Steven Joyce wander around Northland with their bridges over a troubled electorate unable to find a way of actually winning the electorate on National’s record and having to go up there and drag out these 10 bridges. This week it is 10 bridges next week it is “Ten guitars” then it is “Ten lords a-leaping”. Who knows where they will end up? We will have a Sky Tower in Kaitāia and we will have some kind of Taj Mahal on the Treaty grounds before we finish. This is what National is about and it is lecturing this side of the House on prudent economic management when this National Government has proved time and time again that it is the short-term political ends that are driving its economic agenda.That is never more obvious than in the debacle that was the overcharging of New Zealanders for ACC. Time and again in this House we have seen National members including the finance Minister Bill English get up and tell us that the ACC levies are being put up only because his Government knows best. Every official piece of advice that the National Government got from ACC from Treasury and from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment said that ACC levies could come down and could come down significantly. Once again the National Government has chosen to prop up its meagre monthly surplus on the back of New Zealand workers and employers paying more than they need to for ACC—$350 million ripped off New Zealand workers and businesses because this Government has decided that it wants to project some kind of made-up surplus. It is time for the National Government to be straight up with New Zealanders about the economy and admit that after 7 years of promising surpluses and of seven Budgets there is still no surplus coming. Although Bill English can crow for 1 month my prediction is that when he stands up here in May he is not going to be able to do that. He will have come with a seventh Budget with no surplus in it.That stands in stark contrast to the record of the Labour Government which delivered surpluses every year—every year that Bill English stood up in this House and said: “Give out tax cuts. Spend that money.” But no the Labour Government stuck with delivering those surpluses and in turn in the last 7 years the National Government has failed to deliver one. Two election cycles seven Budgets and no surplus coming through. It is important to pick up one aspect of David Bennett’s contribution.Dr David Clark: Ha ha!GRANT ROBERTSON: Just one. Everybody on this side of the House recognises the damage wrought by the Canterbury earthquakes—the damage that they did to people in those regions and to those regions. But the reality today is that it is the rebuild from the Canterbury earthquakes that is propping up the New Zealand economy. It is time for the National Government to be straight up with New Zealanders about the fact that it is the Canterbury rebuild that is allowing it to have any kind of economic growth. The National Government cannot continue to rely on the short-term politics of telling New Zealanders that things are getting better when so many of them know that they are not.This Budget Policy Statement is a tale of three things: broken promises hopeless complacency and dodgy meddling. We have got the broken promise around the surplus. It was not just that there might be a surplus; it was John Key telling New Zealanders that there would be a surplus. Why does the surplus matter? It matters because that is the test that the National Government has set itself for its economic credibility. Nobody else did it. It was the National Government that said: “This is the test of whether we are running the economy well.” After 7 years it has failed that test.It is also a tale of broken promises about what is going to happen in this economy. There was an instructive moment in the election campaign: when Bill English was asked for one new idea about what could happen in the economy he could not come up with one. It is complacency. It is a belief that we can go on for ever on the back of commodity prices and recovering from disaster. Well what we have seen with commodity prices is a drop of 17 percent. What we have seen with exports in the face of a promise that exports would lift from 30 percent of GDP to 40 percent of GDP is that they have declined to 26 percent—a broken promise. Just this year we have seen the value of exports drop overall by 9 percent and a 30 percent drop in dairy. This economy needs a Government that is prepared to back those who will grow those export dollars.Where is the diversification strategy in this economy? It is not there. It is a complacency that we will get by—that when we walk past the port in Wellington and we see the raw logs there that it will be OK. The reality is that if our economy is to thrive and if we are to go beyond just Aucklanders selling houses to each other then we need an economy that benefits widely across New Zealand where we add value in the regions and where we grow jobs in the regions. Whatever statistics Mr English might be able to stand up in a minute and throw around the reality of existence in places like Wanganui in places like Gisborne and in places like the far north of New Zealand—the reason why people are laughing at Mark Osborne when he stands up and talks about 8000 extra jobs in Northland—is that life for people in those regions is far far different from that. Those regions in New Zealand are struggling because this Government is complacent. It has broken its promises. And it is also responsible—[Interruption] They do not like it but it is also responsible for the dodgiest meddling in the economy that we have seen in many years. My colleague David Clark will talk about this more in a few minutes.When we look at that Skycity convention centre deal it says everything about what is wrong with this Government because the cronyism and the corporate welfare is what is driving it—the short-term political ends. What is missing is the long-term plan and it is a long-term plan that on this side of the House I am proud to say we are developing right now. That is about a relentless focus on work and on jobs—on decent work that pays decent wages. Nearly half of all New Zealanders missed out on a pay increase last year. Nearly half of all New Zealanders struggled to make ends meet. When we have got an economy that says it is OK for 260000 kids to grow up in poverty that is not an economy to be proud of and that is not the economy that the Labour Party wants to see us work towards.What we have seen in recent times is that an economy in which inequality grows is an economy that slows down. What we have seen in recent times are studies that show us that wages have fallen 16 percent behind where they should be in New Zealand—behind productivity. We have got an economy where a small group of people do well and the vast majority of New Zealanders struggle in their daily lives to make ends meet with housing prices going through the roof and with rents going through the roof. It is not good enough just to sit there complacently and look at the statistics on inflation. Look at the reality. The reality for people in South Auckland whose rents have gone up by 8 and 9 percent in the last year is that they have not seen a pay rise of 8 or 9 percent for a very very long time.The Labour Party is focused on the future of work and on what kinds of decent jobs can be created. There is no room for complacency when studies out of the United States are showing that 47 percent of jobs are at high risk from technology. There is no room for complacency when we know we have to create more sustainable jobs that stop damaging the planet and grow the economy and the environment together. There is no room for complacency when the latest unemployment statistics show a rise in unemployment years after Bill English and John Key declared the recession to be over in New Zealand. And there is no room for complacency when small businesses are being ripped off and overcharged by this Government.On this side of the House we believe that the Budget Policy Statement represents a Government that has broken its promises to New Zealanders that has been complacent about the future of the economy and that has meddled with dodgy deals. It is time for the Budget to focus on how New Zealanders will have decent work opportunities in the future and on how New Zealanders will be able to ensure that future generations grow up where everybody has the same opportunities to succeed not just the fortunate few. On this side of the House our focus will be relentlessly on growing jobs on ensuring there is opportunity for all New Zealanders and on supporting small businesses not ripping them off to the tune of $350 million.Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): The Labour spokesman I think gave a speech about the economy he wishes existed with no growth no jobs rising inequality and Government finances going through the floor but I would suggest he does not follow his own advice. His own advice was: do not look at the numbers; look at reality. Well of course reality according to him and the Labour Party is reality on “Planet Labour” where numbers do not make any difference whatsoever. Of course if he looked at the numbers he would see that for a party that is campaigning on work there were 80000 new jobs in the last year. The participation rate in this economy—that is the proportion of working-age New Zealanders who see themselves as being in the labour market—is the highest ever. There have never been more New Zealanders who feel that they can access the labour market. There have never been more New Zealanders more confident that they can participate in this economy. That is what I mean about the Opposition giving a speech about the economy it wishes it had.In fact New Zealand is looking at a fairly unique opportunity over the next few years and that is sustained growth of over 3 percent for a period of 3 to 5 years when we have already had over the last couple of years growth of around 2.5 to 3 percent. That is pretty unusual actually. So it is the opportunity for continued business investment that builds our capacity to be more productive and produce more income and for households the opportunity for moderate but consistent wage and income increases.The Opposition spokesman said that last year half of all New Zealanders did not get a pay rise. Well that is absolutely typical. Every year about half of all New Zealanders do not get a pay rise. Last year the nurses did not get a pay rise. Why? Because their collective agreement was negotiated to cover 2 or 3 years. In any given year that is how it works. But of course what they do look forward to is the opportunity for consistent even if moderate pay increases year after year. That is what this economy has been delivering and it is what this economy will continue to deliver.The conditions for that sustained economic growth have been in some respects surprising. As there has been more work in the economy the labour supply has shown itself to be remarkably responsive both through migration—through New Zealanders not leaving for Australia—and through people particularly women and older people counting themselves now as part of the workforce where previously they were not. Another condition is low inflation and lower interest rates for longer which is a set of conditions we did not really expect but we have been importing low inflation from the world economy. That is good for New Zealand households even if it makes it a bit tougher for the New Zealand Government to balance its books.There is one significant imbalance that has been building up in this economy and that of course is the Auckland housing market. It is not in the rest of the country. The other two-thirds of our housing market with a partial exception in Christchurch is actually relatively stable if not becoming more affordable. The House has discussed many times the action the Government is taking to deal with increasing supply in Auckland.It was something of a milestone today for the Government accounts to show a surplus for the year to January. Back in 2010 our deficit was 9 percent of GDP around $18 billion in the red. In the last month we have just got to surplus. We have yet to see whether we will have one for the full financial year but what it indicates is that we are in the zone. The combination of a growing economy and good expenditure management having largely paid for the Christchurch earthquakes although not completely—and more costs coming through in Canterbury may affect our surplus this year—and having survived a recession has meant that our Government finances are headed in the right direction.But what matters more than that actual number are the significant changes going on in the management of Government expenditure. We have taken a view that the best way for the Government to control its costs is to do its job properly and that is to effectively change the lives of people who are dependent on the Government either for their income or for other support that they need. So we are moving the Budget process to a strong focus on people populations communities and families and not on Government departments. So for example the way we think about making progress with educational achievement is to focus on the children and families and the difference that better educational achievement will make to the course of their lives not on the latest bright idea from the Ministry of Education.This approach is most advanced in the case of welfare where the forward liability calculation of welfare has yielded a huge wealth of information about our beneficiary population that we simply did not have before. When we took over from the previous Labour Government we saw a system awash with cash and complacency where everyone was focused on spending more money as the way of showing that they cared whereas now the measure of whether we care is whether we change the life direction of for instance a young child in Government care through a children’s and young person’s service. Or whether we can with a 7-year-old who cannot read get them to where they can pass National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2. Or when we lock someone up in prison as we should when they have committed a serious offence against the community when they come out we can reduce the chance of recidivism from what it was at 60 percent. Sixty percent of people leaving prison reoffended within 2 years. A lot of them ended up back inside at $115000 a year—a pretty reckless failure if you do not do anything about it.This strong focus on the quality and the impact of our expenditure on real people rather than on big numbers that Government agencies can throw around as a measure of effectiveness is now gradually working through into the system. It actually is one of the reasons we have got to surplus. The Government publishes 10 results. They are on the Beehive website and some of them are pretty hard stuff like a reduction in child violence. Whoever thought that that was an easy problem? What it is driving is a much more focused effective approach from Government departments. We know that the endless demand for more family violence programmes which are quite expensive and have questionable effectiveness will just continue endlessly. Politicians in election campaigns will say: “We’ll spend more on family violence.” Well actually you should be getting up to say: “We’ll be spending less on family violence because there’s less family violence. We’ll be spending less on fixing educational failure because there’s less educational failure. We’ll be spending less on crime and law enforcement because there’s less crime.”And that is where the lazy complacent Labour Party has not moved one bit from when it was in Government. Every measure this Government takes in that respect the Labour Party opposes. The changes in State housing—we want to have less serious housing needs but the Labour Party is opposing what are quite significant changes and how they work.I am proud to support this Budget Policy Statement. It sets out a clear direction for an economy that is showing sustainable growth which can deliver better incomes for households right across the income range over the next 3 to 4 years. It also indicates the increasing focus on the effectiveness of spending with some quite new tools for the Government. This means that not just over the next year or two but over the next 10 or 20 years Governments will be able to contain Government expenditure because we do our job properly by changing people’s lives for the better.Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): That member the Hon Bill English is clearly living in a parallel universe—the talk about surplus the endless talk about surplus a surplus we are yet to see. The Minister says that the economy is finally in the zone. I think he probably means the red zone where it has always been under his Government. This Government has run two election campaigns on surplus and yet we have not seen a single—single—surplus. We have not yet seen one from this Government.This is a Government that has campaigned on the issue and failed. It has failed. It is not being straight with New Zealanders. Yet Government members will ask ordinary New Zealanders to tighten their belts. We will hear it again with this Budget. We will hear that ordinary New Zealanders should tighten their belts. The Government will cut education spending. It will cut spending on domestic violence. It will cut spending left right and centre. Ordinary New Zealanders should expect to get fewer services. That is what this Government is saying—that you should expect as ordinary citizens to get fewer surpluses.Why is that? Because there are expensive tax cuts to be paid for. This is the Government that gave 40 percent of the big tax package—40 percent of the value—to the top 10 percent of earners and the bottom 20 percent got just 2 percent and that was swallowed up in a GST increase. If people remember back those tax cuts are tax cuts that ordinary New Zealanders are still paying for—in cuts to health services cuts to education and cuts to roading. This is the Government that continues to ask ordinary New Zealanders to cut their budgets while it shovels tax cuts at the wealthiest New Zealanders the wealthiest few.This is a consistent message from this Government because it is trying to get to that surplus. It is asking small businesses to pay more in ACC when it has had recommendations from Treasury from independent reports and from ACC itself saying that ACC is well overfunded. But no it is still asking businesses to pay $350 million more than they need to and that is assuming a very conservative buffer. That is costing jobs for ordinary New Zealanders.This Government is not supporting business—it is not supporting small business—and we have seen that in the red tape throughout its time as it has expected employers with the paper boy tax to collect additional data and as we have seen it expect employers to deal with child support payments that they did not have to deal with before. The Government keeps loading the regulatory red tape on small businesses. It loads the ACC charges on small businesses. It expects ordinary New Zealanders who are struggling to get ahead to keep paying over and over and over again so that it can try to get closer to that surplus whilst it is giving huge tax cuts to the very top 1 or 2 percent of New Zealanders. That is what we will hear again in this Budget. We will hear: “Tighten your belts again please middle New Zealand. We’ve got some expensive tax cuts for the wealthiest New Zealanders to pay and we’re going to cut your services again.” That is what New Zealanders are hearing.We know at the same time that the money is going to those wealthiest few. We know the list of those corporate welfare deals that this Government has had. We have heard about the Cabinet club. We have heard about John Key going to dinner with Donghua Liu. We know that this is a Government that has a special access agreement for wealthy donors.We know that this is a Government that is not being straight with New Zealanders. We know that with the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) the Prime Minister was not sure who the new agency head was. It turns out it was his mate’s brother. We heard that he was not sure whether he had been in touch with him. Then we heard that he had rung him up about the GCSB. So this is a Government that is not being straight. With the Iraq thing—being part of the club—the Government was for once caught out telling the truth.This Government is always looking out for its wealthy mates. We saw the endorsements around Oravida. We saw Judith Collins over there donkey-deep in it. We see housing where speculators in the Auckland market are being looked after while this Government does nothing to fix the problem for ordinary New Zealanders. Houses have been going up $1000 a week in Auckland. That is for big speculators—$1000 a week they are earning on every home they own. How much would every Aucklander like to earn $1000 more a week especially those who cannot afford houses right now? This is a Government that is looking after the wealthy and not looking after the interests of middle New Zealand. We know about corporate welfare for Rio Tinto we know about corporate welfare for Chorus and my my do we know about corporate welfare for Skycity.This Government is a Government that has had many MPs fall from grace and that list is getting longer. We had Pansy Wong Richard Worth Phil Heatley Mr Williamson Mr Collins Mr Gilmore Ms Hauiti Mr Sabin—the list goes on. There will be more before this term is out. This is an arrogant Government that is out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders and that is committed to helping the wealthiest few at the top.That is not even mentioning the teapot tapes and the other dishonesty that we have seen or the Primary Growth Partnerships where the money is being shovelled with no measures of success at National Party donors. These are the kinds of moves we have seen from a Government that is determined to look after its mates at the expense of ordinary New Zealanders who in this Budget will again be asked to tighten their belts: “Please tighten your belts ordinary New Zealanders.”This Government has got some corporate welfare on the way. It is trying to get to that surplus and hard-working New Zealanders and small businesses will be asked to pay too much again in ACC levies as the Government tries to get to its first surplus. Let us think about this ACC charge—the $350 million too much that is hurting our economy. It has been estimated in an independent report that that $350 million a year will cost 700 jobs in New Zealand. We have heard about it from ACC and we have heard about it from Treasury.The Skycity deal—I would like to say a little bit more about that. It is an example of this kind of corporate cronyism that we have seen right through from start to finish. John Key is up to his eyeballs in this deal. He kicked it off with a dinner with Skycity executives saying that the dinner—he himself said: “we discussed a possible national convention centre and they raised issues related to the Gambling Act”. And that is where we got those pokie machines. He told his officials to cancel their business case study and close off the Skycity option. His Ministers and officials repeatedly met with Skycity while holding off other tenderers. No one but Skycity was ever going to secure this deal.Then the Auditor-General of course in her hard-hitting report said that this process was flawed and neither transparent nor even-handed. This was a deal that was rotten from the start—and built into that deal right from the start to get it off the political agenda it was done quickly. It was a dirty deal done quickly with provisions that enabled the Government to later say: “We can hand over more cash to Skycity.” Well the Labour Party launched a petition and the National Party backed off on giving extra money to Skycity. But now the Government is still looking out for Skycity’s bottom line. It is now determined to cut the quality of the convention centre to preserve Skycity’s bottom line. Ordinary New Zealanders are being asked to tighten their belts in the meantime whilst the Government is delivering a convention centre that is below what was agreed in the initial deal.In the whole of the election year the National Party had the audacity to get up and say that this was going to be a free convention centre. The original report into the convention centre written by an independent reporter and still on the Ministry of Economic Development website says that it was going to create a net 18 jobs for the New Zealand economy—a net 18 jobs. That was when it was an iconic structure attracting international business. Why only 18 jobs for the New Zealand economy? Because the convention centre is stealing them off Hamilton Rotorua and Taupō. That is what the independent analysis found. That is why Mr Bennett is over there quaking in his seat. He knows that Hamilton jobs are going to go up to Auckland as part of having a new flash convention centre in Auckland. The business will be taken out of the regions to Auckland and it is sponsored by the taxpayer.So that is the Government approach. It is allowing Skycity to cut the quality of the convention centre to compete domestically with other players. That is not why the Government gets involved in these things. The Government is involved in these things or should be to create international business that brings new people to New Zealand—not just to take them off Mr Bennett in Hamilton off his constituents and make them poorer. But that is what we see here.The Government has put itself over a barrel here. We know that it is so committed to corporate welfare that it finds itself in these positions defending the bottom line for Skycity. That sums up this Government’s contribution. It has not achieved its goals and it is not achieving its goals. It is failing to reach surplus again for the seventh time in a row—seven Budgets seven failures to reach surplus. The Labour Government had nine Budgets and nine surpluses. Let us not forget that track record.This Government is determined to carry on with its corporate welfare with its gerrymandering its “john-mandering” and its “joyce-mandering”. It is still borrowing a million dollars every hour of every day to afford its corporate promises and it will ask you New Zealanders to tighten your belts again. I say be warned.JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): That was an embarrassment. That member David Clark—supposedly the great economic hope for the Labour Party—just gave a Budget Policy Statement speech going over everything that is unrelated to the Budget. What Labour wants to run is its stock-standard attack lines which are meaningless and which New Zealanders do not agree with. If that is what a PhD stands for in the Labour Party I do not have great hope for the next Labour Government in about 10 years’ time.When one listens to the Deputy Prime Minister—the Minister of Finance—giving a speech on the Budget Policy Statement and also when one listens to him in the Finance and Expenditure Committee the public can see that this economy is in good shape. It is in safe hands. It is in the hands of a Minister of Finance and a Prime Minister who are helping to grow this economy who are helping to get more jobs for New Zealanders. They are ensuring that there are more people able to put food on the table at home able to get their kids better educated able to support their families when they need it. I am proud of the fact that we have a Minister of Finance of the calibre of the Hon Bill English.The speeches from the other side of the House so far are proving that those members just are not fit to govern are not fit to hold the Treasury benches and deliver a Budget Policy Statement of their own.Dr David Clark: How many surpluses?JAMI-LEE ROSS: When Mr David Clark—doctor sorry. Dr David Clark—I do not believe it. I find it hard to believe he is a doctor. But when Dr David Clark was giving his speech earlier he had this interesting conundrum. He was talking about his view that supposedly the Government cut services but at the same time he yapped on and on in this House about the Government borrowing money. Which is it? You cannot have it both ways. The fact of the matter is that when the Labour Government was going out of office this economy had already gone into recession before National took the Treasury benches. The only reason this Government had to borrow more was to maintain important services for New Zealand after the Labour Government allowed the economy to go into recession. If Labour members want to stand in this House and want to talk about borrowing then they should start to look at themselves in the mirror because they let the economy go into recession before we came into Government.They also want to talk a lot about ACC at the moment. Let us put some facts back on the table. When the Labour Government left office it left a $4.8 billion shortfall in the ACC accounts. This Government had to clean up their mess. This Government had to step in and take action. But if the argument from the Labour Party is that the Government should always listen to the advice from the ACC board about what to do with levies let us look at what would have been the case in 2010. In 2010 the Government increased the earners levy by 30c. If we had listened to the Labour Party and taken the advice of the ACC board which recommended a $1.10 increase in the earners levy then New Zealanders would have faced an earners levy increase almost four times what this Government actually increased it by.When it comes to the motor vehicle levy which we had to increase by $47 if we followed the Labour Party’s advice which is to always listen to the ACC board we would have been putting it up by $100—more than double what it actually went up by. If we had listened to what the Labour Party wanted on ACC after it left a big black hole in those accounts then New Zealanders would have seen huge costs mounting up alongside them. That would have been unacceptable. So I do not believe the Labour Party has any credibility when it comes to ACC. It should stop preaching about that.This Budget Policy Statement follows on from a number of Budget Policy Statements and a number of Budgets delivered by this Government that are leading to high growth more jobs and better health and education services for New Zealanders. I think New Zealanders look at Governments and ask how they are going to help to create economic settings to create more jobs in the economy. We are delivering economic settings that lead to more jobs. We are delivering more jobs in the economy.Northland happens to be a topic of conversation right now in this Parliament and around the country. Well 7500 New Zealanders in Northland right now have gained jobs in the last year. Jobs are an issue that we are happy to talk about at any time because in New Zealand more people are employed—7500 more employed in Northland. When the statistics department sent out the press releases about growth in regions earlier today Northland was one of the stand-out examples of growth taking place in the regions. There was 7.8 percent growth in Northland in the last year. When the Labour Party gets up and talks about Northland going backwards and when the new lapdog for the Labour Party the Rt Hon Winston Peters gets up and talks about Northland going backwards they are absolutely wrong. It is one of the fastest-growing regions in the country. We are proud of that. We are proud of the fact that we are able to talk about that story in the by-election that is coming forward. The economy has improved a huge amount and New Zealanders are seeing the benefits of that.I also want to talk about transport briefly as we consider the Budget Policy Statement and how this Government spends money on behalf of New Zealanders. Transport is such a vital aspect of what the Government can do to provide better infrastructure for New Zealanders. We are proud of the fact that up in Northland the Pūhoi to Wellsford roading project a vital link for Northland is going to be going ahead under our watch. Just yesterday we announced further funding for example for the Waikato Expressway. An extra $1 million is going towards that project.I am an Auckland MP. I am proud of the fact that we are working to accelerate about $10 billion worth of projects in the Budget for Auckland. Those vital transport links help to create jobs. They help business to move goods and services they help employees get to work and they help everyday New Zealanders. On the transport matter and particularly when we are talking about Auckland as a local MP I just want to make a point with regard to transport projects in Auckland. The Auckland-Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative is an initiative that the Prime Minister outlined in a speech he made a couple of years ago about transport priorities as the No. 2 project that the Government is working on in Auckland. We are working to put together a package that will allow us to assist the Auckland Council to speed up the construction of that project. Right now the Auckland Transport Agency is looking to make some devastating changes to that project. As local MPs I Maurice Williamson and other MPs who would see their electorates benefit from that project will be working hard to fight against what the Auckland Transport Agency and the Auckland Council are doing on that. As a priority for Auckland and a priority for this Government transport is right up there and we are proud of that fact.I know that the Labour Party members do not like listening to speeches on the Budget Policy Statement in this House after it has been delivered by our Minister of Finance and our Government. That is because they do not have a record that stacks up to scrutiny when it comes to their promises. Let us just remember every time they talk about debt every time they talk about deficits that the Labour Party promised $28 billion of extra spending under any Budget it delivered. [Interruption] Mr Parker who is squawking at the moment was the finance spokesperson for—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!JAMI-LEE ROSS: Well he is.