Volume 671 Week 71 - Tuesday 12 April 2011 
Volume 671 Week 71 - Tuesday 12 April 2011 
[Volume:671;Page:17877] 
Tuesday 12 April 2011 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
List Member Vacancy 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have been advised by the Electoral Commissioner that pursuant to section 137 of the Electoral Act 1993 Louisa Hareruia Wall has been declared to be elected a member of the House of Representatives in place of Darren Colyn Hughes. I understand that Louisa Wall is present and wishes to take the oath. Would she please come forward to the chair on my right. 
Members Sworn 
Mr Speaker 
 administered the Oath of Allegiance to Louisa Wall who then took her seat in the House. 
Voting 
Correction—Appointments 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The vote on the question that the amendment in the name of the Hon Tariana Turia to the motion appointing the chairperson and members of the Abortion Supervisory Committee recorded the votes of three members as being cast for both the Ayes and the Noes. Further one member’s proxy vote was incorrectly exercised. I order that the vote be corrected by recording the votes of Lindsay Tisch Jonathan Young and Michael Woodhouse as being cast for the Ayes and Allan Peachey’s vote for the Noes. The correct result now stands as Ayes 31 and Noes 67 with one abstention. 
Ministerial Statements 
Earthquake Christchurch—Extension of State of National Emergency 
Hon JOHN CARTER (Minister of Civil Defence) 
: 
 I wish to make a ministerial statement under Standing Order 347 in relation to a further extension of the state of national emergency in Christchurch city. 
Today Tuesday 12 April I further extended the duration of the state of national emergency in Christchurch city under section 71 of the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002. This is the eighth extension of the state of national emergency that applies specifically to Christchurch city since it was first declared on 23 February. I consider the extension to be necessary as it enables the national controller to continue exercising his powers and functions under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act to further stabilise the situation in Christchurch City. 
Some members have expressed interest in knowing about the authorities that the national controller has used during the state of national emergency. These include issuing statements concerning the emergency; the accommodation feeding and care of displaced people; entering premises to rescue people or ensure no one is trapped; the provision of air transport out of Christchurch using New Zealand Defence Force aircraft; cordoning evacuating and restricting access to the central business district and other areas; the demolition of unsafe structures; emergency works to dump earthquake rubble at Lyttelton; emergency works to discharge untreated sewage into rivers estuaries and the sea; emergency works including the dumping of debris at Burwood; emergency works to erect substations and overground power lines in the eastern suburbs; giving directions to people to stop activities that might cause or substantially contribute to the emergency and requesting that people take action to prevent or limit the extent of the emergency; and carrying out inspections which may include marking seizing sampling securing disinfecting or destroying any property animal or any other thing in order to prevent or limit the extent of the emergency. 
The state of national emergency in Christchurch will be lifted when I am satisfied that the situation has stabilised sufficiently and that the powers available through the state of national emergency are no longer required. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 Labour does not intend to take a long period to debate the extension of the state of national emergency. I think it is fair to say that after eight repeats the Minister of Civil Defence is on his last chance this week. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party supports the extension of the state of emergency. In fact I ask the Government to consider extending it some more at a future time. As I understand it the direction at the moment is to replace the state of emergency with the authorities granted to central authorities under the bill that is shortly to come before Parliament—namely I think the Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Authority Bill; it is not on the Order Paper at the present time. That bill will apparently take over some of the authorities from civil defence. 
In order to allow Parliament to have proper time to debate such a replacement the preference of the Green Party would be to extend the state of emergency powers. This extension would allow proper considered discussion of the bill to come before Parliament with a proper select committee procedure. Particularly given that it will cover all of the different things covered in the Minister’s statement and even go beyond that as I understand it to some central direction of planning—which raises a whole lot of questions about local democracy—it would be much better to extend the state of emergency for some weeks while we have a considered discussion of the bill that is about to come before Parliament. 
Questions to Ministers 
Finance Minister—Confidence 
1. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he have confidence in his Minister of Finance? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Absolutely. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Does he agree with his Minister of Finance’s statement that the fact that wages are 30 percent cheaper