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I want to check that on the basis of that response to my interjections my earlier interjections will be recorded as they ought to be in Hansard. Could you please rule on that Mr Assistant Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): If it is the normal practice for interjections like that to cause the recording of the comments they will be recorded. It was clear that there was an out-of-order response from Jamie-Lee Ross.JAMI-LEE ROSS: I apologise if I have hurt someone’s feelings. In terms of the interjections from Mr Parker who is going on at the moment and has been going on about debt as have other members of the Labour Party when they come to talking about debt they should think about the extra spending they were promising at the last election of $28 billion combined with the Green Party and New Zealand First left-wing block—[Interruption] Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No your time has expired.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): Memorable Budgets? Honestly there are not that many. Labour has sometimes created significant and politically enduring solutions to address the major challenges that we face as a nation. Budget 2001 was memorable for the creation of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund to address the long-term need to pre-fund this looming public superannuation bill that we face as a nation as our population ages and as our baby boomers start retiring. Budget 2006 was memorable for the creation of KiwiSaver another politically enduring solution to help address the country’s saving crisis. Working for Families which was announced in Budget 2004 stopped the rapid rise of inequality that New Zealand experienced after the National Government but it did not actually fix the dire rates of child poverty that were created by National in the early years.This National Government is still yet to pass a truly memorable Budget. For a memorable National Budget you would really have to go back to Ruth Richardson’s “mother of all Budgets” in 1991 but of course that was memorable for all the wrong reasons. Similarly noteworthy for all the wrong reasons was National’s tax cut package in 2010—we got the completely revised history of that from the speaker just before me Jami-Lee Ross—which delivered tax cuts to the rich in the midst of a deep recession. Unlike KiwiSaver and the Superannuation Fund those short-term tax cuts simply will not endure past the next change of Government.A memorable Budget for National would be one that puts at the front and centre solutions to the biggest challenges we are facing today and those are climate change and inequality. A memorable Budget for National would show the courage to believe that we can live better and fairer and free from the fear of each other and the threat of climate change which will turn our livelihoods upside down if we do not change direction.Budgets lie at the heart of why all MPs are here. We are elected to help address the very big issues that we all face the ones that we do not have the resources to address on our own. We are elected in good faith to strive to work across political lines to find these enduring political solutions that will last long after we each leave this place. On principle we are elected here to protect the weak from the strong to protect those without the resources to protect themselves.So what are the big issues of our time that we must address as elected representatives? There are many challenges that we face like creating good jobs that pay decent wages; like building warm affordable housing; like providing the best education for our kids and even better health care; like cleaning up our polluted rivers and freeing our cities from congestion and air pollution; and like protecting the species we love such as kiwi kōkako Māui’s dophin and kauri from imminent and irreversible loss. But I say that climate change and inequality are the two issues that stand above all these and are contained by them.Climate change and persistent inequality are the two issues that genuinely threaten to tear at the very fabric of our community. We can and we must spend money on measures to turn round the risk of predation that kiwi face on the mainland. But what is it for if the entire ecosystem on which they depend is destroyed by catastrophic climate change? Private companies as we see can provide temporary charity relief by funding milk in schools but what for if we never address the long-term legacy of what it means to grow up in poverty? Educational underachievement poor health poor job prospects the likelihood of time spent in prison and an early death are the consequences of poverty. That early death is indeed a consequence of long-term poverty in this country.National has continued to downplay these issues. It has been slow to serve the wider interests of all New Zealanders but very quick to serve the interests of those who keep them in power. Just 48 hours after the last election John Key sat down with John Campbell on the telly and told us that he wanted to lead a Government that would govern for all New Zealanders. He went on to say he wanted “to leave the country in better shape than I found it.” and that “Just passing everything by the barest of majorities isn’t the right way to govern a country and I certainly don’t think it will deliver a potential fourth term in Government.”In that spirit of non-partisan sentiment I would like to invite National to consider working across the party lines to deliver at least one truly memorable Budget this term. We can help National to deliver on its promise of future tax cuts to lower and middle income families with a Budget that helps address rising inequality while securing our future long-term economic prosperity by protecting the environment from which all of our country’s wealth derives. We can help the Government. Yes we can.We can help the Government deliver its programme of lower and middle income tax savings and lower debt by passing a carbon tax. A carbon tax can turn our climate crisis into an opportunity. A carbon tax can form the heart of a plan to protect our climate and leave New Zealand families better off. A carbon tax can ensure that New Zealand shows leadership on climate change and delivers prosperity along the way. In the run-up to the last election the Green Party announced a modest tax on carbon pollution recycling all of the revenue raised from this carbon tax back to families and to business through a $2000 income tax - free band and a 1 percent company tax rate cut. There was no hysteria following the launch of our policy except of course a little bit in this House from this side over here. This is because a tax is now widely considered to be smart reasonable and non-partisan; a way to address climate change by putting an effective price on carbon. It makes sense to everyone to make polluters pay.This was the promise of the emissions trading scheme but the emissions trading scheme has not delivered. The emissions trading scheme is a tool that is neither transparent nor just. Practically speaking it has not delivered the kinds of reductions in carbon emissions that we all know we need to make in order to make our climate safe. Emissions have gone up in New Zealand since the emissions trading scheme came into force not down as was promised. Carbon polluters are not paying the true cost of the damage they are doing to our environment. Independent economists at Business and Economic Research Ltd analysed our proposal for a carbon tax and concluded that New Zealand families would be better off as a result of our proposed tax changes.The Greens do not have the resources of the Government to deliver the best form of carbon tax possible but we are willing to work with National and with other political parties to make this happen. We currently live in a world where the Government is subsidising the world’s biggest polluters—oil gas and coal companies—to look for more fossil fuels while our kids go hungry to school then go home to crowded damp homes and get sick more often than they should and suffer serious illness as a result. Subsidising the pollution that is fuelling runaway climate change is not a smart way to run our economy or to secure our future prosperity. Similarly doing nothing about rising inequality is neither smart nor just.We can have a country where polluters pay and where our children thrive. A carbon tax is a win-win plan to protect the climate and benefit New Zealand families. We can futureproof our economy as we transition to a low carbon economy by building a significant tax cut for businesses into our plan. This is our hope and our vision for this Budget and for subsequent Budgets this term. We are very optimistic as you know and we are certainly ready to play our part in realising this vision and we are seeking genuine cross-party work on a true vision for this country. Thank you.TRACEY MARTIN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to speak on the Budget Policy Statement 2015 on behalf of New Zealand First. There have been some interesting comments made around what is in this Budget and what is not in this Budget. Earlier in the contribution by Mr Bennett there was a comment made around a statement attributed to New Zealand First and to the Rt Hon Winston Peters around spending on a particular road of national significance. I would like to remind people that there are seven roads of national significance—not just one; seven—on which the Rt Hon Winston Peters was addressing his statements.Now I would like to move on to the one road of national significance that is of a great deal of importance and the one road of national significance mentioned by Mr Bennett—that would be the Pūhoi to Wellsford road of national significance. I would like to direct Mr Bennett to my maiden speech on 8 February 2012 and the advocacy I gave there to remind the National Party MP for Rodney of his commitment to advocate for the continuation of that project. But not just that project—inside any Budget then or now—for the retention of access at Pūhoi upon which he has remained silent. The people of Pūhoi had to themselves fight with Auckland Transport and with the New Zealand Transport Agency to make sure they would still be able to get to their homes off the end of the Northern Gateway.I would direct Mr Bennett to my social media page once I get to leave this House after the series of debates we are going to have where I will put up the number of speeches I have made in this House taking to task any member of this House who calls that road a “Holiday Highway”. I live in that area. I know the importance of that area and this road to it and so does New Zealand First. New Zealand First is highly aware that under previous Budgets and Budgets now Warkworth is going to be a satellite town of Auckland. In the next 20 years it is expected to go from 10000 dwellings to 30000 dwellings—and the infrastructure that is required there to cater for it as a satellite town of Auckland.We also know however and the reason why the review is mentioned is that not only were there seven roads of national significance but the other thing that is interesting and that is not mentioned inside any of these Budget documents is the fact that the people of Pūhoi and Warkworth and Snells Beach and Algies Bay and Kaipara pay a toll on the current Northern Gateway motorway. They will pay a toll under the projected project of the Pūhoi to Wellsford road. Yet at the same time Mr Jami-Lee Ross stands up in this Budget Policy Statement debate and says he will advocate and ask his Government to block Auckland Transport and the ability of Auckland Transport to make its own decisions around its own spending for all the areas of Auckland of which Warkworth is one of which Pūhoi is one and of which Wellsford and Te Hana are some. He will block them to bring back that investment under any Budget—bring back that investment and centre it on the city. Therein lies the interesting thing.I would direct anybody who would like to see the truth of statements made by New Zealand First to page 97 of our manifesto where we guarantee the farmers who are in Auckland we guarantee the farmers who are in Northland and we guarantee the farmers throughout the whole of New Zealand that unlike the Budget cuts that have been made to road subsidies or the reallocation of Budgets that have been made to road subsidies for rural areas we will make sure that every rural member every farmer and every producer inside those rural areas can get their produce to an appropriate form of transport on a road that has been well maintained. Page 97 has been there since prior to 2014. So I would direct Mr Bennett if he would like to actually educate himself instead of taking a researcher’s note and then deciding he knows what he is talking about to go and read the document.That is the first thing. I would also like to talk about some of the other areas of this statement. I mean it is very interesting inside the Budget Policy Statement report here that there is to be a reduction in spending from Budget 2015 by half a billion dollars. I think it is interesting with the announcement of $68 million worth of spending around transport. Where will there be cuts for this half a billion dollar saving? Where will that come from? Will it be another situation where Hill Street was placed on the backburner because no member of the National Government has the decency to go up there and actually sit down and talk to the people of Warkworth who have been advocating year upon year upon year—for decades—for that intersection to be amended? Colin Greenslade I acknowledge you.Is that where these cuts are going to come from? Is the Hill Street intersection once again going to be delayed because this Government has promised $68 million on bridges eight of which nobody actually identified prior to last week? Is that what is going to affect the people of Northland? Is that what is going to affect the people of Wellsford and Te Hana which sit in the Northland electorate? There were some other interesting comments. The Finance and Expenditure Committee heard that special housing areas are picking up speed and developers are getting the message that they need to act soon and start building houses.An interesting statement—an interesting statement. And of course it is the silver bullet for housing affordability apparently although the phrasing has changed now.It is no longer “affordable housing”. It is being referred to by the Minister in this document as “low-value housing”. What does that change? Where has that change come from? It is supposed to be affordable but now it has become low value. It starts to imply a lesser quality of house. Is that what we are aiming for? It starts to imply these things. Is that what we are aiming for? We found that a very interesting comment in the report.One of the things that we would be interested to know if it was recorded here at all—and the questioning to the Minister did not uncover it—is about land banking. We are aware of land banking taking place. These special housing accord areas for Auckland have been clearly identified—the first second and third tranche actually have been identified and commented on. What we know is that there is land banking going on in some of those areas. So although that unitary plan has not been secured large tracts of that land are being bought up and set aside. We would like to know what the Government intends to do about that and we would make the suggestion that it has some conversation about penalties if after a certain period of time these special housing accord areas are not built on because once the city comes to its maximum yet again housing prices will continue to rise.There were a couple of other interesting pieces in here like the conversation around foreign investment that is actually recorded in the statement. So it was suggested by the Opposition members of the select committee and it is recorded here in the select committee report that there be a cross-party audit of foreign investment in New Zealand over the decade. It says: “Some of us propose a cross-party audit of foreign investment in New Zealand over the decade since the Overseas Investment Act came into force.” The Minister did not think it was necessary—not necessary does not care do not worry never mind. That is what we are hearing about foreign investment and foreign ownership from this Government. Our question would be why the Minister made the statement that the Minister does not feel that it is necessary. There was an offer here for a cross-party audit. If there is no concern about what the Overseas Investment Office is doing if there is no concern about how that Act is actually being applied then there is no harm in doing a review. It has been over a decade since it has been in place. We review legislation consistently to make sure that it is timely that it is up to date that it deals with different things in the House.Why is this Government so frightened of actually partaking in a cross-party audit? If you want to make it independent then. What is the problem? What is so scary for the National Government that it does not want to review that piece of legislation? Before I finish my contribution I think it is worthy of note that our Crown debt is now $59.9 billion. It is worthy to note that it has doubled since 2010. This Government talks again and again and again about it being somebody else’s fault—it is circumstance’s fault or it is the fault of Portugal Ireland Greece and Spain; or it is Greece’s fault or Spain’s fault or somebody else’s fault. But at the end of the day it is the Government’s watch. At the end of the day this is its debt its watch. But the New Zealand taxpayer ends up having to pay for it over time. So although there is a hope and a prayer that we get into surplus there is nothing in here that gives New Zealand First confidence that this Government actually knows what it is doing.ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you for the opportunity to talk on this Budget Policy Statement 2015. It is quite an advantage speaking at this point I think because you have the advantage of listening to others and being able to reflect on some of those points that were made.I was interested to hear Mr Robertson speak earlier of our complacency apparently on this side of the House and lacking ideas. But then a couple of breaths later he was talking about him and his team beginning to plan and develop their own policies as if they did not have any in the first place. I have seen in the newspaper what their policies are as they develop—some of them being Māori sovereignty which some of them do not agree with; some of them being to support Winston Peters when others disagree with that. So there is an advantage in speaking later—and xenophobic comments made from the New Zealand First members but I will come back to that fairly shortly.Tracey Martin: Oh come on—name it. Name the xenophobic comment. Name it. Go on.ALASTAIR SCOTT: Your register of—Tracey let me respond.Tracey Martin: A register of foreign investment and that’s xenophobic.ALASTAIR SCOTT: There is a bit of a health and safety issue going on here—I have got a high-pitched noise in my ear.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I think there are—I know there are—rules about constant interjection but I think if the member complains about high-pitched noises he should note that it is coming both from that side and from his left Ms Barry.ALASTAIR SCOTT: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. For me this whole Budget is around confidence—confidence in the economy. If we do not have confidence we have nothing. I would like to refer you to a recent ANZ Business Outlook study that says 34 percent of firms are optimistic about the general economy. That is up from 30 percent.Why do we have confidence? Because we have the correct policies and the correct structure in place. We have policies that are about lowering personal tax rates. Interest rates are lower for longer. That has created as a result 80000 new jobs. When you have got 80000 new jobs being created it is like a spinning wheel that starts spinning—small businesses gain further confidence to employ more people. And that is what is happening because unemployment we know is falling. It has fallen from 5.7 percent. It is due to fall to 4.5 percent.I will give you an example in my electorate of Wairarapa. In the forestry industry we have got contractors looking for workers—looking for workers. They cannot find them. I have got a guy who works for Forest Enterprises Ltd—he contracts to it. He wants to bring in more immigrant workers because there are no available skilled workers in the economy.Hon David Parker: That’s called a market.ALASTAIR SCOTT: Why? Because there is demand. There is demand for labour. That is called a market. That eventually drives wages up and eventually this guy is going to start—Hon David Parker: So why don’t you let the market work?ALASTAIR SCOTT: That is the way it works. That is what drives unemployment down. So this confidence has enabled this guy to look for more employees. He is charging the contractors—the guys who are paying him—more to do the work. The whole community is better off as a result of him having confidence in the economy.One of the other things that is supporting the rural economy is the ultra-fast broadband roll-out. That continues to roll out. As we know 75 percent of the population is being targeted to receive ultra-fast broadband. I am pleased to say that Dannevirke and Carterton are two targeted towns in my electorate that will soon receive ultra-fast broadband Masterton having already received it.Confidence is going to be the key in my short address. In the recent 5-year MYOB Business Monitor report New Zealand’s small and medium sized businesses are showing the highest revenue growth in more than 5 years—again confidence.What else has been demonstrated? We are seeing people coming back. We are seeing people coming back from Australia. We are seeing fewer New Zealanders leaving to go to Australia. So in the 4-year period ending in 2008 almost 110000 people net left to go to Australia. That is a lot of people. That is three Westpac Stadiums approximately queuing up to take the opportunity to better themselves in Australia. In the 2014 calendar year there was a handful. There were 8000—a mere 8000 people did the same trip. That is because there is confidence in the economy there is real hope and there is real aspiration amongst our communities whether they are in Auckland or Christchurch or whether they are in Masterton Carterton or Waipukurau.Let us talk about Waipukurau. Waipukurau is feeling good because with any sort of luck given the Resource Management Act it will be building with the help of a $400 million fund an irrigation project. Again that brings confidence. People are already training up. They are getting their heavy truck driver’s licences and getting trained to take part in that expansion. There will be 30000-odd hectares of land that will increase in productivity. That creates jobs. It enables seeds potatoes sheep and beef to be grown and then processed in the nearby towns of Hastings and Napier and exported to contribute to the growing export dollar value that is taking place right here right now.What does not help is the xenophobic policies espoused by New Zealand First. Tracey Martin demonstrated that earlier by asking specifically what xenophobic policies New Zealand First had. The register is just that. The register of foreign owners is absolutely xenophobic. I will tell you the problem. I will give you an example. What happens when anyone from overseas buys shares that I own perhaps on the New Zealand Exchange? Let us say I own 100 shares and I sell them to a foreigner and I go with that money and buy my house in Auckland. Am I going to be registered as a foreign owner of a house in Auckland? So you can see the complication and the regulatory layers that this party is willing to impose on the New Zealand public. It does not make any sense at all.Another example of confidence is that the labour market statistics show the number of self-employed businesses grew by nearly 35000 in the last calendar year. We have got 3.5 percent growth and that only gives more confidence to more people to get involved in this economy. What puts people off is further bureaucracy. We have got the Rules Reduction Taskforce running around New Zealand at the moment talking to communities and councils in particular looking for ideas on how to reduce compliance and bureaucracy.The Inland Revenue Department today said in the Finance and Expenditure Committee that it is also going out to communities and surveying and communicating with those people asking them for ideas on how to reduce compliance issues around tax. An example given was if you pay GST and you have got a nil GST return now you can do a couple of clicks and you are done. Those sorts of simple and ease-of-use projects across the Rules Reduction Taskforce and the Inland Revenue Department can only allow more people to work and focus on their business.This Government is certainly focusing on ways to make it easy for small businesses to do business. What would make it really really tricky for small businesses is a capital gains tax which I am not sure is still Labour policy. I am not sure whether they have decided it is. But we will hear in due course. Thank you for the opportunity.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Jan Logie—it is a 5-minute call.JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to take a call on this Budget Policy Statement. I want today to speak about a country of two halves and a Government that seems to be speaking and listening to only one half. This is a Government that is masquerading as competent. Treasury’s announcement today that a deficit is likely for the 2014-15 financial year shows that the Government is failing to meet its key economic target which it set itself. National has always emphasised and it is in this Budget Policy Statement that achieving a surplus is its No. 1 goal. But it looks like it will fail to achieve that goal and instead we will have a $572 million deficit this financial year.We are now seeing evidence that the Government is massaging the books in an attempt to return to surplus. It seems to have forgotten that the core purpose of Government is to do the best for all New Zealanders. Treasury documents released to the Green Party today under the Official Information Act suggest options for reducing or delaying spending to help achieve a Budget surplus. These include keeping ACC levies artificially high delaying Treaty of Waitangi settlements slowing down the Christchurch rebuild delaying overseas development assistance spending slowing down the Justice Sector Fund and the Better Public Services programme and delaying Ministry of Social Development spending. Again we have evidence that this Government is at the very least considering sacrificing equality justice and fairness for the sake of public relations for the sake of achieving a surplus and for the sake of reaching its No. 1 goal. That is too bad for the well-being of the entire country or at least half the country.I know some people though who still believe that the Government is doing the best it can with its limited resources and that sometimes it just has to make tough calls. I do not get this perspective; I really struggle to understand it. It seems to me that that analysis forgets the tax cuts that cost us collectively over a billion dollars a year. It misses out on the ongoing refusal of this Government to even consider a capital gains tax as a way of addressing our housing crisis and increasing revenue and the absolute refusal to consider a carbon tax which again would help us to achieve our climate change goals and bring in revenue. It certainly forgets this Government’s ability to conjure up millions at short notice for Northland and it misses the extraordinary $163 million budget overrun for implementing well-critiqued child support reforms in the Government’s last term. It misses the money lost to New Zealand from the Skycity debacle and all the other times the Government has chosen to step in and help its mates on its side of the net while spending billions on sending people to Iraq as membership of a club.The independent analysis of the Government’s books last year found that on the counter side of that—what it is wasting money on—the Government is actually cutting money from the health education and environment sectors to the tune of $3.837 billion over 3 years. The Government is forgetting its purpose which is to serve everybody in this country and it is serving a small group.I want to bring this House’s attention to the fact that in New York this week a New Zealand Minister stood up in front of the United Nations and said: “I reaffirm New Zealand’s strong commitment to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women…” although the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment has refused to take action on closing the gender pay gap. We have been told by this Government that basically we should be satisfied with a 120-year wait for gender equality. That is not good enough. It is not serving all of this country.MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. Nei rā te mihi atu ki a koe me te Whare. Last week I was in Christchurch where in fact just about the whole of Māoridom was and I witnessed the power and the magnificence that is being Māori in the week of Te Matatini. Why is that so magnificent? Well it is because there at Te Matatini all of the issues pertinent to the day are spoken about in haka and in waiata. In fact our very own Prime Minister was the subject of many haka throughout that week. If you had the opportunity to watch Te Matatini you would have seen the issues pertaining to Māori articulated in beautiful song and beautiful waiata-ā-ringa. In fact I think that all of the politicians of the day should spend time at Te Matatini to hear the voice of Māoridom.We are not the only ones who speak with an independent voice on behalf of Māori. Māori speak for themselves and we are very proud to support Māori self-determination and their aspirations. We have worked with the National Government in the relationship accord that we have and it is actually quite a remarkable agreement. We are grateful for the opportunity to work with a Government that understands the need to ensure that the Māori voice is heard and that the aspirations of our people are upheld and included in things like the Budget. I would loudly and proudly crow about all of these things that we have been able to achieve with the National Government on the condition that we can have some more thank you very much.The Māori Party has pushed and has been successful in addressing a number of the issues that face Māori. One of those has been the establishment of the Ministerial Committee on Poverty and through this committee we have been able to achieve a number of benefits for Māori and for the wider community. We have to remember that when we are able to achieve things for Māori there is value added not just for our own people but for the whole of Aotearoa. We saw the need to support our whānau to be warm healthy and secure. Hence the investment in home insulation reducing rheumatic fever and a pilot programme of warrant of fitness testing on housing.We have secured millions of dollars of direct investment in Māori communities spread across a wide range of portfolios targeting housing employment social development education disabilities Māori language social development access to jobs through trade training cadetships community development and health including securing funding for free GP visits and prescriptions. Despite what some parties may think they do not have a monopoly on intellectual property and though they might have an idea they can do nothing about it if they are sitting in Opposition. So we are grateful to have again a working accord with the National Government to achieve the things that we put out on the table.We have extended KickStart Breakfast to bring food into schools—into every school in the country if they ask for it. We have introduced the Māori history in schools. We have advocated for the recognition of cultural significance and of course the unique and life-changing approach that many of us know as Whānau Ora. We have seen how Whānau Ora has transformed lives. I have listened to young men talk about the transformation that they have had in their lives through Whānau Ora through the opportunity to plan to gain the dreams and visions that they have and to build closer connectedness with their whānau. Whānau Ora changes lives.We want to do more though. We want to do more to work with iwi to see mana whenua being able to thrive and lift their economic potential in order to address disparities. We realise that some of the things we support might not be things you expect. For instance we support the schooling initiative of kura hourua with my good friend over here Rāwiri because we need to ensure that Māori have the potential and have the aspirations of educational achievement.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Whole names.MARAMA FOX: Oh Mr Rāwiri Seymour of the ACT Party—whole names.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Thank you.MARAMA FOX: We want to ensure that there is a choice for Māori who have been underserved in our country to date. Therefore we would like to support the Budget and we want to ensure that we continue to have gains in the coming year.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I understand it is the intention of the Hon Judith Collins to share her time with Mr Seymour. Therefore there will be a 5-minute speech.Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): That is so appropriate because according to Mrs Annette King Mr Seymour and I are in discussions to do some sort of ACT Party thing but it is not true. Anyway keep it going Mrs King. Mr Seymour is I think an outstanding member of Parliament and Epsom is very lucky to have him. As I have said to many people in the Epsom electorate many of whom I know very well they are so lucky to have such an outstanding member.Look it is such a privilege to be here in paradise is it not? Just another day in paradise in the best little country in the world. I wish everyone was as happy as me about it all. Obviously Mrs Fox who has just resumed her seat is happy about what she has been able to achieve so far and she has not even been here that long so I think that she is going to be achieving a lot over the years. What a difference from the Green member. Oh misery—for goodness’ sake! Be grateful. This is New Zealand one of the most wonderful countries the country where—by the way you know talking about women’s rights in New Zealand you were absolutely dead right except tell me of one country in the world where women are better off. Go on tell me. Go on tell me of one. Australia? Yes that is great—fantastic. All is going well.But what I would say is that one of the best things for anybody in New Zealand is for people to be working—lots of people working. People with choices in their jobs people getting educated people who can look at their work with the joy that I look at my work every day and say: “Another day to have so much fun.” Is that not wonderful? That is what they need to do.So we have got 80000 more people employed in New Zealand—in paid work in other words—than we had 1 year ago. How good is that? And it is not all down to the excellent work of ACC although I have to say that that has got a lot to do with a lot of things. It has a lot to do with the fact that this Government is focused on what actually matters—what matters for Kiwis. Then when we look at the growth in New Zealand we have had 3.2 percent economic growth over the year to September which puts us our little country right at the top of the world. That is fantastic.Remember when we came into Government in 2008 and we had all those New Zealanders leaving for Australia? All those New Zealanders left and now guess what? They are all coming back and some of the Aussies are coming back too. And guess what? There is growth here; it is not so good there. Well we love the Australians. It is really important to us for them to do well because they are either our first or our second-biggest trading partner depending on which month of the year it is. Having said that we do not want to lose all our talent there and thankfully some of us stayed behind. But I would say that New Zealand is a country that is blessed. We are blessed with an excellent education system that works for most Kiwi kids—not all Kiwi kids but most Kiwi kids. I do not think we do enough for kids with disabilities but you know I think that many people have heard me speak on that before.I also think that we have a great health system where if you need help you can get help and are we not grateful for that? What a fantastic system. We have also got a system of law and order where I think we are so much further ahead than many other countries. New Zealand is the first country—and we are probably the only country in the world actually—to have community policing to the extent that we have it. Nowhere else in the world do we have the sorts of levels of trust and confidence in the police that we have in New Zealand. We have a judiciary that is not corrupt and that is a fantastic thing.We have a Government that cares about the people that actually looks to help even the people who do not vote for it actually and that does things that we should be doing for the betterment of New Zealand. We have an Opposition that holds us to account and that is a good thing although occasionally it would be nice if it were not holding us quite so closely to account but it is a good thing. We have so much to be grateful for and we have got a lot more to do. We have got new bridges that are going to be built in Northland and I think that that is a good thing. If you go up to Northland what do you do? There are one-lane bridges everywhere. It is a good thing that we are taking it seriously. And actually crime is down in Northland. I mean these are good things for people but we also need to look at resources and at what we are using them for. We have got gold in Northland we have got oil in Northland and we have got all sorts of minerals and we could be doing more there too. We have got to do it in a sustainable way that does not hurt the environment but we do need to do it for the people of Northland. We need to get the jobs like we have in Taranaki. We need to get those sorts of attributes into Northland. We need to get people working. That is what we need to do. We are doing well but we can do even better over this next year and I believe we will. So I am very happy to be able to take this call to celebrate what we have in New Zealand and also to look forward to how we could do even better.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): A few weeks ago I attended a citizenship ceremony in Auckland. I could talk about all of the facts and figures of the Budget Policy Statement and about the projections for our economy and all of them are very good but the most sincere endorsement of where this country is headed I saw in 431 souls from 57 different countries who were making the ultimate endorsement of New Zealand by taking on New Zealand citizenship and throwing their lot in with the good ship Aotearoa.It is amazing that one of the things that we hear the most complaint about from some people around the House is actually one of the most positive things we have going for us—that is people voting with their feet and increasingly coming to New Zealand. This is the result of the terrible Rogernomics experiment of the last 30 years: more and more people want to come and live more and more prosperous lives in the most beautiful country on earth.It has been interesting to see the debate around this Budget Policy Statement unfold because the Opposition members are really in a bind. They want to criticise the Government for certain things but those things are also exactly the things that they would do so much more of. Take for example the criticism we heard of child support legislation—or at least the implementation of it by the Inland Revenue Department. Of course what they are not saying is that for every little bit of difficulty we have had introducing that law it would have been infinitely more complex and difficult to have a tax-free threshold to have a capital gains tax to start having supermarkets dividing up their floor space to decide which parts were GST-claimable and which parts were not—all of which were promised by the Opposition during the election. Today they come and criticise the Inland Revenue Department for not implementing relatively simple child support legislation but how much worse would it have been had they had their way at the election? Well they did not.Another example is watching the indignation of a certain member about Solid Energy. He can criticise and criticise Solid Energy and its performance as much as he likes but he forgets that as he does this he indicts the very ownership model that his party defends and says it would like to expand—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: No just your incompetence—your Government’s incompetence.DAVID SEYMOUR: The conceited answer from the member who has identified himself now is that there is nothing wrong with the policy or the model; it is just that it would work better if good people like him were running it. I believe that is a fatal conceit and the truth is that what is missing from this Budget Policy Statement—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I seek leave to table a time line which is not publicly available detailing in excess of—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member will resume his seat. It is not appropriate to interrupt a member’s speech in order to seek to table a document.DAVID SEYMOUR: The truth is that this Government should actually be going further in the opposite direction to the one he would advocate. There is never a right time to sell a business with an uncertain future and the best time to sell is at any time—actually now. This is not a business that the Government should be in and there are a number of other State-owned enterprise businesses that the Government should be getting out of. Opposition members all tell us about the revenue stream that the taxpayer gets from these assets but they never talk about the risk. Well the Government should not be in the business of accepting the risks inherent in commercial enterprises.Another thing that is missing I am afraid to say is actually tax reform. I had somebody come to see me in my electorate office just the other day and it brought home the practicalities of having a number of different punitive tax rates. Every year—we heard this morning—$750 million gets left on the table by people paying too much tax. And I found out this morning that about just $8 million of that is low-income people getting their cheques from the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust withheld at the top rate when they should be paying a lower rate. If this Government really believes in success really believes in meritocracy and really believes in a practical and easily applied tax system then what it should be doing is moving top tax rates that have minimal fiscal impact but send a message to every New Zealander that “Your efforts do not really make a difference and if they do we are going to take not just more money in proportion to what you earn but more of it off you.”What I will finally close with is to say that what is really missing from this Budget Policy Statement is not a forecast for this year or next but where we will be in decades to come if we do not adjust our long-term settings for policies such as superannuation affected by demographic change. I look forward to talking to more and more members around the House about what exactly we can do about that. Thank you.SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a pleasure to rise and speak in this Budget Policy Statement debate. Well was that the first 10-minute speech we have seen from the “New ACT Party”? Was that history in the making? Judith Collins and David Seymour together—what a team! But I think that David Seymour—just a bit of advice here—might have to fight to take the first part of the call so that he can establish his right to be the leader with Judith as his deputy. Or maybe it is the other way round; I am not so sure. But look I think that works quite well. You should explore it. You should explore that Mr Seymour because I think the National Party would be ever grateful and probably so would Judith Collins.But what I want to actually get back to is that Judith Collins at the moment is still speaking as a National MP and her theme was pretty clear: “New Zealanders be grateful.” she said. Your life might be rubbish. You might be having a hard time getting a job. You might be having a terrible time feeding the kids. Your housing costs are going through the roof and your wages are not keeping up let alone your incomes if you are on any other form of Government assistance but the message from the National Party is “be grateful”. That is what it expects the New Zealand public to be over its Budget Policy Statement.Well I can tell you—I can tell you Mr Assistant Speaker; yes you Mr Assistant Speaker and the rest of the House—who are not feeling very grateful and they are the businesses and the workers up and down this country in every nook and cranny of this country in every industry and every sector who know now that they have been overcharged to the tune of $350 million a year in ACC levies. And why? Well even the Prime Minister admitted it yesterday. It is because Cabinet the National Cabinet ignored the advice it had got from ACC from Treasury from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment from all of its own officials and it has hiked the levy rates up higher so that it can get to Budget surplus in 2014-15 like it promised the New Zealand public. So workers and companies and organisations and the Public Service—all of those organisations—are paying for the election promise of John Key and Bill English. They are paying through the nose to prop up the illusion of a Budget surplus.Here on the Labour benches we believe in Budget surpluses and we know how to deliver them because we did those for 9 years in a row. We delivered Budget surpluses but we did not do it through that sort of jiggery-pokery. What we did was we had economic growth.David Seymour: Ha ha!SUE MORONEY: I know. They laugh because they do not understand what economic growth is. Would it not be wonderful would it not be brilliant if that promise that Bill English and John Key gave to the electorate was brought about by economic growth rather than the slim Budget surplus that they are hoping to achieve this year—that they are struggling to achieve but are hoping to achieve? Would it not be better if that had come about by economic growth when in fact it has been brought about by an overcharge in ACC levies? That is the truth of the matter.The Government has failed to grow the economy except in one instance. The Christchurch earthquakes—terrible as they were—did this Government a favour because currently the rebuild that is going on in Canterbury is the only sign of economic growth. A natural disaster plus the overcharge in ACC levies are the things that might just get this Government scraping through—might just get this Government scraping through into Budget surplus. Even after Cabinet had made a deliberate decision—[Bell rung] Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. This is a 10-minute call.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am sorry. I was advised by the Opposition whip that this call was split between Mr Cosgrove and you. It has been changed—OK. You have another 6 minutes.SUE MORONEY: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It did feel like an awfully fast 10 minutes—although 10 minutes of the “New ACT Party” seemed to drag somewhat I have got to say so it is getting a little bit hard to judge.What we have learnt in the past few days is that yes the small businesses and the medium-sized businesses and even the large corporations and all the staff whom they employ up and down the country have in fact been overcharged. We have put it to the Government that they have been overcharged to the tune of $350 million every year because the Government has failed to reduce ACC levies to the level that ACC has recommended. The Government has not contested that figure. I just want to say that again. The Government has had plenty of opportunity over the last 2 days to contest that figure and it has not.So what does that mean for ordinary New Zealanders and what does it mean for our economy? Actually if that $350 million was circulating in our local economy rather than sitting in the Government’s coffers propping up the illusion of a Government surplus in the Government’s accounts—here is the irony. If it was back in the economy it would be helping to create that economic growth and it would be creating jobs. Infometrics an independent group of analysts has come up with a figure of 700 jobs. I think that is conservative but it is an independent group so I am not going to criticise its work. Infometrics said that if we charged the correct levy for ACC instead of the trumped-up levy that this Government has come up with because it is trying to create the illusion of a Budget surplus then there would be at least 700 more jobs created out of that. Businesses would have that money in their pockets and they would be able to invest in better technology and in their workforce and they would be able to employ more staff.The other economic stimulus is this—if that money was also back in the pockets of workers instead of sitting in the Government’s accounts it would be getting spent in the local economy. This is just you know—David Seymour: It’s supply-side economics.SUE MORONEY: This is Finance 101 Mr Seymour. If workers actually had that money sitting in their accounts instead of it being paid out in levies that money would be getting spent locally. That would stimulate the economy and it would also create more jobs. It is a pretty simple equation. Even Kim Campbell from the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) gets this. When it was put to him as to whether the proposal coming from the Labour leader Andrew Little that the Government was in fact overcharging ACC levies was correct he said that Andrew Little was dead right. That was the Employers and Manufacturers Association talking about the Labour leader Andrew Little and his assertion—our assertion—that there is an overcharge happening that is quite wrong in respect of the ACC levies on all of those businesses.Kim Campbell said that Andrew Little was dead right. He knows as all businesses do throughout New Zealand that they are in fact being overcharged. They are being used as a cash cow to prop up the Government’s idea of trying to get to a surplus no matter how slim. But it is an illusion and New Zealanders now know it for what it is.If this Budget Policy Statement was to be of any use to New Zealanders it would recognise that fact. The Government would come clean—well it kind of has actually. It has said: “Yes we are using it to prop up the Budget surplus.” It is being honest about it. What that tells us is that the Government has failed. It has failed to bring that surplus about by actually managing this country properly under its fiscal management.I feel sorry for Nikki Kaye. She is the Minister for ACC. She must be so disappointed that instead of her finance Minister and her Government actually stimulating the economy and bringing about a surplus through economic growth they have had to give up say that they have failed and instead have put their hands into the pockets of the Accident Compensation Corporation. They have had to go through the corporation and dip their fingers into the pockets of workers and employers up and down this country simply to try to bring about a promise that they made in the election that they have not been able to bring about by growing the economy. They could not deliver on that election promise by fair means so they are now doing it by foul.ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): What a wonderful day to be here and it so good to see the Opposition members here. I know why they are here and it is because we have reported a surplus today—$77 million for the 7 months to January this year. That is why they are all here—to celebrate this; to be part of this. Thank you for coming.What I want to talk about is how we have got some people on the other side who do not understand how we achieve things like this. It was fascinating to listen to that speech just before by Sue Moroney. The whole issue around good economic growth has been just recently validated by Moody’s. Moody’s is an international independent body that approves and reviews economic performance and it has reaffirmed yet again that we have got a triple A rating.Why are we getting these good reports? First of all we are achieving strong economic growth—3.2 percent for the last year—and independent Treasury reports are forecasting that we are going to achieve similar rates over the next 3 years. That is even higher than the average rate that Labour was achieving when we had a world that was rocking along. We are achieving this in a world that is suffering from recession and from global recovery and yet we can still outperform what was achieved by Labour.We are also seeing interest rates at a 20-year low and that is good for business. I know Sue Moroney referred to businesses before. What low interest rates mean is that people can invest in buying new plant for their businesses. They are spending it on capital expenditure. It is also good for our families. It means that our families can borrow money to buy and build new houses which is exactly what we want to see achieved. We are seeing new jobs. My colleagues have talked about it—80000 last year. That means that over the last 5 years 220000 new jobs have been achieved in this economy and with Treasury’s projection of 153000 new jobs over the next 4 years it means another 230000 jobs. In essence that is nearly 500000 jobs over 10 years. That is a fantastic outcome and that is what is going to keep people in good living standards—by creating jobs that they can earn good money from and where they can have the respect they can get from having a good job and looking after their families.We have also increased incomes. We have seen a 15 percent increase in incomes over the last 5 years—higher than inflation and indeed even with our modest salary rises like most New Zealanders we will be better off because we have tamed inflation at 0.8 percent. We have finally got that bogey under control. That means real increases for all our families and people working in New Zealand.Then we can look at our public sector. We have finally wrestled under control the public sector which was significantly expanded by the Labour Government. It reached 34 percent of GDP; we have now got it down to just over 30 percent. What does that mean? That means nearly $10 billion a year that we can invest in new things like health infrastructure and education—which brings me to health.It is fascinating looking at what is happening in health. We have doubled spending in early childhood education in the last 6 years from $800 million to $1.5 billion. We have increased the participation rates of children under 5 going to early childhood education centres by up to 96 percent. We are investing $600 million in new schools. We are seeing secondary school investment go up by 45 percent. We have got $20 million more invested in special needs—nearly half a billion that we spend on special needs. I know that is not enough but it is a significant amount we are investing in looking after our people and our students who need special care in our schools. Finally there are 12000 more places in tertiary education. Those are all great achievements.When I look at what is happening in my electorate of Hunua on 2 February a brand new school opened—Ormiston Primary School; fantastic. This is a fantastic new school that is one of three in that area. They are top-notch schools and they have wonderful creative environments. I went to Waiuku not long ago—only 3 weeks ago—where there is a fantastic headmaster and principal and he showed me some of their results. Across the board and particularly for Māori the results were outstanding. There are significant improvements. That is what we are trying to achieve in education because when those students come out of school we want to see them going into jobs. This is a part of the programmes that we are putting in place in our electorates to see that transition into good vocational training and into jobs which is where people can get the self-respect I talked about.Just reflecting for a moment on the infrastructure spend we have spent $12 billion over the last 10 years and we are investing another $12 billion over the next 10 years. We are seeing such wonderful improvements. We are completing those roads that have been sitting around for generations. All those improvements around Auckland and the great announcement around the Waikato expressway which will see a motorway linking Cambridge right through to Wellsford—those are the types of things that are going to free up our transport. The investment in rail that we have made and the bridges that we are building all are important components in creating a transport infrastructure that is linked.We have also got our train services. There are all those things that we have invested in in Auckland: the new electric train units and the new tracking. We are now seeing a fantastic pick-up in terms of people utilising the train services in Auckland. There are 13 million trips a year together with 11 million trips that we are seeing in Wellington. That is about good public usage. We want to support public transport.What does this mean? It means good stuff for the regions. There was an aspersion before that our regions were not benefiting apart from Christchurch. Well as my colleague Mr Jami-Lee Ross mentioned before there is a 7.8 percent growth rate in Northland. Those are the types of regional statistics we want to read about.This is a Government that has a plan that is working hard that is achieving results and that is delivering great outcomes. This is not a Government that is seeking to put in place higher taxes and that is a good thing because we have got a fantastic tax system. When I thought with horror about what Labour was proposing with its five new taxes—a capital gains tax an additional tax on high-income earners a carbon tax a regional fuel tax and a water tax—I was musing on how that would affect all those small businesses that Labour is now proclaiming it wants to look after and support. Well I can tell you ladies and gentlemen we are a party that understands small business. Many of us have worked in small businesses and have owned small businesses and we know the difference between talk and actually achieving results.So what are we doing about tax? Well first of all we are reducing tax for families in need. Secondly we are reducing tax on income for work and savings. We are raising the effective tax rate on property developments. We are also providing additional funding for the Inland Revenue Department to target those companies and individuals who are avoiding tax. It is interesting that in the Finance and Expenditure Committee meeting this morning we reflected on the success of the Inland Revenue Department in achieving that. It has collected $750 million more in overdue debt owed to the department and another $1.2 billion on tax-avoidance schemes. This is an Inland Revenue Department focused on protecting and maintaining the integrity of our tax system. Finally we are applying stricter rules to ensure that multinational companies cannot avoid their legitimate tax share for the New Zealand economy.So this is what this Government is about. We are about increasing and improving the economy. When I reflect on the exports for New Zealand they have increased significantly. Non-agricultural exports are up significantly. When you think about the total exports out of this country for the year 2014 at nearly $70 billion I find it an absolute disservice when I hear Opposition members going on about how our firms are not working hard and how we are not achieving enough. We have significantly increased exports by $10 billion over the last 4 years. It is a good thing and we should support our businesses. Thank you very much.A party vote was called for on the question That the House take note of the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Budget Policy Statement 2015.Ayes 63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 57New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 11.Motion agreed to.Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) BillFirst ReadingDebate resumed from 10 March.JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): I was enjoying speaking the last time the House was considering this bill—last night as it happens. I was enjoying the opportunity to speak on this bill because I was happy to outline for the members opposite how this Government is working hard to ensure that research and development investment in our country is encouraged. Research and development investment in our country is being encouraged by this Government through a number of measures most important of which is the over half a billion dollars of research and development grants over the next 4 years that we are putting into our economy to assist organisations and assist businesses to invest in research and development. This bill follows on from that.If I can just point out to the House again this bill has two very important measures regarding research and development encouragement. There are the research and development effectively cash-out tax credits that this bill covers and also the ability for businesses through the changes that we are making around what you would call black hole research and development expenditure to benefit from that. We went over the detail on that last night. I will not talk much further about it but those are important parts of this bill.I also want to touch on the more general aspects around tax and this Government’s ability to say that we have created a fairer tax system for New Zealanders. The fairer tax system that we have in this country which is backed up again by this bill through the annual rates of taxation that this bill outlines is seen in the fact that two-thirds of the value of the 2010 income tax cuts went into reducing the bottom two tax rates. Those who need assistance in life the most and those who are struggling to make ends meet do benefit more from the tax changes that were made in 2010 than many others.Households earning less than $60000 a year are generally expected to pay proportionally less net income tax today than 5 years ago. When you take into account the income support payments that households are receiving households earning less than $60000 a year are expected to pay no net income tax at all. The $2.7 billion of income tax they pay this year will be offset by $8.1 billion in income support that those households receive. Whenever members in this House say that we are not doing enough to assist those who are on the lower income thresholds I can point to the fact that our tax system highlighted and boosted by this bill is fairer and is supporting those people.Finally I want to just touch on the child support reforms this bill talks about. The child support reforms are talked about by the Labour Party when it is complaining about the changes being made by the Inland Revenue Department and its computer system. The reason why the computer system is being changed with the Inland Revenue Department is that we have not actually made substantive changes to child support payments and the system in place there since 1991. I know members opposite sometimes struggle to understand the need for these changes but when a system has not been amended or changed since 1991 naturally there are going to be technological changes that need to follow through with it. Yes there have been difficulties with that system. Yes there have been changes that the Inland Revenue Department has needed to make but as we heard in the Finance and Expenditure Committee today the Minister of Revenue has worked hard to try to get those costs down and find savings. This bill backs up some good stuff the Government is doing. I support it.GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to speak on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill. As members are no doubt aware this is a very large bill that deals with things such as black hole investment tax pooling Working for Families tax credits and a grace period for deregistered charities—a great deal of matters that deal with tax. Members in this House and people across the country know the importance that tax plays in our economy both for the provision of essential services but also as an economic signal.I want to touch on a point raised by the last member Jami-Lee Ross. Jami-Lee Ross talked about the role of innovation research and science. What the member did not raise was how woefully inadequate we are when it comes to supporting innovation research science and technology in New Zealand. We are in the bottom half of the developed world for the amount that New Zealanders spend on innovation on the practical science. When it comes to patents we patent four times less than the average developed nation. There is a limit to how we can grow our economy. When it comes to cramming cows on paddocks with grass there is a limit. We are seeing it in our paddocks and streams. But there is no limit to the amount of technology intellectual property services and entrepreneurs starting up new companies. There is no limit to the amount of services we could be exporting around the world via internet cables or by selling intellectual property. That is the future for New Zealand: true innovation. I congratulate Callaghan Innovation on some of the work we have seen when it comes to tax credits but it is still a drop in the bucket and is not competitive with our international peers. I want to see a country that supports innovation that is near the top that is producing more patents that is getting richer off the back of it because ultimately what the Green Party stands for is a richer New Zealand.At the Education and Science Committee today—I just want to tell a brief anecdote with regard to GNS Science geological and nuclear sciences. This is a company that invests a great deal of taxpayers’ money in finding oil but it also has a lot of geothermal energy expertise. This is an amazing growth area around the world. It is a true success story that New Zealand is exporting some of the geothermal tax credit based on the innovation developed in Waiariki in New Zealand in the 1950s. But guess how many patents this Crown research entity achieved last year? Two. It achieved two patents. We can do much better as a country as Crown research institutes and businesses if we have the right tax incentives. This is why one of the big debates within the sector is whether we should be doing the growth grants as Minister Joyce splashes his largesse across the country or whether we should be supporting research and development tax credits.Tax credits you could argue are fairer. You could argue that it takes out the politicisation of people or a particular group of people appointed by a Minister who picks who the winners are. Again another anecdote from the select committee today was heard from Callaghan Innovation. It had given more than $670000 to Trans-Tasman Resources a majority foreign - owned company with a former Prime Minister as a board member. It was given $670000 from Callaghan Innovation to attempt to mine the ironsands in the habitats and feeding grounds of Māui’s dolphins and blue whales—$670000 of taxpayers’ money for a company that could not even get a consent under National’s Environmental Protection Authority.While we are talking about tax research and development matters let us make sure we are looking to the future in terms of the global trends in terms of clean energy IT innovation and science. It is not about looking to the past when we talk about mining or cramming more cows on paddocks. We will never compete with Uruguay or China to cram more cows on our paddocks and trash our environment faster. We will not compete with Australia to dig more holes. We can compete on our strengths which are our knowledge our education our “niches” as Sir Paul Callaghan said and our innovation. This is our future—one based on innovation. The Green Party members are proud to have produced many positive pragmatic policy solutions and we will continue to champion that as we debate tax research and development and other matters. Kia ora.RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and on behalf of my colleague Fletcher Tabuteau to take a call in this first reading of the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill. New Zealand First will be supporting this bill at least to the select committee in the first instance. Bills of this type are generally—or at least we hope they are generally—of a largely non-controversial nature. This is an omnibus bill which makes amendments to no fewer than 10 other Acts with the intention that the current tax settings are improved within as the general policy statement says “a broad-base low rate framework.” This is a commendable intention and we wholeheartedly support it.The general policy statement speaks of fairness of evenness of minimising biases and of the crucial nature of these things in terms of encouraging voluntary compliance which is of course the basis of any successful long-term ongoing taxation regime. We do have some questions and a few concerns in part regarding the sheer number of technical amendments and drafting clarifications contained in the bill—or more to the point the fact that so many appear to have been necessary in what is a large number of Acts affected by this proposed legislation. The taxpaying public in the business community have an expectation—I would contend a right—to expect that tax policy should be very thoroughly thought through and that all the bugs should be ironed out before it becomes law especially given that the penalties for non-compliance are frequently very severe. That so many fixes appear to have been identified and will be addressed is a good thing in the sense that we will gain a better tax system out of it but at the same time it is concerning for New Zealand First that there were so many to begin with.I want to focus on a relatively small number of the areas in which we do have concerns and these are things that we look forward to having examined in greater depth at the select committee. Amongst these is the review of the child support scheme reform to amend the Child Support Amendment Act 2013. There are a number of inconsistencies within this review that we believe are worthy of closer investigation. Section 38 which would have introduced mandatory automatic deductions of child support from employment income will be repealed. When non-compliance is already high we have to ask why this provision is being repealed. Section 38 would also have allowed discretion to recognise other payments such as the payment of school fees and the direct payment of costs associated with additional extracurricular activities such as camps sporting activities and so forth as a percentage of child support payments where these payments directly benefit the child. This is also to be repealed and New Zealand First believes that this is not only counter-intuitive but also counter-productive in terms of delivering better outcomes for children living in circumstances where they are to a large degree estranged from at least one parent.A new definition of “adjustable net income” which includes income adjustments to taxable income such as income in trusts and companies has also been repealed. Again we ask why. The Inland Revenue Department states that changes to the child support scheme reforms enacted in 2013 but not yet enforced are being made to firstly increase priority of reducing child support debt and also to reduce the administrative cost of implementing the reforms. The June 2014 regulatory impact statement prepared by the Inland Revenue Department notes that there has been limited consultation on the options within its statement given the timing restraints on decision making and the sensitivity of the decisions being considered. The Inland Revenue Department’s regulatory impact statement considers whether other options might be cheaper but also just as effective.The question to be asked is whether these chosen components of reform will effectively contribute to a reduction in child support debt. That debt now exceeds $3 billion and some three-quarters of that amount is in the form of penalties which of course do not benefit children directly. New Zealand First acknowledges that the 1991 scheme was in many cases out of date and out of line with social expectations as they have evolved. This undermines some parents’ incentives to meet their child support obligations. The main change in the 2013 reforms was to shift the focus of the child support formula to the level of support that is required from each parent for each qualifying child. With a greater range of shared care the income of all parents of the child including legal step-parents and the average cost of raising a child were all considered by the 2013 reforms. These changes were in the original new amendments amendments that were meant to be implemented on 1 April. But now 10 days after this 153-page bill including its commentary were tabled in the House and with the original amendment having gone through three readings and passed for changes this new bill changes key aspects of the child support system. They are not small tweaks; these are big flip-flops. We ask why.If this is as has been suggested by more than one commentator with regard to section 38 to stop common law from being broken in the form of legalised theft through the mandatory induction of contributions from taxable income does this mean that the law has been broken up until now? Has this issue simply been overlooked at all these preceding stages of the Act which is going to be amended? Or is it because it has been decided that it would be too difficult and expensive to ensure the right process is taken so the Minister has simply chosen to throw it out instead? Finally why with such big reversals and changes in some aspects of how child support is paid does it appear to have been hidden in this great behemoth of a bill? If there were good reasons New Zealand First would have been happy enough to have been apprised of them earlier than this and probably would have supported them.Almost lastly there is the matter of the cash-out of research and development tax losses. Research and development is recognised as a key element in the business growth and innovation process. High upfront costs associated with research and development mean that the profit cycle for research and development projects can be more heavily skewed towards early losses. This of course can be a significant barrier for innovative start-up companies and current tax settings can create cash-flow problems for small and medium sized businesses. These small to medium sized enterprises cannot offset research and development costs against existing streams of income in the way that larger firms are able to do; they do not have the same buffer. Current tax settings can also penalise businesses that engage in research and development that ultimately turns out to be unsuccessful. Current tax provisions state that losses from unsuccessful research and development can only be used going forward if there is a subsequent profitable business.The proposed changes focus on start-up companies engaging in intensive research and development. The changes intend to reduce these companies’ exposure to market failures and tax distortions. Clauses 192 and 213 deal with proposed eligibility requirements and the amount of the cash-out. New Zealand First will be interested in the select committee’s recommendations around the other clauses that deal with the administration and the reinstatement of losses.Finally there are the reporting requirements for employers in the agriculture horticulture and viticulture industries. Clause 224 repeals section 24O of the Tax Administration Act 1994 a section that created a great deal of red tape and trapped employers in the agriculture horticulture and viticulture industries with a requirement to provide the Inland Revenue Department with information about employees covered by an exemption certificate or a special tax rates certificate. This section imposed unreasonable costs on employers and indeed unreasonable inconvenience for the Inland Revenue Department itself and was not effective at identifying non-compliant employees. We have to question whether there was ever much to be gained in the grand scheme of things by attempting to identify what is essentially a very low-end problem anyway.In closing I reiterate that New Zealand First will be supporting this bill at least to the select committee. We do have some concerns. We look forward to examining the bill in greater detail there. Thank you.ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It is a pleasure to be standing here in support of the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill. This is an important bill as it is part of an ongoing reform of our taxation system aimed at making our tax system fairer and simpler. Let us be clear: New Zealand has a tax system that is the envy of the world. It is simple to understand it is simple to implement it is transparent and it is not subject to a whole lot of exemptions and complexity. That is why we do not want our Opposition in power as it would want to introduce a whole range of additional taxes—and I spoke about this earlier. These would complicate our efficient tax system. The difference with this bill is that it is about reducing tax on our families in need. It is about reducing tax on income from work and net savings. It is about raising the effective tax rate on property development. Fourthly it is about providing additional funding for the Inland Revenue Department to target property speculators and tax avoiders. And fifthly it has brought in stricter rules to ensure multinational companies contribute their fair tax in New Zealand.I want to concentrate on some of the elements of this bill. Firstly it is quite simply about ensuring that those in need pay less taxeffectively. I am proud to be part of the Government that—these changes now mean that after taking into account support payments households earning less than $60000 a year pay no net tax at all. To put this in context those with a family of three children and earning $48000 a year after taking into account Working for Families support earn effectively $73000 per annum. That is fantastic and when I look at some of the families living in my electorate this is an important contribution to improving the lifestyle and standards for those families—in particular their children. This is a Government that has a heart a soul and a desire to improve the well-being of all New Zealanders.Secondly part of this bill is about creating the right environment to encourage companies to invest in research and development. This Government has been very focused on growing the economy even faster than we have achieved in recent times and I have already noted earlier tonight that we have achieved above-normal growth rates in the last year and projected over the next few years. Our objective is for the Government to reach a stage where it is contributing 1 percent of all GDP into research and development funding by 2018 and we are well on the way to meeting that target.We have got some wonderful examples in this country of where companies have benefited from Government support to achieve very successful results. Picking up on the talk of the Greens member Gareth Hughes one of those examples is LanzaTech a company with world-leading technology to process flue gases generated from the emissions from steel-making. They are now involved in a major pilot plant in China. This was very successful technology that is now being applied worldwide.Another example is PowerbyProxi a great Auckland-based company that had its genesis out of Auckland University. It is now a leader in developing a range of exciting new technologies and intellectual property. Interestingly it measures success in terms of the number of new patents it files which is a great measure to adopt. Again I note what the earlier speaker said—here is a company actually focused explicitly on achieving patents and seeing how they can be deployed successfully into commercial applications. Another example is Serko recently listed on the New Zealand Exchange. Again it benefited from research and development funding to fast track the development of a number of its products. A fourth example is the very successful Xero which also benefited from technology development grants to continue help it exist and expand its export growth.This bill goes further to support businesses that are prepared to commit to investing in new technology and intellectual property for the benefit of all New Zealanders. Specifically the bill amends the Income Tax Act 2007 to do two things. First of all it allows tax loss - making research and development companies—normally they are start-up companies—to cash-out their tax losses from research and development expenditure. The amount is initially capped at $500000 but this Government is increasing that by $300000 so that eventually the cap will be $2 million. Secondly it is going to reduce the distortions that occur from what is called black hole research and development expenditure. The proposed amendments seek to allow that expenditure either to be capitalised over an equivalent depreciation period or if the intangible asset is written off to be written off at that point in time.I would just like to note that research and development expenditure sometimes results in success and sometimes not. That is part of the normal rules of research and development. These rules seek to balance those interests to ensure our entrepreneurs continue to want to invest in New Zealand and in developing new products and services. I hear some Opposition members claiming: “This is not fair. This is not appropriate.” The reality is that these shareholders assume substantial risk and provide significant cash to finance these research and development activities and it is only appropriate that we do what we can as a Government to support such activities. In fact those who have read the book Get Off the Grass by Professor Paul Callaghan and Shaun Hendy were unequivocal in recommending that the Government continue to foster investment in research and development. There is a symbiotic relationship between the private sector and the public sector when it comes to research and development.We as a Government have an overwhelming need to continue to invest in public-good research and development because out of that comes many ideas that have commercial application. As a country we must continue to invest in adding value to our important industries as well as creating new industries as this is how we are going to create new jobs—higher-paying jobs that all New Zealanders desire and deserve.The third thing I want to turn my mind to is the child support reforms. This Government is focused on reducing the size and growth of child support debt. Along with the changes in this bill the reforms should ensure greater compliance and a reduction in the $3.2 billion of outstanding child support debt. The bill clarifies some of the debt write-off provisions. It inserts a wider definition around adjusted net income to take into account income from trusts and companies. It also allows for the ability to offset current payments against past debts and it introduces discretion to recognise other payments such as the payment of school fees as qualifying child support payments. In essence this is about looking after the interests of the child and making sure that both partners pay their fair share towards the upbringing of their children. This is essentially an issue of equity.Changes in respect of controlled foreign companies and foreign investment funds are also very important as they really set about reducing some of the deductions available to people calculating income from controlled foreign companies where they involve prepayments. This is consistent with the current treatment for New Zealand resident companies. The bill also makes some changes around the grouping of foreign controlled company rules. These changes are good business. They protect children. They encourage investment in research and development and they tighten up the rules relating to foreign controlled companies. I commend this bill to the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Jan Logie 5 minutes.JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to offer the Green Party’s support for this bill. The reasons for our support have been quite well traversed by my colleague Gareth Hughes in the first speech and I will focus my contribution primarily on the aspects of this bill that deal with child support which we do indeed have concerns with. Actually these aspects I think demonstrate what I have already referred to today as this Government’s masquerade of competence. It was less than 2 years ago that this House passed legislation that was presented as a comprehensive review of the child support laws. Yet here we are again fixing up prior mistakes and the cost overrun for the implementation of those reforms has been projected to be as much as $180 million. So if anyone is still holding on to the myth of National Party competence I hope this bill this aspect of this bill puts that to rest.The reforms passed less than 2 years ago are just now starting to bed in. I must say I am certainly getting quite a few emails expressing concerns about those changes none of which are addressed in the provisions in this bill. This bill is entitled the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill—so do not look at child support. It is nothing to do with that the Government would suggest whereas there are some very significant provisions in this bill that are fixing up prior mistakes and that hold very real potential risks for the safety and well-being of New Zealanders. So we are currently supporting this bill but we will be closely scrutinising its child support provisions at the select committee.Some of the aspects of concern for us are that this bill replaces the compulsory automatic deduction of child support from wages for liable parents with voluntary wage deduction processes although compulsory deductions will remain for parents in default and for beneficiaries. Our concern is that we believe that this is likely to result in increasing defaults and the possibility of coercion by the liable parent to agree to child support not being automatically deducted from wages. This bill also creates an opt-out option for parents if they both agree to treat payments as a private matter rather than a liability through the Inland Revenue Department. So it creates more of a negotiation more of an opt-out and makes it more optional.I need to again remind this House of the context that this legislation sits within which is the situation where one in five women in this country right now are either being physically or psychologically abused in their relationships. In 1996 a safety survey found that 70 percent of separated women have experienced some form of domestic violence. Seventy percent—seven zero—of women had experienced some form of domestic violence. So to introduce the concept of optionality of negotiation into a context where domestic violence is so present is frankly dangerous. Only 20 percent of domestic violence is picked up by our police. You cannot have negotiation in a context of abuse. That cannot be stressed enough. So this bill potentially puts the livelihood and well-being of children at risk.The bill also introduces further changes around ending formula assessments that will not be able to be undone as they are at the moment because the Government has decided that so many things are being reversed that it has become too costly. So the Government is removing the right to change some of these decisions. Again I remind this House that in the context of domestic violence it is possible that some of the initial decisions are going to be wrong and harmful for families. And to remove the right of people to get the decision changed is just deeply worrying. Again I do have to point out that I am not exaggerating when I say that child support is used as a weapon against women and children in this country and these changes potentially give abusers more ammunition.Debate interrupted.Personal ExplanationsQuestion No. 2 to Minister—Child Poverty StatisticsMETIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I seek leave to make a personal statement.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): In regard to?METIRIA TUREI: It is in regard to inadvertently misleading the House this afternoon.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): A Minister normally asks for leave to do that. I will check with the Clerk; one moment please. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection.METIRIA TUREI: I sought leave to make a personal explanation under Standing Order 358. I am concerned that I may have inadvertently misled the House this afternoon during question time when I accidentally implied that 90 percent of all children in all schools go without lunch. That of course is not true. I agree that we must not make untrue statements in this House. What I intended to say and failed to say at the time was that KidsCan said that 23 percent on average and up to 90 percent of the children in the schools it works with as an organisation need lunch every day. I think that that is an important fact to put before—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! You cannot comment on that because it is a debating point.Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) BillFirst ReadingDebate resumed.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am calling Dr David Clark—5 minutes.Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill. As we confirm the annual rates it is important to remember from the outset that the confirmation of tax rates includes the confirmation of the tax cuts that National brought in previously for the wealthiest New Zealanders. That tax package early on that brought 40 percent of the benefits to the wealthiest 10 percent of New Zealanders—over 40 percent actually—and the bottom 20 percent of earners got just 2 percent most of which was followed up immediately in a GST increase which went against the Prime Minister’s promise. New Zealanders today are still paying as taxpayers in terms of service cuts and so on for those tax changes that the Government brought in. We are being asked here today to confirm those in the House. So it is with some reservation that we support this bill to the select committee.We on this side of the House are a party that wants all New Zealanders to get ahead not just the very few at the top. We note that median wages have been stubborn and that New Zealanders have not had real increases in their wages under this Government only a few at the top. In fact many are worse off. Many of those small businesses that struggle day to day where people risk their shirts have gone under under this Government. There are fewer small businesses than there were under Labour. We also know that with the ACC overcharging $350 million more of ACC burden is being borne by the business people of New Zealand than is strictly necessary. So we have reservations.We also have reservations of course because this bill is seeking to implement a range of new tax changes that will require IT adjustments and we know that the Inland Revenue Department has struggled consistently and over time to implement tax changes. In fact there was of course a very embarrassing situation Mr McClay found himself in as a new Minister at Christmas 2013 announcing when he had hoped the press gallery had gone home to their Christmas turkey that there was going to be a postponement of the child support changes. That will have been long after many families made adjustments to their personal circumstances—took on extra debt maybe celebrated the fact that they had slightly smaller payments to make and bought their children some Christmas presents or took on some laybys—and then they were told by Mr McClay that the Inland Revenue Department was not going to be able to implement the policy. Parliament was then forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars putting another bill through this House just to reverse out the changes for 1 year to give the Inland Revenue Department time to try to implement the changes. So we have some reservations about the Inland Revenue Department’s ability to implement the changes in this bill.In 2013 in fact we had that change but before that in 2012—Valentine’s Day in fact—John Key made a promise perhaps in the romantic rush of the day. He promised to get on to fixing that computer system. In 2012 John Key said on Valentine’s Day that we cannot be held hostage to old technology and we cannot have the case where we cannot implement new policy. Well 3 years on—the Valentine’s Days are flying by—and John Key has broken that promise it seems. And just recently we have learnt of more IT cost blowouts at the Inland Revenue Department. The implementation of the child support legislation has gone from the $30 million initially budgeted to now $163 million to implement the child support changes.This is a Government that is playing fast and loose with taxpayers’ cash. It is asking ordinary New Zealanders to tighten their belts. It is asking those small-business people to pay more ACC levies and to cope with more red tape and all the while it is funding the tax cuts for the very wealthiest New Zealanders while middle New Zealand is slipping behind and struggling. We want this Government to focus on the issues that matter to ordinary New Zealanders on jobs that could be created if it was not overcharging for ACC and on making sure that it does fair deals not the Novopay debacle and not the corporate welfare handouts to Skycity to preserve its bottom line but to actually look after small businesses in New Zealand and ordinary New Zealanders and help them to get ahead and to get good jobs and decent wages.ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): It gives me great pleasure to speak on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015–16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill. First of all I would like to say that this bill is one that continues a theme—a theme of making it easier for small businesses to conduct their business. It allows a continuation of a theme whereby bureaucracy is removed so that people can get on and create employment amongst their communities and so that families can get on and aspire to better and more prosperous times ahead. As we have heard already we have already created 80000 new jobs in the last 12 months and part of that is to do with the removing of bureaucracy as we have it.In the Finance and Expenditure Committee today an example of that was given. The Inland Revenue Department has gone out and has been consulting with communities. It has got good feedback and new ideas of ways to further reduce bureaucracy. A simple example is the GST double click with a nil return and you are done. The Rules Reduction Taskforce is out and about. That is focused more on compliance issues and red tape relating to councils. Again the National Party is leading the way.Grant Robertson suggested that this amendment bill is actually quite complicated and is adding further to the complication and to the compliance regime that is out there. I can tell him that it is not. It actually encourages research and development. It removes a bit of an impediment if you like for small businesses to conduct research and development. By way of research and development this Government is investing $750 million in the Primary Growth Partnership alongside industry. That research that investment into 20 projects relating to meat wool dairy fishing bees forestry viticulture and horticulture is targeting an increase in GDP of between $5 billion and $10 billion. That is the sort of outcome we want to achieve from increased and improved research and development.I will give you a little example of what this bill can achieve. The first part of this bill is about the cashing-out of research and development tax losses. That relates to and supports small businesses in the following way. In the current situation you have got large businesses that are making revenue streams and they go out and conduct some research. They can earn say $100 of taxable income and then they decide to invest $100 in research and development. The current law says that their taxable income nets out and there is no tax to pay no refund to receive. But if you can split those two $100 amounts into a positive into two separate businesses you will note that if it was only $100 revenue that company would pay away $28 in tax. If then on the other side of the income statement there is a $100 loss effectively that large business has been able to get that $28 back into the business creating a nil taxable cash flow. That is what happens today with large businesses that are earning income streams.For a small guy it is not the case. He does not have any income streams. He has just got an idea. He has got a dream to be able to create something new something that is going to earn him an income something that he can create to export sell off whatever it might be. But of course that is going to be a negative cash flow for a day a week a month or several years. He or she is going to get cash from their own pocket and they will go to their family and friends and then will go to the wider community. As an aside this Government has now introduced peer-to-peer lending as a way of that person accessing the capital markets and also crowd-funding legislation which again gives that individual that small-business man access to capital markets. Then of course we have the secondary and primary stock exchanges in New Zealand.So already the small-business man is better off under this Government because of the legislation we have passed that gives him access to that capital market which is really important because we know that capital is a must is essential to growing our businesses to growing our economy. That is why I find it really odd that the Opposition or any party would propose a capital gains tax. A capital gains tax does exactly the opposite. It discourages people from investing capital. The proposal from the Opposition only encourages people to buy Auckland houses which is of course an exemption under its capital gains policy. So there is an inconsistency on the other side of the House which sort of goes without saying. I mean Labour is not sure whether it is supporting itscandidate in Northland or Winston Peters. It is still quite confused and I really do not believe that most of those people across the House support a capital gains tax. I really do not believe they can support a capital gains tax.Let me get back to the small-business man who is still at a disadvantage in the case where he takes $100 from his own pocket—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but the time has come for me to leave the Chair.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.ALASTAIR SCOTT: I was at the point of explaining the change in the deductibility or the timing of the deductibility relating to the cashing-out of research and development tax losses. I had explained the situation under the current legislation whereby large businesses are able to offset research and development costs against their income streams. I was beginning to explain the current situation with regard to small businesses. A small business is able to create a hell of a lot of losses in their research and development costs taking cash from their own pockets their families and any other supporters that they have but paying the full cost—that full $100 in my example earlier.So a full $100 goes out of that developer’s pocket. In the current situation he can carry those losses forward from year to year to year until such time that income is generated and he can use those losses against that taxable or assessable income to eventually hopefully and possibly create a positive cash flow a positive profit situation in the future. That is obviously a disadvantage compared with the larger business which has positive cash flows from day one. So this legislation enables the investor or the researcher and developer to take those $100 losses in our example and collect that $28 as a rebate as a tax credit. In other words the investor is equalised and is in the same situation and is not penalised for being a small researcher and developer. He is in the same situation as a larger cash flow - positive business.That is important because we need to make sure that we do have an even playing field a fair system and that size does not matter so that the small business guys who have a great idea who want to create an opportunity and who want to get ahead are treated on the same basis as any large corporate that does have a positive cash-flow situation. Once we get those guys up and running once we get those guys humming and creating revenue or at least being able to break even and perhaps even to sell that intellectual property or that patent that they have created it obviously generates a taxable situation so the Government can spend that money. It can spend that tax on targeted assistance where the investment matters.This Government is focusing on that liability—the liability side of our balance sheet. We know where the costs are going to be coming from. We know that the sole parent support benefit is important and we know that every sole mum or dad who comes off the benefit saves us hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. In my electorate I am pleased to say that from December 2013 to December 2014 we have had a reduction of more than 10 percent in those numbers.STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): I am rising to speak in support of the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill. First of all I would just like to address a couple of the points made by previous speakers on the Government side. I think a couple of them actually need correcting. The first one is one of the members who held up LanzaTech as a great example of a New Zealand company that had received a whole lot of grants from the Government and said was not this company and the technology it had created wonderful. Well yes it was a very good story up to a point. That point however was crossed when it realised that there was not the business environment within this country that allowed it to stay here. LanzaTech is a great example of a New Zealand company that came up with a fantastic innovative idea and then went to the United States of America. It has an American chief executive officer. Its head office is based in the United States and it is doing all its work out of America. The reason for that is because this Government did not create the sort of environment that allows these companies to stay here employ Kiwis earn export dollars and thrive and grow into big companies. They felt as if they had to go to the United States. This is where the current business regime is wrong.The thing about these research and development tax credits which are a great idea—they have been Labour’s policy for the last two elections—is that perhaps if these had existed 6 years ago then perhaps companies or organisations like LanzaTech would be able to stay in New Zealand. I do not know the exact reasons why it left even though I have talked to some of the people who work there. It just did not feel as if New Zealand was supportive enough. This is the amazing thing. We often hear that National is the party of business but when you look at the policies it is actually Labour that creates the environment that allows businesses to thrive. I remember talking to one of my very good friends in business and he said to me: “I have got a real dilemma. I am a businessman. Mum and Dad were National but my business always does better under Labour.” I think that is the feeling across a lot of the business sector because there is more money in the economy there are a lot more incentives for business to grow and we support them a lot more as opposed to being hands-off.The research and development tax credit in this bill is not a bad idea. Anything that gives small businesses a chance has got to be good. But I suspect that when we come back for the second reading Committee stage and third reading this bill will look quite different. The reason I say this—and let us not get caught up in the fact that this is about small businesses—is first of all that the business has got to be able to make a loss. So if they are making a loss after 5 years it gets really expensive and they can claim only up to a maximum of $2 million after 5 years. How this bill defines “sufficient intensity of activity in R and D”—that is the definition of whether a company is going to be allowed to claim this research and development tax back—is where a “… proportion of expenditure on labour that is engaged in R and D is used as a proxy to measure this intensity.” Well good luck with that.The reason I say that is we often hear that New Zealand has one of the lowest research and development spends in the OECD. In fact Andrew Bayly talked before about how the Government has an aspiration of 1 percent of GDP spent on research and development. Goodness me! If that is aspirational then heaven help us. It is generally accepted that to get the really high end of research and development spend you need about 14 to 20 percent of your revenue spent on research and development. So 1 percent is about what Fonterra spends and that is why we are a huge commodity economy based on exchange rates and international variables that we have no control over. If we really want to get to a highly specialised non-commodity economy then 1 percent spent on research and development? Goodness me!Part of the problem at the moment is that for the vast majority of research and development you have got to capitalise it so you cannot expense it. I suspect that if you actually went out to companies and said “OK you can expense all your research and development no matter if you are big or small or whatever size.” suddenly you would find that the research and development spend in this country would be significantly higher than it is at the moment. But what people do at this point in time is they do not call it research and development; they call it an operational expense or “whatever it is” expense. I suspect that that might happen with this bill. As someone on the Finance and Expenditure Committee I know that I and my colleagues will be looking very hard at this to make sure it cannot be gamed. The classic case is to say: “Oh well we have got to have a portion of expenditure on labour that is engaged in research and development to be able to claim this back.” and then to say to Joe who is sweeping the floors “That is a very innovative broom mate. You are doing a lot of good work. You are engaged in research and development.”The thing about a tax system is that it has got to have a high level of integrity. One of the speakers before talked about the fact that our tax system is very simple and it is fair. Well that is true by and large but if we put processes or taxes or tax rebates in place that are easily gamed then that erodes the integrity of the tax system. However one of the speakers—and I must admit we have got to be a little bit careful here as he has a lot to gain—talked about the evils of a capital gains tax. Mr Scott has done very well and we applaud that. We accept his success. But I suspect that if he had to sell some of his assets he would be up for a mighty big capital gains tax bill. If he did it now under National he would be fine. I would not want to say there is a conflict of interest at all but the thing about a capital gains tax is it makes the system fair. What it actually does—and I am just responding to a query that was put forward over here—is it says that if you are earning revenue then you should pay tax on it. I think that is a fundamental principle of any tax system. Tax avoidance through not paying capital gains tax is really ripping off the whole country and I do not think that is right at all in any way shape or form.The interesting thing is we hear from the Government benches that this bill is designed to help small companies reduce their tax compliance etc. Well the interesting fact is that people in one or two-person companies—so we are talking about the tradesman the tradeswoman—are very good at what they do and then they go out and employ one or two people to help the business grow. They are never going to be a Fletcher’s or a Carter Holt Harvey but they serve the community well. These are the companies that are the backbone of our economy. They spend about 15 percent of revenue on tax compliance. I do not know whether they would say that the tax system is fair and simple. I suspect that they would argue that it could be a lot simpler and perhaps could be a lot fairer but that is the nature of business. I think the great thing about Labour is that we signalled at the last election and we will certainly take it into 2017 a much fairer tax system for all businesses but especially for small businesses.Spending 15 percent of your revenue on tax compliance I think any member would agree is simply too much of a burden.The other thing about this bill is child support. I think everyone every MP who has sat in an MP’s office and heard constituents would agree that a simple effective child support system that makes it easier for children is an absolute must. There is no doubt about this at all. But I will tell you that already this last week I have had two constituents whom I met with in my office say: “This is ridiculous. I’m a hell of a lot worse off. I don’t know how I’m going to cope.” I have no doubt at all that this bill will go through—we are supporting it—but the child support legislation will be back in this House again and again because we have not got it right. We simply have not got it right. The thing that concerns me is that when we talked about child support there was an initial budget of $30 million. To you and me $30 million spent on a system sounds like a lot of money. But no then it went up to $130 million. You would think we were in the wrong game. It was $130 million for a system that is a tack-on to the current system. But no wait there is more. Now they are talking about $200 million for child support.One thing we do know is that at the moment in New Zealand about 25 percent of children live in poverty. That is not a Labour or a National measure; that is a measure put forward by the Children’s Commissioner. I suspect $200 million would have made a whole lot of children really happy. But no it is going to be spent on the child support system. It started at $30 million; it is now $200 million. How much further is this going to go? This has turned what was a reasonably simple process but it needed tweaking into quite a complicated one.The last point I will make Mr Deputy Speaker before you tell me to stand down is that I remember Peter Dunne saying promising in 2008 that he was going to revise the child support regime and it would be done in a year. I as our revenue spokesperson asked him about five times when it was coming. It is a little bit like déjà vu. I am back. I might as well not have taken 3 years off. We are still dealing with it now. I do not think that is fair to the mothers and the fathers of New Zealand but especially to the children of New Zealand. Thank you very much.STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): It is a pleasure to speak on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill. Tax does matter. A good tax system is essential in a modern democracy. There are certainly tax systems in less-than-desirable political systems but it really matters that we get a tax system that delivers to the Government enough money to provide the goods and services that it needs to enable it to support the people who cannot support themselves whilst not putting an impediment on business and investment. A great example of good tax support is the income support payments that households receive. Those households that earn a combined income of less than $60000 and get income support do not effectively pay tax because of the support they get back. That is as it should be. People who cannot look after themselves or are in a position of disadvantage are benefited by income support. But from time to time tax systems need to be tweaked and brought up to speed and that is what this bill does.I want to focus on the research and development side of the bill. I think that is a fantastic initiative and something that we need to ensure businesses grow. I am going to give a few examples this evening. Regional economies are what drive New Zealand’s economy despite what many people might think. Certainly 80 percent of New Zealand’s aquaculture and 80 percent of New Zealand’s wine production come from the Kaikōura electorate my electorate.Simon O’Connor: How much?STUART SMITH: It is 80 percent.Simon O’Connor: That’s huge.STUART SMITH: It is massive. In addition to that of course we have very strong agricultural forestry fishing manufacturing and tourism industries and a bit of aviation thrown in for good measure. But amongst some of those businesses—and I will go back to aquaculture. One person who is well known nowadays whose name everyone should know if they drink a bottle wine now and again is Peter Yealands. He started out in the aquaculture industry. He had an idea. He wanted to go mussel farming and he tried to design his own mussel floats. He started out with concrete floats—and concrete does float if you do it right. But it was not all that successful so he decided he would develop plastic mussel floats. It took a number of tries until he got an idea and a bit of a design in his mind. He developed this on his own and then bought the machinery to make the floats. If anyone has seen a mussel farm today those floats were developed by Peter Yealands. But that took a lot of investment and it took time. He put all of that money in himself. There were a number of iterations before he got something that worked properly. But that is a big cost on a small business and it was a small business.My colleague Alastair Scott was talking before about the example of a small business that is not making any revenue but putting up a whole lot of costs to develop things. Peter of course has gone into the wine industry now and it is a very innovative wine industry. Peter has now got the largest solar panel array in private hands on the roof of his winery. In addition to that he has developed other innovative ways to generate energy. He bales up grapevine prunings into a round bale puts them into a large circular boiler and uses the heat gathered from that to heat the water and run his winery. That is another innovation that came from Peter. Again that is a lot of innovation driven by money and investment by a relatively small company although it is a lot bigger now.The wine industry is a hotbed of innovation as indeed a lot of agricultural industries are. In the wine industry stripping the grapevines when they have been pruned—that is taking all the canes out that are not required—is the most physically demanding job in the vineyard. What individuals have done is develop machines to do this rather than having to do the work manually and leaving all the skilled workers—as it was often the skilled ones who were doing the cuts—having to strip the grapevines out. So it is much more productive. It was Walter Langlois who designed a stripping machine with two counter-rotating car tyres. The machine is driven along above the trellis it strips all the vine trimmings out and they go through a mulcher. So that was a good innovation. He developed that in his backyard after having a small vineyard and deciding there had to be a better way. Once again he invested the time and the energy and had a number of trials before he got the right thing. But the KLIMA company has developed a far more sophisticated machine now which does a fantastic job. It has developed it over a number of years and now sells it in all the winegrowing regions around the world. It is a fantastic piece of machinery. It takes quite a bit to explain how it works so I will not go into that tonight but that is another great thing.The pruning of grapevines we might think is something that will never be anything but manual work but in fact there is quite a lot of work going on through—I think it is—Canterbury University’s engineering department in designing a robotic pruner. One of the big problems that it had in designing this pruner was getting a viable 3-D image of the grapevine so that it could make a decision as to which canes to cut and the problem with it was shadow in the canopy. So the university has designed a shroud that goes over the trellis to keep the daylight out and the 3-D cameras—[Interruption] Yes I am pulling it in. This is all tax credits.Stuart Nash: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I anticipate what the member’s point of order is. I have indicated to the speaker that he should—sit down please—bring his contribution back to—[Interruption] Sit down—sit down. As interesting as it was and as entertaining as it was and as much fun as it was to see other members get upset the member must pull in his contribution to the provisions of the bill please. Continue.STUART SMITH: Well a number of my colleagues enjoy a glass of wine and I rather thought that they might like to know what went into it. The point is that innovation is driven by people making an investment. That investment costs money it costs time and it is often the small businesses that are doing it and that is why these tax credits are so important.There are so many aspects of this bill that I could talk on but I actually think that research and development is the most important part of it and it is one thing that a National Government will support. We have heard a lot of talk this evening about a tax that we do not even have—a capital gains tax—so I thought that that was quite broad. But Mr Deputy Speaker can I broaden my argument out to why we should not have a capital gains tax. A capital gains tax would be all very well if it covered every aspect like the family home but of course the people who are advocating for having a capital gains tax do not want that to be a part of the system. And why is that? Well the simple taxes are the best and a capital gains tax has a major problem. It is very lumpy. You gain the tax only when the property is being sold.Carmel Sepuloni: The biggest problem is it affects that Government and all of their mates. That’s the biggest problem with it.STUART SMITH: Oh well if people are concerned about mates I guess that would be why they do not want the family home involved. I think that is a good demonstration of why a good simple tax system should not include a capital gains tax.Stuart Nash: It’s OK all is forgiven—talk about wine again.STUART SMITH: Yes well actually I know quite a bit about CarbonScape which is another industry in Marlborough that is still in the innovation stage and that company has yet to make a dollar from selling anything. It has developed a system where through microwave technology it can make coke to go into high-grade steel-making. That company has spent a lot of time and money developing that technology without getting a dollar from income but under the new innovations in this taxation bill that company can get a rebate on that. That is fantastic for business.Brett Hudson: Pragmatic support.STUART SMITH: It is pragmatic—absolutely. This is a Government that understands business it understands the difficulties that businesses have to go through and this company will have great products other than that. There is graphene which is a very fascinating material. It is likely to be the new plastic. There will be wearable carbon film that is one atom thick and that will be what will drive our new mobile phones and wearable technology. So that company has come a long way.Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker for allowing me to inform the House on a number of matters. I am sure that people who enjoy a glass of wine will be in a much better situation to understand how it got there. Thank you. I commend the bill to the House.Bill read a first time.Bill referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4)Second ReadingDebate resumed from 24 February.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Can I say what a pleasure it is to resume my really rudely interrupted contribution on the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). I also want to acknowledge Denis O’Rourke whom I beat to the call at that peak listening time of 7 minutes to 10 p.m. when we were last debating this bill and I look forward to his contribution. There will be fewer people listening Mr O’Rourke but I am sure that every one of them will be waiting anxiously for your contribution and will enjoy the benefit of it.This is a statutes amendment bill Mr Deputy Speaker and one with which you are probably quite familiar given that it is in your name. It is the bill that was referred to the Government Administration Committee some time ago and I want to acknowledge the members who sat on the committee who debated this bill with some rigour. Sometimes I think that committees give statutes amendment bills not enough consideration and the bill slides through and we end up with an amendment to an amendment. We are already fixing up mistakes which is the point really of a statutes amendment bill and I do think that we need to take a little more care. So I want to acknowledge the other five members of that committee: Mojo Mathers and the Hon Trevor Mallard; Chris Auchinvole and Eric Roy who are no longer members of this House but who made a huge contribution in relation to this bill; and also Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi who is still a member of the House but unfortunately is no longer a member of the Government Administration Committee.For new members particularly they might be wondering what a statutes amendment bill is. Well I just alluded in a rather casual way to the fact that it is really about fixing up mistakes. It amends legislation it is an omnibus bill and it is outlined in Standing Order 262(1)(f). That is worth a read if members do not have anything else on their reading agenda for the evening because it describes the fact that this is one of the rare occasions when a bill can amend a large number of other Acts. It is further described in Standing Order 292(3) which talks about amendments to the statutes amendment bill and then in Standing Order 305(2) under the heading “Questions to be proposed in committee”.That is how statutes amendment bills are covered and referred to in the Standing Orders but the most important thing that members need to know is that one single member of Parliament can object to a provision in a statutes amendment bill and then it does not progress. That particular provision within the statutes amendment bill would be withdrawn. A very unusual process that a Minister goes through—and the former Associate Minister of Justice the Hon Chester Borrows went through this procedure with this very Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4)—is going to the representative of every single political party in Parliament and asking for their sign-off so every member of this Parliament is bound to support every provision. If we get a new provision added or amended—as is the case with this bill where the select committee actually made substantial amendments—then once again every member of the House must agree to it. So it is not a simple majority as it is with other statutes that are before the House; it is one that everyone agrees to.As I said earlier the select committee paid a lot of attention to this bill and we have made a number of recommended amendments. We have recommended that some provisions be omitted entirely because they have the potential to alter the original intention of the legislation and that is clearly not within the parameters of a statutes amendment bill. We have omitted some. We have proposed the omission of some because we believe that they substantially alter the primary legislative purpose and with others we have said that they are not suitable for a statutes amendment bill because there is a policy debate to be had on them.So I was really pleased with the work that we did on this bill. These bills are not ones that usually grip the nation. They are not ones that members generally want to take a call on with the exception of Mr O’Rourke and me—we are usually elbowing each other out of the way to get the next speaker’s call on them—but it is a really important task for this Parliament to make sure that our legislation is clear that if a matter is taken before the court there is not a debate about what the intention of Parliament was and of course that the interpretation that is made of our legislation carries with it the intent of the Minister and the Government of the time. That is what we hope that we have delivered back to this House and I look forward to this amended Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) progressing through the House. Thank you.BRETT HUDSON (National): It is an absolute pleasure—perhaps even an unbridled pleasure—to speak on this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). There are a lot of firsts being a first-term MP and this is my first chance to speak on an omnibus bill. I have to say it is a little daunting in fact to be dealing with measures that impact so many Acts at the same time—33 of them in fact. I am of an age when I can remember some of the traditional fairy tales and folk stories and the Valiant Little Tailor sprung to mind. Or for those who prefer animated features there is the Brave Little Tailor with Mickey Mouse where he got seven in one blow—they were giants of course or flies. Here we are dealing with 33 Acts—33 Acts in one legislative blow. It does show what Parliament can achieve when we all do work together when we are all on the same team so to speak and when we are all doing the things that we agree are necessary. Of course this bill is very much about tidying things up making small clarifications and making minor technical corrections—things that are non-controversial things that are generally non-complex and things that do have in fact unanimous support and not just broad support across the House.I do recall when this particular reading began that it was claimed in fact that we were dealing with 34 Acts and that we had tried to crib an additional Act but one of the members opposite the Hon David Parker pointed out that it was in fact only 33. He also pointed out that the Labour side of the House understands very deeply the significance of having one extra. Well I would like just to point out that right at the moment this side of the House has a very solid understanding of the significance of having one extra and in fact we have our organisation outside of this Parliament working extraordinarily hard to make sure that we get that significant one back. We understand how important it is.I go back to this particular significant one—or significant 33 in fact. We are amending and making corrections to a number of Acts. These are still important changes even though they may not be major or complex ones. For instance in the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and the Official Information Act we are amending around the area of the definition of legal professional privilege. Unfortunately the definition as it stood could have been interpreted to restrict legal professional privilege to circumstances where proceedings were in train or contemplated and that simply was not the intention behind those provisions in the first place. So it makes very good sense that members across the House would agree that this is the form that we could take to remove this.An area that I think is very very important where we are doing further amendments in this bill is the other area of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and in fact the Official Information Act itself and that is around how we deal with Official Information Act and Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act requests. There is potential at the moment under the way the system is managed where requests can in fact be made orally but the Government agency or local authority could then just choose to request that those requests are also put in writing. So it could actually use that as an abuse of the process to force a delay in that request being dealt with and responded to. That is not in fact a good thing at all and this bill will address that by ensuring that requests to put Official Information Act requests in writing can be made only if that is a necessary step to help to provide clarification as to what the official information request is actually about. I think that is a very very pragmatic way of ensuring that potential line of abuse is prevented.There is another area and I might even be the first speaker on this bill to bring this one up. There is a point and it is clarified that if there is an amendment or several amendments made to that initial request those changes will in fact be treated as new requests and each of them will then get the 20-day time frame to be addressed in but—and this is the really important part this omnibus bill is going to introduce—this will apply only if that authority or that agency can make a demonstrable effort to have sought that clarification within 7 working days. So if the agency or the authority has sat on that request and then decides it is going to get broken up or there is an amendment that will require a new request it will not get to sit behind a 20-day time frame if it cannot show that it actually attended to that request in a timely manner in the first place. I think that is really actually a significant change this bill is making. It may not be complicated it may not be complex and it may fit within the provisions of an omnibus bill but it actually is something that can have a real substantive change for people who do make Official Information Act requests. It is also providing that if an authority or an agency is going to say that a request cannot be attended to or cannot be responded to because the information cannot be found it actually has to provide some evidence that it has made a reasonable effort to find that information before declaring or decreeing that it is too hard to get. That is another very solid change in an area that is a well-used Act in New Zealand. You know people use that Act to get the information they need.There are others—in fact with 33 Acts there are a number of others. One I found quite interesting actually is a change to the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 1995. The current provisions allow that when someone lodges a statutory declaration for a change of name they do not actually have to provide evidence as to who they currently are. So I could just imagine this just as a way of explanation or illustration. Across the House we would see the next Labour leadership challenge because history tells us they happen quite regularly and Grant Robertson—he is a potential contender—could have changed Mr Nash’s name to Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii because he would not have had to prove that he was Mr Nash and that could well have disrupted a Labour leadership challenge. So it is extremely good to see that we will in fact require those requesting a change to actually prove that they are the person who is going to make the name change request.There is another one that I draw on because basically nomenclature is very important. Under the Heavy Engineering Research Levy Act 1978 we are replacing the New Zealand Manufacturing Engineer’s Federation (Incorporated) with the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association Incorporated to reflect that the relevant body in fact has changed its name for the purposes of consultation. This is a very important thing. You could obviously say that the Act may not apply if it has changed its name but as we all know naming is extraordinarily important. One only needs to look at the difficulties that arise if one confuses for instance the Judean People’s Front with the People’s Front of Judea to know that nomenclature is a deeply deeply important thing so I am very pleased to see that we are addressing that.Simon O’Connor: Also a very naughty boy.BRETT HUDSON: Yes perhaps I am a very naughty boy but now on to something completely different. The Local Electoral Act extends by 7 days the time frame for completing pre-election processes. These are simple sound changes that mean that the Acts that we have—the enforcement and the compliance with them—make more sense for the real world that we all live in. That is an extremely positive thing to achieve in a bill such as this one.What I would like to say around this being the first time I deal with an omnibus bill is that it is extremely pleasing to be part of a process where we do have the universal support of the House. We all spend a great deal of time opposing each other’s views on many matters in this Chamber but this process is one where we can come together where we can recognise that there are things that need to be tidied up where we can make minor technical changes where we do not have to be in conflict and we do not have to oppose and where we will provide the public and the bodies that either use legislation or are required to comply with it with more accurate complete sensible and workable legislation for them to go about their business with. It is a great pleasure to be a part of this process and to speak on one of these bills for the first time. I commend it to the House.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call David Clendon.Hon Ruth Dyson: This will be better.DAVID CLENDON (Green): Indeed it will Ruth yes. And in that spirit may I begin by acknowledging the contribution of Ruth Dyson—a very succinct but also quite comprehensive description of the nature and purpose of statutes amendment bills and Acts in their own right. The unique feature of them is that they are agreed to in large part prior to being presented to the House. They are inherently non-controversial although I do note the select committee having done its work well has found one or two matters that are more appropriately dealt with elsewhere and more power to the committee for having done that.It is customary to say it is a pleasure to rise to speak and of course it is as ever a privilege to rise to speak but it is also something of a surprise to be debating this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) this evening. Until about 5.15 p.m. this evening we believed that tonight we would be in urgency debating the Remuneration Authority Amendment Bill. It was a considerable surprise to discover at about 5.15 p.m. that apparently the Government does not yet have its ducks in a row and it is not ready to undertake that debate. We look forward with some interest to see what will be sprung on us tomorrow morning.To return to this bill it is an omnibus bill and it covers some 30-plus pieces of legislation that are amended by it. I think many of those amendments highlight the importance of clarity of language—that legislation expresses in the clearest way possible the intention of the legislators. It is the role of the courts of course to interpret legislation to implement it and apply it and indeed the role of other organisations and agents of the State and the private sector and it is critically important that we get the language as clear and unambiguous as we can. Of course one of the purposes of these bills is to remedy examples where that language has proven to be less than accessible or less clear than it might be.I would like to just mention in passing two particular parts of the bill being Part 23 and Part 24. Part 23 deals with some amendments to the Official Information Act 1982. It deals with as a previous speaker commented—Mr Hudson I think outlined that it does explain under what circumstances requests under the Act may be made orally and the obligations on both parties to ensure that there is some clarity about what is being asked. It is a more or less technical change to the Act but none the less a useful one. Part 24 deals with the Ombudsmen Act 1975 and again it just clarifies and spells out the situation and the conditions under which the Ombudsman may refuse to investigate a complaint if the Ombudsman believes that there are adequate remedies to be found elsewhere or that the matter is trivial or vexatious—there are a number of provisions there. It just spells out with some clarity how and in what circumstances the Ombudsman may refuse to or choose not to pursue an investigation into a complaint.I think it is interesting that what links those two parts of the bill is what is happening currently of course and that is that the Ombudsman is undertaking an investigation into the implementation of the Official Information Act. Notwithstanding that we are making some minor technical changes to it the Ombudsman has stated that she believes that the Act is fit for purpose and that it is serving us well in terms of its intention and structure but she believes that an inquiry is needed to assure the public “that both the letter and the spirit of the law are being observed by the custodians of public information.”I think it is to the considerable credit of the Ombudsman that she is undertaking that investigation given that there have been rumblings concerns and expressions of concern about examples of alleged abuse of the Act and of manipulation of it. It is to the credit of Dame Beverley Wakem who of course has been an Ombudsman for some 10 years 7 of them as Chief Ombudsman and who has certainly brought credit on herself and on that office. So we look forward with interest to that investigation and to see what it produces.I think that I will not endeavour to speak to the other 29 or 30 parts of the bill but will simply say that the Greens do support this bill.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I would like to begin by acknowledging Ruth Dyson’s superb speech on this bill. It was actually given in two parts—first at the last time that the bill was discussed a few days ago actually; and secondly tonight. Her review of this fascinating bill was so comprehensive that it does mean that I will now be able to make a much shorter speech than I otherwise would have so I want to acknowledge her superb contribution. It is true that on the previous occasion I did try to elbow my way in in front of her but I am glad that I did not because now as I have said I can make a shorter speech and that will be perfectly fine having regard to the comprehensive nature of her contribution.I do want to say that New Zealand First will support the bill and the recommendations of the Government Administration Committee. The committee has in fact done a really good job in scrutinising this very large bill which makes amendments to over 30 Acts of Parliament. It is not the sort of thing you would like to take to bed to read but it is nevertheless an important bill in its own right. I do think that the select committee has done very well and the only comments I want to make tonight are in relation to some of the recommendations that the Government Administration Committee has made. I am glad to see actually that the first recommendation concerned the removal of clauses 49(1) and 51 amending the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 and clauses 70 and 71 amending the Official Information Act 1982. Those amendments were not appropriate for inclusion in a statutes amendment bill and in fact it is good to see that that is not being proceeded with.One amendment concerned a definition of “legal professional privilege” from the Evidence Act 2006. That could be interpreted to restrict legal professional privilegeto only circumstances where proceedings were in train or contemplated. That was not the intention of this particular piece of legislation either so it is good to see that that is gone. Another would amend the grounds for providing a good reason for withholding legal professional privilege and again that is not suitable for a statutes amendment bill. So I do not know how those all got into this piece of legislation in the first place. They should not have been there and the committee is right to recommend their exclusion or amendment.There is one important area that I do want to comment on and that does concern Official Information Act requests. These are very important to a large number of members of the public and I would have to say that far too many requests for official information are not properly dealt with by the agencies or the local authorities that deal with them. This is an area that probably needs a lot more attention than it is getting here but some sensible amendments are being made that we can support.The amendments to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and the Official Information Act would allow applications for official information to be made orally. It is important that that be possible for people who are not used to dealing with written requests and formalities of that kind and there are plenty of people in that position. So it is very important that those people should be comfortable in being able to make oral applications for official information and they should be able to get it on that basis. The tension of course is that if people make oral applications they may not be as clear or as comprehensive as perhaps they should be if the applications were done formally in writing. So there is a bit of tension there between the need for people to have that right to make oral applications and for them to be clear enough to be acted upon by the agency or the local authority concerned.However it is open to abuse by such agencies and local authorities being obstructive if they can say: “Well you have to put this in writing. Oral isn’t good enough. It isn’t clear enough.” So there is a bit of a risk there. The committee amendment is very sensible because what it says is that they can make such a request conditional allowing the request only if the local authority is able to properly say that it is reasonably necessary for the purpose of clarifying the request that it be then made in writing. I think that is a pretty satisfactory balance between that tension I spoke of between the right of an applicant to be able to make an oral application and the need for it to be clear enough to be acted upon. So if it is a condition and if it is necessary then the local authority or agency can then say: “In these circumstances you need to make a written request.” I think it is a pretty good balance being reached there and New Zealand First can support those amendments for that reason.It is an important area of the law. We should not underestimate the importance of Official Information Act requests from members of the public because they need to have good access to information and far too many local authorities and some agencies do make it far too difficult. They are more likely to be obstructive than helpful and that is not good enough. As I have said this is an area that I think does need further looking into and change in the future. But as far as these changes are concerned New Zealand First can support them as part of a statutes amendment bill.Finally the only other comment I wanted to make does relate to the minor amendments to the Local Electoral Act and the Local Government Act 2002. They are only technical in content and it appears that they were unintentionally omitted. They relate to the time frame for completing pre-election processes for general elections and the sensible change is that they will now be applied to all elections and polls not just general elections. That is something that in itself is not a very big matter. But one of the things I have noticed in some of the legislation we have been dealing with over the last few years is that there is not a very good comparison between local government election legislation and general election legislation. There is no reason for the differences between that legislation and a bit more work like this does need to be done to make sure that they both operate in the same sort of way. It is just not sensible that local elections and general elections should have different rules. I think it is pretty sensible that we have consistency so I am glad to see that we are at least making a little bit of progress with this amendment. We need to do a lot more for them.All of the changes otherwise—other than those I have mentioned—in this very large bill are very sensible so New Zealand First will have the greatest pleasure in supporting it at this stage and further.DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): It is unusual that New Zealand First supports a bill in this House but I think it is the nature of this bill that the amendments are small short and something that New Zealand First can understand. It has actually decided to support it in this case. I noticed it did get Denis O’Rourke out to speak on it and we have the utmost respect for Denis O’Rourke. We do not know why he is not campaigning for leader. I do not know why Tracey Martin is not campaigning for leader. I do not know why Ron Mark is not campaigning for leader. Obviously they are waiting for their leader to crash and burn and then they are going to come out and say what a great person—Hon Todd McClay: We’ve got the 10-bridge policy; they’ve got the two-letterbox policy.DAVID BENNETT: He has got the two-letterbox policy but I will not go into that because if we did an Official Information Act request on that—as required we are talking about the Official Information Act requirements—I am sure Mr Denis O’Rourke would not like to see the results of the Official Information Act request on the two-letterbox approach. But he did mention the word “consistency”. Consistency from the New Zealand First Party—I would like to see that in its policy around transport.Today we also mentioned that when we look at the roads of national significance that is the biggest issue that there will be in the Northland election. Will the Wellsford to Pūhoi road go ahead? That is what the people up there are going to ask. I went on the campaigns with Denis O’Rourke because believe it or not Denis O’Rourke was the transport spokesperson for the New Zealand First Party at the last election. We had a number of debates that we went to together. Mr O’Rourke was very careful and very blunt in his assessment of the roads of national significance. He was very very blunt in saying that there is no way that the Pūhoi to Wellsford road would go ahead under New Zealand First.Denis O’Rourke: That is not true. Misrepresentation.DAVID BENNETT: It is not. It is the truth of the matter. We sat in the building just around the corner here and you said: “There is no way that that road is going to happen if New Zealand First had a chance.” That is the truth.Hon Ruth Dyson: Why don’t you tell the truth for a change?DAVID BENNETT: OK we have got some facts to support the truth. This is New Zealand First’s transport policy written by a Mr Winston Peters—written by Winston Peters. He wrote this. He does not often write much but he actually did write this. Let us go to page 2 of that policy. I will quote this for you: “We are calling for a thorough review of National’s bloated and hugely expensive ‘RONS’ programme which is massively extravagant given all the other areas of necessary spending that are being cut to fund it.” Do you want me to read that again? I will read that again for you. “We are calling for a thorough review of National’s bloated and hugely expensive”—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! We have strayed far enough. I ask the member to come back to the bill.DAVID BENNETT: If we have a look at Part 12 of the bill where we actually look at the Land Transport Act it has made these consequential amendments to the Land Transport Act. This is very important for the Land Transport Act because the Land Transport Act dictates what is actually spent. If we look at New Zealand First’s policy it will not spend money on roads of national—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Sit down thank you. We are going to continue with the debate on the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). New Zealand First’s policy in relation to transport especially in the north has very little to do with that piece of legislation. I ask the member to continue.DAVID BENNETT: New Zealand First’s transport policy does not exist really and that was the whole point because Denis said he did not have one and he just wanted to set up the trains of national significance. That was those members’ position. But there was a train from Wanganui to Wellington that I am sure the Deputy Speaker would have been proud to see happen.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do not bring me into it.DAVID BENNETT: The Land Transport Act 1998 is one of the Acts that this bill does incorporate.Hon David Parker: In what way?DAVID BENNETT: Well there are a number of ways. The first way is it makes a consequential amendment in regard to collecting blood specimens for blood-alcohol assessments. So I am sure the member over there would take great interest in that.Denis O’Rourke: What’s it got to do with Northland?DAVID BENNETT: What has it got to do with Northland? Well the thing is that New Zealand First does not have a transport policy and it does not believe in the roads of national significance. So just say you were on that road and you got pulled up for a blood-alcohol test. Under New Zealand First’s policy you would get pulled up on a one-lane road instead of a four-lane road. That is the difference.There are also changes in there consequential amendments in regard to the police and their powers around the Summary Proceedings Act and the Search and Surveillance Act—important things as well I am sure.Denis O’Rourke: Get the Prime Minister to nail it for you.DAVID BENNETT: Pardon? What was that?Denis O’Rourke: Get the Prime Minister to put a nail in it.DAVID BENNETT: Get the Prime Minister to put a nail in it. Oh that is the nail in the coffin of New Zealand First but we know that is coming very soon. The question is whether it is Tracey or Ron who is going to be putting the nail in Winston’s coffin but we will soon see.Hon Todd McClay: A stake through the heart.DAVID BENNETT: Yeah I am sure there will be.Jacinda Ardern: Does someone not have anything to say about this bill?DAVID BENNETT: No no these members need to listen and learn and they will understand. Another part of the Land Transport Act that is covered in this bill is in regard to the definition of “traffic offence”. That is the amended section 91A of the Land Transport Act covering offences under both the 1977 and 2012 Road User Charges Acts.Denis O’Rourke: Does it apply in Northland?DAVID BENNETT: Does it apply in Northland? Well that member keeps on bringing us back to Northland. What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to read out the quote again that says that the New Zealand First Party will not support roads of national significance? Am I supposed to do that? It obviously is not clear to that member who spent all of last year an election year bagging the roads of national significance. Now he is all for supporting them.If we look at another part of this bill that talks about land transport there is the removal of information on stationary vehicle infringement notices which needs to be included in reminder notices.Denis O’Rourke: Fascinating.DAVID BENNETT: That is another excellent part of this bill. Did you have something to say over there Mr O’Rourke? Yes I did not think so. Then there is the amendment to the Land Transport Management Amendment Act 2008 and that corrects the date on which Land Transport New Zealand Transit New Zealand and the office of the Director of Land Transport were dissolved. That is a minor part of the legislation of course but it is all part of what has to happen in—Denis O’Rourke: The whole speech is minor.DAVID BENNETT: Pardon?Denis O’Rourke: The whole speech is minor.DAVID BENNETT: The whole speech is minor. Well you know that member really should be quiet. That member who is here at the behest of one person in this Parliament and who has never won an electorate seat never will and never could is really here just clipping the ticket as most members of his party are and that is the danger of it. [Interruption] Now the Labour Party is having a go. They are all ticket clippers as well. I do not see any winners over there. Oh OK there are two in the front row but all the rest of them are ticket clippers. They have never won a seat and never will either. That is just the nature of the Labour Party [Interruption] Oh come on. Do not make it personal now eh. This is an important piece of legislation here. Those members have to resort to that. I know it is sad but that is the nature of the Labour Party at this stage.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I would really appreciate it if the member concentrated on addressing the bill in the last 2 minutes of his incredibly long 10 minutes. In spite of interjections from the Cantabrian referring to Northland which is most unusual I would ask the member to make his contribution salient to the bill the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). Thank you.DAVID BENNETT: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. I am trying to but it is just that the continual barrage from the other side breaks through the legislation debate.Let us go to a different category. Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987—Stuart Nash: Oh amalgamation. That’s all you want to do.DAVID BENNETT: Amalgamation—that is the member over there. He loves amalgamation does he not? He will be amalgamating with the New Zealand First Party and the Green Party soon so it will be interesting to see how that works out will it not? That amendment clarifies that information held by a person engaged with a local authority as an independent contractor is deemed to be held by the local authority. That is another part of that piece of legislation that is important for us here tonight. There is clause 50 clarifying that information should be made progressively available. I think that it was the Official Information Act that the member for New Zealand First found a lot of need to discuss in great depth in this House.Simon O’Connor: Can they employ that in Northland?DAVID BENNETT: Yes well can they employ that in Northland? I would like to see an Official Information Act request on the New Zealand First transport policy in regards to the Pūhoi to Wellsford road and to see that it does not actually support that road.Denis O’Rourke: The member wouldn’t understand it.DAVID BENNETT: Oh the member will not understand it. Oh come on. See that is the thing with New Zealand First members. They just have to go that way. They are just not—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt. The member’s time has expired. This is 5-minute call from the Green Party.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): I too riseto address the incredibly long debate on the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). Let me begin with a confession tonight that I am I think less blessed than Brett Hudson. It has not come as an unbridled pleasure to address the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). Rather it is something akin to a bridled responsibility one that comes from serving House duty on a Wednesday night immediately after dinner. So be it. We can all measure up to our responsibilities. My contribution will be mercifully fleeting for myself and for everybody here tonight.I did not serve on the Government Administration Committee so insights are not automatically flooding in as I search feverishly through the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) with its 33 parts for something intelligible to offer to the House other than to note the interesting comment from the Hon Ruth Dyson that the role of these omnibus bills is essentially to fix up mistakes and that there is a great deal of that to be had. I think she said if I understood her correctly that every bill or a majority of bills need legislative amendment at some stage. That may well be the case. It reminds me of the sign on the back of the van that is going around the streets in Christchurch. It is a plumber’s van and it says: “We’re the guys who fix what your husband just repaired.” I think that is what the Government Administration Committee is expected to be doing most of the time.It does raise the question of whether we could have some alteration to our parliamentary procedure because if in fact we find that the majority of bills that come through the legislative process require amendment within a short space of time we could ask ourselves whether the Committee of the whole House is an adequate vehicle. The Committee stage may be necessary but is it sufficient to act as a filter for all the legislative problems we might be bequeathing?We could perhaps amend the role of the Government Administration Committee so that after bills have gone through the Committee of the whole House they revert to the Government Administration Committee automatically and immediately and the Government Administration Committee could patch up what the Committee of the whole House has not succeeded in doing—or it could happen after the third reading. That was my attempt at post-dinner humour.I will now move on to the really serious part of this contribution and that is to recall the role of quality control—of course it used to belong to the Upper House at least to some extent—in the New Zealand constitution. In our constitutional wisdom we obviously abolished the bicameral structure about 60 years ago. Some people think we have floundered around ever since in our unicameral system churning out the law especially with this current Government in power without any real quality-control mechanism. It would be an interesting study perhaps to find out how many bills have teetered and tottered their way through infancy only to be admitted to a statutes amendment bill within say 5 years of being enacted. I count in the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) four out of 33—one in 2010 and three in 2012.We could really ask ourselves whether there is some better system of ensuring a better filtering mechanism or quality control than we currently have. We in the Green Party are prepared to support this bill in the spirit of close cooperation with the Government and other parties and I accordingly commend it to the House.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a 5-minute call from the Labour Party.ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te W’are. Tēnā koe. It is a great pleasure for me to stand to speak in the second reading of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) tonight. There are 32 parts to this and that gives me 9.34 seconds to speak on each one of them which I will not do. I am bound to use a couple of Māori words again as I have done in the past. Just to give you a heads-up before the end of my speech the word I am going to be using tonight is “tito”. When used as a verb it means to invent or compose. When used as a noun it means to lie or deceive. At the time I use it I am sure you will work out which one I am using. Can I say that this is a fixer-up bill. It amends 32 Acts. I think that the Government might give a prize to the Minister with the most Acts in this Statute Amendment Bill. I am not sure exactly who that is.Kris Faafoi: It’ll be Bridges.ADRIAN RURAWHE: Yes I am not exactly sure. I do not think she is any longer a Minister actually the one who has got the most.In regard to the Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Act Part 22 of this Statute Amendment Bill (No 4) amends the meaning of right of first refusal land and of course it is critically important to those of us Māori electorate MPs that we do get the settlement legislation correct. I commend the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations for getting this part of the amendment bill through to this stage. I am sure Ngāti Manuhiri will be very pleased that their Act will be corrected. So I give that out to them.Also with the Official Information Act I endorse the words that have been said by the Opposition side to the Government. I think it is really important that the Official Information Act 1982 is the best that it can be and that the general public have that right to find out information. I am not sure whether these amendments are exactly what they ought to be but we on this side are supporting this bill.I mentioned earlier the word that I was going to use. I will use it as a verb. Coming back from the Te Matatini festival there were many compositions of waiata—titowaiata—that expressed the people’s concern about things that are in this type of legislation. I encourage all of the members opposite to listen to the words of the haka of the winning group—the winning kapahaka. I mihi out to themW’ānau-a-Apanui and their haka entitled “Hone Kī”. I think the words within that particular haka are very relevant to the way in which the Government has proceeded with the type of legislation that we now find in front of us. It is legislation to fix what is obviously wrong with these 32 Acts and as I said that gives 9 seconds on each one of these in a 5-minute call—18 seconds if you are lucky enough to get a 10-minute call. I endorse the words of that kapahaka by W’ānau-a-Apanui and I encourage the members opposite—and others as well—to carefully look at what they say because they are relevant in telling this House the way that our people are feeling about what is happening in our Government and in this Parliament. Nō reira tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I am very confused by the last speech. I am not sure what it had to do with Northland or New Zealand First’s transport policy—very confusing.I am very pleased to take a call on the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) in this its second reading. Also to acknowledge the last speech we were disappointed it could not be a double call—that we could not have got up to 18 seconds per change. But I was wondering whether this might be a signal or something of the Government and what people are thinking. I think I can state quite confidently as a member of a Government that has an excellent majority that the people of New Zealand are behind what National is doing including the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) that we are considering tonight.I do not sit on the Government Administration Committee but every so often I have been subbed in from time to time. I have got the good fortune to sit on the Health Committee and the Commerce Committee but I am conscious that the Government Administration Committee does a lot of good work across an array of areas and one of them is pulling things together such as this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). I think it is particularly good that Ruth Dyson has been the chair of that committee in the past Parliament—the 50th Parliament—and provides that continuity into this the 51stParliament. When she gave her contribution earlier I think she mentioned Chris Auchinvole whom I believe recently turned 70. Indeed—Hon Ruth Dyson: What? Fifty.SIMON O’CONNOR: 50? Was it 50—50 70 you know—we cannot count. We will have to make an amendment to that. That will be the 34th amendment. Chris Auchinvole was the National representative on the committee at the time.Paul Foster-Bell: A very fine man.SIMON O’CONNOR: He is a fine man indeed. He has stepped away of course from Parliament and is back down on the West Coast with family. But Sarah Dowie from the National side now helps to lead the Government Administration Committee. So I want to thank them for their work.There have been some accusations scurrilous or otherwise that a statutes amendment bill shows somehow that the Government is making lots of mistakes and errors. Statutes amendment bills are actually quite normal in a Westminster system. They are a fairly normal protocol. In fact if you look up the Cabinet Manual—I know other colleagues have referred to the Standing Orders but for those interested in matters constitutional matters electoral or just the political process in general if you turn to the Cabinet Manual you can see that the likes of statutes amendment bills like this one are a means to bring about technical changes. Usually those are quite small—not necessarily insignificant—but are amendments that are required.I think even having been here for only 3 and a bit years you can see even with a robust select committee process that it is not unusual or abnormal that there are going to be small technical things that pop through. Some of them arise just by the sheer volume of work that is coming through a committee and they have to be dealt with and acknowledged but also it is often when applying a piece of law that we begin to see elements that we did not anticipate. It is those unexpected unanticipated consequences which is a phrase often heard across and through this House regardless of political colour—red green black yellow purple or blue. So again it is quite normal.Statutes amendment bills—these are again an opportunity to make those changes in a timely fashion. Again when you look at the Cabinet Manual it is quite clear to Ministers that if their request is more substantial or of a great urgency they have to move fairly promptly through a different mechanism.I think the other side that we need to note around these changes is that the bill requires the affirmation of the whole House. In fact it was something that Ruth Dyson acknowledged in her speech at the start and it was something I had not actually understood—that it requires the support of every member of this House. That is not an encouragement to members on the other side to get a small headline on page 2 of the Dominion Post tomorrow to oppose this—Hon Member: Page 22.SIMON O’CONNOR: Well it could be page 22 if there are that many pages. But actually every member of the House of Representatives is required to support the bill and it is good so far to hear that everyone is in support of it.I do need to acknowledge one of the suggestions from an earlier contribution that if New Zealand had an Upper House a bicameral constitutional system we would not have these bills—that somehow a House of Lords would work. I for one am certainly not in favour of a House of Lords senate or any Upper House in this country. It works perfectly well in a unicameral system. But the other side of course is that the UK itself which has a bicameral system with two Houses of Parliament—the House of Commons and the House of Lords—also has to apply statutes amendment bills. So it is not unusual to have this process. I have to stress that context as we look at this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) tonight.The select committee has obviously considered this bill quite closely. It has recommended several amendments. One is around legal professional privilege. There had been some confusion around the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and the Official Information Act of 1982. It was basically that as written it could be seen as a restriction particularly when proceedings are in train or being contemplated. So the select committee has brought some clarification to that.Others have talked about the Official Information Act requests. I do not think that needs to be gone into any further. There have been some changes through this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) in terms of local government and so forth. There were some changes around how long after a general election—I think it is 7 days—that all the information presented needs to be summed up or tidied up. It seems if I understand correctly that that did not seem to apply to the likes of local government Acts or local government elections. Speaking from an Auckland perspective we have an election in 2016 and we can have a look at it then. It is quite timely that it is in this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) and we make it very clear that the intention as with general elections that the post-election work is done within 7 days also applies to local government and other forms of elections. So that was the work that came out of the Government Administration Committee.There was another amendment that was looked at by Louisa Wall. I think it is important to acknowledge that that was put forward. I understand it was considered by the committee but not seen as being within the scope of this bill. I do not think that has been mentioned by others tonight but I think it is important as we talk about the purpose of a statutes amendment bill in that actually anyone in the House is able to raise issues in this case through the select committee. I was not there for the deliberations so I am not exactly sure why it was seen to be out of scope from the committee’s perspective. From my own understanding of the issue I certainly can understand why. It is also an issue that probably needs firmer consideration and guidance rather than being part of what is a rather technical amendment bill.There are a large number of changes. I have a list here; I am not going to go through it of course. An earlier speaker alluded to a change to the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act. Basically if I understood it correctly you could go down to the court and seek to have your name changed but you did not have to actually prove who you were by name or otherwise. [Interruption] So it was a little odd and again just a small example of how all the best clarifications from officials the work we do at the select committee can still miss certain technicalities and more often than not it is when the tyre hits the ground if you want—I am not trying to make a reference to transport in Northland Mr Bennett which has been very popular.David Bennett: Pūhoi to Wellsford.SIMON O’CONNOR: Pūhoi to Wellsford is very popular as well. A little money for Tāmaki Drive would be very welcome too. But that was just one example. We as members of select committees whether it is health commerce or Government administration do try to think through each clause each change that has been initiated. But again statutes amendment bills often fix up those little technicalities those little elements we have not considered.Another one I just want to mention is a change in the Prime Minister’s name to the Governor-General Act. We made some changes recently and I just want to clarify that the authority that sets the funding for the Governor-General also has the power to deal with things such as KiwiSaver contributions and ACC levies. If I might I just want to acknowledge the Governor-General for something he did. There is an excellent constituent in the Tāmaki and Maungakiekie electorate. His name is Sir Don Rowlands and he is very well-known in the rowing and sporting community and also in the business community. He was awarded a knighthood by the Queen. Unfortunately his health has deteriorated quite quickly and His Excellency went to his hospital bed yesterday to do a private and early investiture. I think that is just a fantastic act. So I thought that was good and I thought I would put that on the record not only for Sir Don but also for the Governor-General.There is a whole array of other changes—changes to the Heavy Engineering Research Levy Act the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act and so on. There is a huge number and I will leave it to others to speak about them.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I do not know whether or not to call it a rare privilege to see the National Party members engaging in debate. It is somewhat disappointing that it is the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) that they have chosen to engage in said debate on but none the less we welcome engagement from the other side of the House. They are often so hurried in their dialogue in this Chamber that I often miss out on the great oratory that they have to offer. Perhaps though if the member from Hamilton gifted that opportunity to more of his other colleagues in the future generally that would be slightly more welcome. They seem to engage in filibustering much more successfully despite his length of service in this House. According to the member who just took his seat the New Zealand public are—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I regret interrupting the member. The member knows—Mr Bennett return. I am going to warn the member that he knows he can interject when he is seated but he cannot wander around yelling. He must not.JACINDA ARDERN: I come back to the point I was making. The member Simon O’Connor who just resumed his seat spoke of the New Zealand public’s support for the National Government being so great that they would specifically be supporting the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) this evening. It does not matter of course that half the members of Parliament do not know what is in this bill but apparently the public are right behind the Government on this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4)—leaving behind the fact that actually the whole Parliament is because that is the nature of a statutes amendment bill. As the speakers who have gone before me have pointed out statutes amendment bills are intended to be primarily technical. Often they are updating outdated legislation to bring it into line with other laws. Often they are used to fix technical issues. It is not intended to be substantive in terms of the amendments that are made and that is closely linked to the fact that the entire debating chamber—all of Parliament—must support the amendments in the bill.We are seeing an increasing number of amendments—and I will touch on a few of them—in the statutes amendment bill that are actually being used to fix up mistakes that have been made in often rushed legislation. We see a bit of it in the Local Government Act 2002 and in the amendments that were made around the super-city. It was a rushed process. It was something that we debated on heavily at the time. We thought the Government was moving too fast with that legislation and now we are seeing the result of that. A perfect example for me of the kind of amendment that a statutes amendment bill is intended for was the last Statutes Amendment Bill I believe when we made an update to the classifications legislation to mean that when you were putting out a new classification for an imported DVD for instance the new classification did not have to be fixed to the physical DVD. It could be on the outside on the wrapping. The industry was spending an extraordinary amount of time having to unwrap everything in order to get the sticker directly on the product rather than on the outside of the product. Little changes like that we can all agree to.I want to come to some of the points of the bill that might have been considered worthy of some commentary by the Government Administration Committee. One of the first of those—and I believe that it has probably been touched on—was the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 and the Official Information Act 1982. Regarding the amendments to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act there were two clauses clauses 49(1) and 51 that the select committee has recommended removing because in its view the changes that were made in that part of the Act would alter legal privilege and the committee believed that it was not appropriate for a statutes amendment bill. Again that was a really good test by the select committee checking whether or not that was an appropriate place for that amendment. I assume that the Minister will perhaps be pursuing that amendment in another form.On more specifically the issue of Official Information Act requests clause 52(2) of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and clause 72(2) of the Official Information Act as introduced as the select committee has pointed out confirm that an official information request can only be made orally. It was an issue raised by Denis O’Rourke quite rightly that local authorities or agencies may request that oral requests be put in writing. I do not think it would be the intention of this House for it to be that amendment in practice. We would not want a situation I think where for instance a constituent of any member’s electorate contacted a local authority and asked for a piece of information only to be told the request had to be put in writing. That is not the spirit of the Act. Therefore I think it is right to have the proposed amendments by the select committee which would make this ability conditional. So the local authority has the ability to do that but not as a matter of course.I think thinking through that change in a really practical sense the idea that for a person who might for instance have an impairment or a disability where the practice of actually physically writing out a request was not possible or perhaps they would not have access to the internet—I know I still have a lot of contact with individuals who do not have access to the internet—it would be unfair to create a provision that would mean they could not access the Official Information Act as a result of this amendment. So I think that is a useful change by the select committee.Coming back to Official Information Act changes more generally the bill also replaces another section section 28(4) of the Act. That is a part of the Act that is around Ministers answering requests on time. I want to make a general statement about that part of the primary legislation. There is no amendment to the requirement to respond as soon as practical which is within at least 20 days but our concern is with the degree to which that is actually being upheld currently. The Prime Minister admitted not that long ago that he and his Ministers deliberately hold Official Information Act requests until the 20th day for political reasons except we have seen some exceptions to that rule. It was in Dirty Politics that we saw the discussion over the very rapid release of information where it was politically expedient.I think we have to be extremely careful to ensure that political process is not undermining the importance of the Official Information Act legislation. It is that kind of legislation that groups like Transparency International rely on as a measure of New Zealand’s transparency and its accountability and if we stretch the spirit of the law which has been done to a greater and greater extent we actually undermine the law in and of itself. That is a concern that we have had for some time. We cannot take for granted our ranking within that group.I want to come to amendments to the Local Electoral Act 2001 and the Local Government Act 2002. Again this is quite a technical change but the select committee has recommended putting in a new clause there. Essentially the amendment here extends the time frame for completing pre-election processes by 7 days for general elections. The intention here was so it would not be confined just to general elections so there is a need to make some amendments more broadly in the Local Electoral Act and the Local Government Act as this amendment does. I would have been interested though to hear from the Minister as to whether or not it would have been timely to use this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) to ensure that actually there were not any other amendments required for another very important cross-electoral issue and that is online voting. It may well be that there could be legislative impediments to that and yet we know that the Electoral Commission is looking to trial online voting in some part at the local government level. It is a concern—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!JACINDA ARDERN: That might have been an opportunity because there are potentially impediments that we might be reaching further down the track.Coming then to some of the other changes that have been made as part of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) I see that Part 31 has an amendment to the Tokelau (Territorial Sea and Exclusive Economic Zone) Act 1977. No one unfortunately has touched on that Act and yet it seems rather relevant given that it talks about the prohibition of foreign fishing in territorial seas. I would have thought that it sounds like an incredibly important issue to have made sure that we have that correct in our legislation but again putting it in law does not always mean it happens. Even though we have the ability to find in breach a vessel that is acting against the law by being in and fishing in a territorial area it is not meant to be in being an unlicensed craft and being able to be fined half a million dollars does not mean it is actually going to happen. So enforcement is just as important if you get my drift.NUK KORAKO (National): Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. Huri noa i te Whare e mihi atu ana ki a koutou katoa. This is the first time I have had the opportunity to speak on an omnibus bill. I believe that I also take the last call on this bill. I suppose the first thing from taking the last call and listening to the speeches in the House tonight is it is important I think to acknowledge all of the good work that is done by members on both sides of the House particularly from all parties and to acknowledge the Hon Ruth Dyson who chaired the Government Administration Committee in the 50th Parliament and the 51st Parliament and Denis O’Rourke and Chris Auchinvole who as mentioned is not here. I just acknowledge all of those people and members who were responsible for getting the bill to this stage. My colleague Adrian Rurawhe on the other side of the House mentioned a Māori word tito. It was an interesting interpretation that he gave. But I suppose the word I want to mention particularly in talking about the collaboration on both sides of the House is the Māori word kotahitaka which really means the togetherness of everyone and working in unison. I think the important thing is to acknowledge that.The next thing is that Statute Amendment bills are to make short technical and some might say boring changes to existing legislation but the changes are not inconsequential. The changes make it to this House only because they do matter and I believe they are worth talking about. There are actually six that I would like to mention here that have really interested me. The first onethat was of great interest to me as the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee and which was alluded to by my learned colleague on the other side of the House was the Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Act of 2012. In clause 68 the bill addresses an error in the Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Act of 2012 that puts the Act out of line with the deed of settlement. The deed of settlement with Ngāti Manuhiri agreed that the iwi should have first refusal over Crown land in an area set out in the trust deed. But I think the important thing there is that the trust deed did not give Ngāti Manuhiri first refusal over land owned by Crown bodies. It was supposed to apply only to land owned directly by the Crown.Looking at that I understand now that Ngāti Manuhiri have been consulted on this change and are in agreement that the Act as it stands does not reflect the trust deed and therefore should be changed. It is good to see that consultation was carried out with the affected iwi and I commend the Ngāti Manuhiri people for agreeing to this change and for it being made in the spirit of the original trust deed. That again really reflects the kotahitaka in that and the goodwill as well. That really also reflects the important reasons why we have this type of bill and this type of legislation.The next one No. 2 is something that I think really does highlight the fact that quite a small and possibly insignificant thing could actually be quite big and that one to me was in the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act of 1995. Currently if a New Zealand - born person wants to change their legal name all that is required that they have to do is fill in a form sign a statutory declaration and pay a fee. They do not need to provide any photo ID or even their birth certificate. This may have worked well in the past but New Zealanders demand a higher level of security around their identity documents. So this bill amends the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 1995. This allows the registrar-general to require evidence of identity before registering a name change. I think that is really important particularly in the day and age that we live in.The next one concerns the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act 1982. That one there is a reflection on how committed this Government is to reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and a number of the changes in this bill are designed to do exactly that. Currently the Registrar of Friendly Societies and Credit Unions is required to prepare an annual report and table it in Parliament. However credit unions and insurers are now supervised by the Reserve Bank. There is no need for a report to Parliament separate to that carried out by the Reserve Bank. This bill amends the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act 1982 to remove this requirement.A number of these actually have been mentioned tonight but pretty much just in passing. I was just trying to give some detail because of the importance of why I believe that these different changes are needed and that is why I want to highlight them. The changes to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 and the Official Information Act 1982 have been mentioned but I think the important thing is that there are quite a number of changes being made as we know to those Acts. These Acts exist to improve the access New Zealanders have to their Government. I think that is a real hallmark of where this Government is actually positioning itself to enable that. They also exist to promote open and transparent local government and central government. These changes to the Acts seek to improve transparency and openness. They also clarify some provisions that have already been in place but have not been universally understood.We are clarifying that information held by a person engaged by a local authority as an independent contractor is deemed to be held by the local authority. This is as it should be. Local councils often have good reason to use independent contractors to carry out work but their choosing to do so should not result in reduced transparency either deliberately or coincidentally. We are also clarifying that requests for official information under either of these Acts does not need to refer to the Act and can be communicated in any form. This bill will put beyond doubt that official information can be released electronically. Again this reduces the bureaucracy that would be involved if anyone interpreted the current wording of the Act to mean they needed to release information in paper form. There are other changes to improve the way Acts work and increase the transparency.This is a Government that believes in reducing bureaucracy and ensuring that the laws on our statute book are accurate and up to date. These amendments are minor technical and non-controversial but they are very very important as has been highlighted with the speeches tonight in the House on this bill. I have no hesitation in commending the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) to the House. Kia ora.Bill read a second time.Human Rights Amendment BillSecond ReadingHon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): I move That the Human Rights Amendment Bill be now read a second time. Can I begin by thanking the members of the Justice and Electoral Committee for their thorough consideration of the bill. The committee has recommended that it proceed with amendments. The Human Rights Amendment Bill is about strengthening the performance of the Human Rights Commission by giving it greater flexibility to respond to emerging human rights issues. The bill clarifies the commission’sfunctions and powers and enhances New Zealand’s ability to comply with our international and domestic human rights obligations.Currently the Human Rights Act requires there to be commissioners for race relations and for equal employment opportunities. However it does not allow for the creation of new formal leadership positions in other areas of human rights such as disability rights. To address this inflexibility the bill provides for the appointment of a chief commissioner and up to four other human rights commissioners. Commissioners will be allocated portfolio responsibilities that must include race relations equal employment opportunities and disability rights.Having a commissioner who is formally responsible for disability rights is a new move and will enable the commission to exercise more effectively its role of promoting and monitoring the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Minister will continue to appoint commissioners in the three areas specified in the Act but the bill will enable the chief commissioner to designate commissioners to lead work in other areas. This important change will allow the commission to establish without further amendments to the Act other formal portfolio responsibilities in the areas that it considers to be most important.I note that submitters to the committee generally supported the objectives of the bill and the addition of disability rights as a formal portfolio responsibility. I am aware that some submitters were concerned that the changes would dilute the commission’s role in leading and promoting race relations and equal employment opportunities. I can assure the House that this is not the case. In fact the changes will enhance the commission’s leadership role in protecting and promoting human rights. There will still be a statutory focus on these and an identified commissioner leading the work in race relations and equal employment opportunities. Added to these areas will be disability issues and any other areas that the commission identifies as a priority.Specialist criteria linked to each priority area must be considered before a commissioner is appointed. This ensures that a commissioner appointed to lead work in a priority area holds the relevant specialist skills. This further enhances the commission’s leadership role in these areas. The bill moves some functions of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner to the general functions of the commission giving the commission a clear focus on equal employment issues. The bill also clarifies the functions of the commission. It states explicitly that the commission’s functions include promoting racial equality and cultural diversity equal employment opportunities and the rights of persons with disabilities.Submitters were concerned that requiring the commission to consult with the Minister about its priorities would compromise its independence. The requirement to consult with the Minister about strategic priorities is not new. Clause 11 carries over the exact same requirements to consult the Minister as already exist in the Human Rights Act. The independence of the commission has continued to be recognised internationally as demonstrated by its receiving the highest level of accreditation from the International Coordinating Committee of National Human Rights Institutions and this bill does nothing to diminish that.This continuing requirement to consult with the Minister does not mean that the Minister may direct the commission. The commission will remain independent and its strategic direction will continue to be set by the commissioners acting together as currently set out in the Act. The bill also revives the commission’s functions to ensure that commissioners are able to express freely their views on relevant matters including commenting on State sector practices bills before the House and Acts passed by this Parliament. The bill also revises the commission’s functions to ensure that commissioners continue to be able to express freely their views on relevant matters including commenting on State sector practices and the like.I would now like to touch briefly on some of the changes to the bill that the Justice and Electoral Committee has recommended. The committee has recommended changes to the bill to clarify that the chief commissioner can now designate new priority areas only in accordance with the commission’s strategic direction as determined by the commissioners collectively. This was always the intention of the bill and I support changes that will make this clear. This change addresses I think submitters’ concerns that the chief commissioner is being elevated above the other commissioners.After considering concerns raised by the Regulations Review Committee the committee has also recommended amendments to the commencement and transitional provisions of the bill.The bill as introduced was to come in to force by Order in Council. This was so that if the existing number of commissioners exceeded the maximum allowed in the bill commencement could be delayed until the term of one or more of the commissioners expired. The committee has recommended however that the bill be amended so that it comes into force on the day after it receives the Royal assent. To make this possible the transitional provisions have been amended to allow the number of commissioners to exceed the maximum set in the bill initially. This will allow existing commissioners to finish their term and will ensure that the three priority areas are always covered.I am pleased to support the committee’s changes to the bill which I believe are sensible and well considered. I would like to thank them once more for their work and also thank the Human Rights Commission for engaging constructively with the committee throughout its consideration of the bill. The changes made by the Human Rights Amendment Bill will lead to a stronger-performing Human Rights Commission. It will give the commission a clearer focus and will enhance its leadership role in protecting and promoting all our of fundamental human rights. I commend the bill to the House.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is my pleasure to take a call on the Human Rights Amendment Bill. I thank the Minister of Justice for her contribution but I do think it is important to really question when making these changes to fundamentally the way the Human Rights Commission works what has changed to lead us to the point where we are making such significant amendments to the way that the commission operates and to the way that the commissioners operate.I know that over the last 15 years there have been significant changes in the world of race relations for instance. I do not often begin a speech with anecdotes but in September 2001 which was 14 years ago now I was living in Arizona. I was on an exchange programme with Arizona State University. I was a student taking a foreign policy class at that university when September 11 happened and through all of the subsequent debate that followed in the days after. I was on a campus that was quite diverse and there were significant racial attacks on that campus in the days that followed September 11. I remember distinctly the day when I went to one of my classes and the lecturer at that class—it was a communications class—instigated a discussion with the students where he asked us to talk about our views on what had happened and our response to it. I remember feeling quite sheepish as a foreign student—even though I was from New Zealand—about taking part in those discussions because I remember being told on the day of September 11 that I was a foreigner and my view was not welcome in the United States at that time. So I did not say much in that class until one student said quite vocally and without much reaction that he could not now walk by an Arab student on campus without wondering about them. I remember that was the point when something inside me exploded a little and I started to question everything I was hearing around me.The point I want to make is that in the past several decades the world has changed. Our wars are not along single borders. They are not between single nations pitted for and against each other. They are not just simply about land and power. They are complex. With that level of complexity we run the risk of oversimplifying conflicts and of distilling them down into dangerously easy categories like race and religion. We have seen I think in very recent times—even in New Zealand in our response to terror attacks instigated by organisations like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria—the consequences that this has had on members of for instance the Muslim community and how unjustified that is. Now more than ever we should be entrenching the roles of those who protect our human rights of those who guard our human rights and of those who protect us against discrimination based on race or religion. To have before this House at this time a bill that has the ability to dilute the role of those individuals is very sad indeed.I want to come back to the statements that were made by my colleagues in their first reading speeches where they said wholeheartedly that of course we support the establishment of a disabilities commissioner—absolutely—to support those who are in the community living with a disability and who absolutely represent a significant number in the community and who deserve to have that representation. But it should not come at the price of losing potentially commissioners for equal employment opportunities and race relations. Indeed our minority report stipulates this very concisely: “Labour completely supports the establishment in this legislation of a Disabilities Commissioner as did 22 out of the 42 submitters on this bill. We support the establishment of a Disabilities Commissioner for exactly the same reasons that we support the retention of the other two designated roles of Equal Employment Opportunities and Race Relations Commissioners. People with disabilities suffer discrimination … and we are pleased that there will be a commissioner with specific responsibility for receiving and addressing complaints on behalf of those New Zealanders. However … ”—of course we said—“we cannot see the logic in disestablishing two specific commissioners in one breath and establishing another in the next.”As I said in the beginning of my speech what has changed in our environment in our society and in our communities to lead us to the view that we no longer need that specific designation? A little bit but not nearly enough. Even if we pluck out the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner—just looking at the facts will tell us that there is still a need for that role within the Human Rights Commission. Putting aside issues of gender representation in Parliament because we have the luxury of debating that reasonably often; what about simply gender diversity in governance?Someone by the name of Dianne McAteer has done a piece of work on this studying 10 years I believe of women’s roles in governance. It has been published on the Ministry of Women’s Affairs website. She points out this argument that there is just no room at the top of these positions because there is not enough turnover—she points out that where there has been 10 percent turnover of directorships women have replaced men in those roles only 7 percent of the time. And that of the 73 new board roles that have been created—not directorships but board roles—only 23 percent have been filled by females. Putting aside just simply the roles of those who are at the top of the governance tree there is simply the fact that we still have a 10 percent gender wage gap in New Zealand and that we seem to be depleting more and more the specific individual roles even of policy makers within the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to look at that issue. It was disestablished by this Government. And now we have this happening to the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner.So what has changed that has made the Government feel so comfortable that we can disestablish that formal role in legislation? What really has changed? The evidence suggests quite simply that not enough has been achieved. The Minister however went on to argue in her address that essentially the way that the legislation has set out these new roles they can still be effective and their role has not been diluted. But there have been other areas where we have seen this kind of consolidation and it has really undermined the work that has been done. When the Alcohol Advisory Council was merged into the Health Promotion Agency that was an example of that. What the bill actually does is it gives just too much discretion now to the Human Rights Commission to prioritise what work is done.If the Human Rights Commission had the kind of independence from Government that you would hope an entity like that would have maybe that might be something that could provide comfort to members on this side of the House. But the fact is that clause 6 inserts new subsection (1B) which states: “A Commissioner must lead the work of the Commission in any other priority area that is designated by the Chief Commissioner and the Chief Commissioner may designate an area of work as a priority area only in accordance with the strategic direction and the general nature of activities determined by the Commission under section 7(1) and after consultation with the Minister … ”—after consultation with the Minister.Of course our concern with this is that the Human Rights Commission has the role of for instance ensuring that we abide by UN conventions. There are cases where consecutive Governments from time to time have needed to be held to account on that. The more you tie your commission into consultation with a Minister and agreement around priorities the more you lessen that advocacy role. Indeed that is why Labour has supported the Children’s Commissioner in particular having their role strengthened. We heard only today that the Office of the Children’s Commissioner has come before the select committee and has said that there are several things that it is going to have to water down its work on because actually it is having to move resources from advocacy—which is one of its roles—to monitoring. It has the role of monitoring Child Youth and Family residences as one of its jobs and it does not have the resources to do that job properly so it is having to move resources from one area to another. So it is critically important that we give it that level of independence.Just to conclude I do not believe that we have made enough progress that we can say that New Zealand now no longer needs these designated roles and I would wager that the two National appointees in both of those roles would probably say the same thing. If any member on that side of the House would like to argue that we have reached the peak of equal employment opportunities and racial harmony I would welcome that contribution.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Well the House will not be hearing from me the argument that we have reached the peak in terms of equal opportunities or race relations nor indeed the peak in terms of disability issues which is why I want to focus much of my speech tonight in the second reading of the Human Rights Amendment Bill specifically on the establishment of a commissioner with responsibility for leadership in disability rights within the Human Rights Commission. I acknowledge that Jacinda Ardern the speaker who has just resumed her seat was a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee in the last Parliament—I am pretty sure of that—whereas I was not so I have not had the benefit of sitting through the full parliamentary process. But I do know some things as do we all and one is that disabled people in New Zealand suffer—in myriad ways large and small—discrimination most days of their lives from a very early age through to adulthood and that those casual discriminations often continue well into adulthood.I will say on a personal note being very close to a person with a significant disability that that person has had to fight from childhood from babyhood. First of all—and I will generalise it out to anybody—any child any baby born with a significant lifelong disability will have to fight for their whole life. Their family will have to fight for them. They will have to fight the social welfare system perhaps. They will have to fight to get good medical treatment and to get good treatment through their schooling years in whatever form their education takes and that may or may not start at 5 and it may or may not end at 16—it may go on for many many years and take many forms. But always always always that disabled person and their family and their support will have to fight so that that disabled person continues to get the rights that those of us New Zealanders without a disability can sometimes take for granted.It does not mean—and I do not want to say—that disabled people are necessarily hard done by. And God forbid because they would not want to be regarded as being hard done by—far from it. But what I think it does for people of disability in New Zealand is it makes them very very strong of character and very very full of resolve to live good lives. Despite all that—despite all the support that disabled people should could and can get from their families from their supporters from their loved ones and from the State—they are still prone to suffering discriminatory behaviour disparaging comments misunderstandings and deliberate or maybe casual slights and insults. It does not matter where it might pop up and they certainly will not be expecting it or anticipating it but bang there it is and there goes their day. And that is the lot of a disabled person. So in this Human Rights Amendment Bill—and look I have not had the benefit of sitting through the select committee process and of hearing the submissions coming from the community but I guess from my own second-hand experience—I am so pleased to see the establishment of a full-time commissioner with the role of advocating on behalf of disabled people.As parliamentarians—those of us who hold regular constituency clinics and who go and see people—often we have disabled people and their representatives coming to see us who are struggling with maybe a Government agency or maybe an NGO or maybe something that is happening in their lives. Maybe there was an incident at the supermarket or an incident at the movie theatre—it does not matter. Those people come to their parliamentarians for assistance and we all do what we can because that is our job and we care about people—that is why we do this job. But now when this bill is enacted and I think when it receives the Royal assent there will be the ability for a full-time commissioner with responsibility for disability rightsto be appointed. Good stuff good job—really pleased to see that.I think of when just a couple of weeks ago somebody came to see me who had been treated in the most appalling way in a public place. They had been treated most appallingly and probably not even intentionally but this person had been humiliated in public for no better reason than he was not quite normal—he was in a wheelchair. Those little slights and humiliations—the person perpetrating them well they will be held to account I do hope. But for the person who is offended against in this way they need a recourse; they need somewhere to be able to express the impact that this hurt and humiliation has had upon them because it might not be unlawful. The person doing it to them might not have contravened a law or a rule or a regulation but harm has still been done to that person and now we have a commissioner whose role it will be to back their corner. Good job is what I say.But of course that is not all that is contained in this Human Rights Amendment Bill. There are some changes being made to the structure and form of the commission and this is designed to strengthen its performance. So I do have to disagree with the contention of the previous speaker—and I enjoyed her contribution; I think it was a thoughtful contribution—that the roles of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner and the Race Relations Commissioner have been somehow diminished by beingfolded back if you like into the Human Rights Commission. I would probably say this in response to that concern: it is not so much that the roles of the Race Relations Commissioner and the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner have been diminished but rather that they have been unified together with the Disabilities Commissioner and unified under the banner of the Human Rights Commission—and that is I guess a wider term and it brings a more unified approach to the Human Rights Commission. So it does not matter whether it is a disabilities issue it does not matter whether it is an equal employment opportunity issue or indeed a race relations issue; they are commissioners and they are part of the Human Rights Commission.So going back for just a moment to the Disabilities Commissioner of course the Act did not allow for that commissioner position to be created and so we have this bill before us. The Act does not currently allow for formalised leadership roles in other prioritised areas. So although it was obviously the desire of many of us to have a Disabilities Commissioner the Act simply did not allow it. So this bill brought forward by the Minister of Justice satisfies that need. It also provides for a more focused approach on behalf of the Human Rights Commission. I have no problem with the Human Rights Commission consulting with the Minister. Is that not what they should be doing? Is not dialogue one of the most useful things we have when we have an Act of Parliament which in this case is the Human Rights Act and we have commissioners appointed? They are not there to take direction from the Minister but I think dialogue going both ways can only be helpful because the Minister does not have the ability to direct the commissioners and no good commissioner will allow themselves to be directed and they should not do that. But I think that consultation and a focusing of the Human Rights Commission can be only a good thing.Finally I just want to note that this amendment satisfies our requirements under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. New Zealand is responding to its responsibilities under the UN convention and so we bring this bill to the House. I endorse it. I think it is a good step forward in recognising the rights of people with disabilities. It brings a focus to the Human Rights Commission and I commend the bill to the House.PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Ā tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā tātau katoa. Ki roto i te pō ka noho ruru tātau.[I thank you Mr Assistant Speaker of the House and greetings to us all as we sit owl-like in the darkness.]Sadly I was not on the Justice and Electoral Committee which dealt with the Human Rights Amendment Bill and I was unable to sit through obviously all of the submissions. But I wanted to take this opportunity to tell the House that recently I attended the United Nations Human Rights Council conference in Manila and I would like at this time to acknowledge the member Mr Jono Naylor for his excellent presentation. In his presentation he trumpeted the excellent work of the Human Rights Commission as it stands today not the proposed changes that are in this amendment bill.The other delegates in attendance were in awe of our Human Rights Commission. They were in awe of the recent work over the past 3 to 4 decades on human rights in this country. They saw New Zealand as leading this field. I cannot help but wonder whether they would have applauded that particular presentation by Mr Naylor if he had included the proposed amendments to the Human Rights Act here in New Zealand. I quote from one of the speakers at that conference: “While there has been progress towards a common understanding and commitment to a universal set of human rights and fundamental freedoms the challenge of translating these into realities remains.” I do not think that the amendments being proposed in this bill are translating human rights issues into actual realities for our people. In fact I think they are taking them away. I think they are taking away the rights of our people and the right of the Human Rights Commission itself to conduct its onerous task of ensuring that the rights of our citizens are upheld.That delegate went on to say: “To us who are elected representatives of our people this challenge is personal.” On that point most of the delegates at that particular conference still recite and recollect the strong words expressed by the former member for Tāmaki Makaurau the Hon Dr Pita Sharples. In fact they saw him and rightfully so as the face of human rights in this country. We all know he was the first human rights commissioner appointed so I want to acknowledge that point. As elected representatives our respective parliaments are instruments of democracy and they stand at the forefront in the promotion and protection of human rights. Once again I would argue that the amendments proposed in this bill do not do that.One of the proposed changes disestablishes the part-time roles and puts them into full-time roles. One of the beauties about Dr Sharples’ time as a commissioner—I found this out after a discussion I had with—was that although he may have been full-time the actual strength of his role was the ability to be involved in his community not just in his official capacity as a commissioner but as a member of the community. If we put an onerous task on these commissioners and make them full time in the hard task of carrying out the roles of the Human Rights Commission I fear they will become disconnected from the people they purport to represent as human rights commissioners. With that as has been mentioned comes added responsibility to a minimised group. What I mean by that is that by taking away those part-time positions and establishing the full-time ones as proposed you are essentially putting more responsibility on a smaller group with a smaller resource. I do not think that that is a good thing for our country. Perhaps it was the foresight of this Government knowing full well that a lot of the legislation it is rushing through this House is a breach of human rights.I just want to quickly mention the Employment Relations Amendment Act which took away the right to breaks and the disestablishing of the role of Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner. There is also the Government Communications Security Bureau but I digress. These emerging rights issues show just how important the Human Rights Commission is and I do not think that the amendments in the bill empower the Human Rights Commission enough to ensure that it still does the fantastic job that it has done to date.I am also concerned about the lines of reporting. One of the beauties of the Human Rights Commission is that it has been able in the past to speak out about breaches of human rights in this country without fear of reprisal or having to front up to a Minister the following day or week or whenever it is summoned down here to Pōneke Wellington to explain itself. The beauty of our Human Rights Commission is it can speak out on behalf of the people of New Zealand without fear of reprisal.We oppose this bill because of of course the reasons I have already mentioned but we also think that the rationale for abolishing these roles is actually rather weak. We have already heard that half of those who made a submission on this particular bill do not agree with the amendments that are being proposed.Paul Foster-Bell: The other half do.PEENI HENARE: I am sure we can all count. Half is a pretty significant number in such an important issue.Brett Hudson: It is very significant—all the ones that agree.PEENI HENARE: I can hear the members across the House there talking about being able to count and half—well you know plenty of people did not vote for that Government and that is a significant number too. So the rationale behind abolishing these roles is pretty flimsy and the official explanation is that it will ensure that they are members of the commission and will operate at all times on behalf of the commission. But it is hard to think of a time when they did not or would not in the future.In conclusion I want to point out something from the past that is an example of how these proposed amendments do not work. They do not work for the Human Rights Commission and they will not work for this country. Mr Prebble a former member of this House thought that to strengthen the Serious Fraud Office the Government would incorporate it into the police. I will read that again—to strengthen the Serious Fraud Office the Government would incorporate it into the police. Well are we not glad that they did not do that? We saw what happened over the past decade with white-collar crime and the role of the Serious Fraud Office is as an independent body to carry out the heavy responsibility the big task before it. Its strength is in the fact that it is independent and separate from the police.So in my mind and certainly in our party’s mind the proposed amendments in the Human Rights Amendment Bill will not work. I think they are poorly thought through. The commissioner will lose independence and the disestablishment of the roles of Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner and Race Relations Commissioner is a step in the wrong direction for human rights in this country. We oppose this bill. Kia ora tātou.JONO NAYLOR (National): It is a great privilege for me to be able to rise and take a call on this the Human Rights Amendment Bill at its second reading. I refer to New Zealand’s proud history in the area of human rights. I felt great privilege when I was at the seminar that was mentioned by the previous speaker Peeni Henare in Manila less than 2 weeks ago. It was a great trip I can tell you. It was very interesting to share the stage with those people. But I took great pride in being able to talk about New Zealand human rights issues and our history and the fact that we were in fact the first nation to give women the vote for example.In hearing some of the things that I have heard talked about here people have said that we should just sit on what we have got. People are saying: “Oh we’ve got a good Human Rights Commission. We have got this structure in place and this is very good. We should rest on our laurels perhaps and stay there.”I find that a little disturbing because I think if we are not going to continuously improve what we are doing and if we are not going to continue to amend our legislation to make it better to make it stronger and to deliver an even better human rights record in New Zealand than what we have that would be very sad. I cannot help but reflect on what would have happened if we had simply patted ourselves on the back in the fashion that I have heard so far this evening from the opposite side and said: “Well we’ve given women the vote; let’s just stop there.” I think that would be ridiculous. We have moved on so much further. We have been able to achieve so much more and that is why it is important that we have a Human Rights Amendment Bill—for us to do even more to further enhance the human rights of the people living in New Zealand.At the conference that I attended it was really interesting to be able to share the stage and share some time with many countries whose human rights record is not the same as our own. I found it rather ironic at times to be sitting next to people who for example had refugees leave their nation to come and live in my home town of Palmerston North. I thought that it seemed a little odd to be in that situation but it was a great opportunity for us to be able to share. My colleagues Peeni Henare and Marama Fox were also able to talk about some of the lessons that we learnt in terms of our indigenous people and what we have learnt in terms of the role of women within our society and addressing some of those issues.But my responsibility and the topic that I had been given was to talk about New Zealand’s response to the periodic review that is conducted every 4½ years by the United Nations. That periodic review highlights a bunch of recommendations. There were a significant number actually for New Zealand. We have heard people talking about how we can sort of stop where we are and we do not need to move forward when in fact there were 155 recommendations that those other nations had to suggest to us that we could move forward. We have picked up on about 120 of those and we are starting to incorporate some of those into the practice here. I am looking forward to the Human Rights Commission coming up with its action plan in July of this year.But it cannot stop there. We need to continue to move forward. Although those countries as the previous speaker said perhaps were in awe of what we had achieved over this recent time—they were envious in fact of our Human Rights Commission and we even had countries approaching us asking how they might be able to set one up in their own nation—I think those people would be somewhat disturbed if we said we have come as far as we can go we do not need to move on and we do not need to make further progress.So this amendment is about continuous improvement. It is about the establishment of a commissioner who is going to be sort of set aside in the work that they do in the role of disabilities. I know from my previous experience as a mayor of Palmerston North—the number of times when I would be confronted by people from our community who were facing issues around disability whether it be about access to public buildings or whether it be about all of the other issues that perhaps people in our communities are facing when they are discriminated against on the basis of disability—that it is critically important that our Human Rights Commission has an absolutely designated person involved to be able to work in that area with some specialist knowledge to assist those people in our community who need that assistance and to provide the advocacy that is required from somebody in that role.When I think about people who talk about being discriminated against they do not want to be defined necessarily all the time simply by their race by their age by their gender or by their disability. So it sort of seems ironic to me that in fact if we are going to have a Human Rights Commission that is trying to get away from discrimination we are actually going to have separate titles for people. They are the “EO Commissioner” they are the “Disability Commissioner” or they are the whatever-else-specific commissioner. Let us not reflect those in the titles. In terms of the work that they do it might be specific it might be specialised because it will take a certain amount of specialised knowledge but it does not mean that we necessarily have to keep using the titles. I cannot understand why everyone is so upset over titles because at the end of the day it is the function of the human rights commissioners it is the function of the work that they are doing to ensure that we have got those bases covered which is really what is important.The previous speaker alluded to the fact that around half of the people who submitted on this bill were opposed to it. It was sort of described as that being a significant number. If you are going to talk about half well actually the other half is just as significant. So half of the people agree with what was being proposed. In my experience it is usually the people who do come and make submissions whether it be to council plans or to bills who are the people who think there is something wrong with it. The people who think that it is OK tend not to speak up. Also at the end of the day we cannot simply base our decisions on the number of submissions that we receive either for or against any particular piece of legislation. We need to weigh it up on the basis of equality of what is presented.We need to give our Human Rights Commission some flexibility. Yes it is an independent body. It needs to be able to work in a way that reflects what it believes needs to be achieved. There has been a little bit of a talk about whether or not it is going to be told what to do by the Prime Minister or the relevant Minister. Well it makes sense to me that they have an ability to consult and to talk and to have a conversation. No one is talking about giving up the independence of the Human Rights Commission but we are talking about ensuring that we do have communication lines open and ensuring that those people who are responsible for making legislation that will affect this commission do have a direct line of communication. I think that is very important also.It is one of those things we could talk about really. There has been a lot of banter and discussion from people really nit-picking over some of the specific things whether it be job titles or otherwise. But in my mind it really has to be about whether we are going to have a Human Rights Commission that is going to be improving. Is it going to be delivering better results for New Zealanders? Is it going to ensure that it is flexible that it is adaptable and that it is able to meet the needs of New Zealanders? That is what this amendment is about. It is about us ensuring that those people who need the services of the Human Rights Commission will have those needs met in the most appropriate way.One of the things we were talking about a lot in Manila was the human rights conventions that are international conventions. This amendment absolutely wants to ensure that New Zealand is better equipped to meet those requirements that we voluntarily joined up with when we signed some of those various UN conventions. If we see an opportunity to enhance what we are doing if we see an opportunity to make sure that we comply in a better way with those UN conventions and ignore it well then that is a little bit like sort of looking at yourself in the mirror and then going away and forgetting what you look like. It is a little bit like I do not know really disregarding yourself and disregarding what you stand for.I think it is critical that when we see these opportunities we make the amendments to the legislation to ensure that we do fulfil those things that we say with the UN we will do. I think that by making these amendments to ensure that the Human Rights Commission is better equipped to deal with that when we ensure that our Human Rights Commission has the right kinds of roles in terms of best meeting the needs of New Zealanders then that is exactly what we need to do. So on that point I want to finish and commend this Human Rights Amendment Bill to the House. Thank you.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare ko tēnei pō. Before I start my speech I just want to pass an acknowledgment for a great activist Margaret Long who passed away yesterday. She gave her life to women’s fight for equal pay a campaign that we have by no means achieved. But Margaret’s life and the life of her husband Dan Long was a tremendous life and a tremendous contribution to this country. Kia ora Margaret and to all your whānau. Our thoughts are with you.Oh dear oh dear oh dear! Some of the things Government members have said tonight are just bizarre.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 10 p.m.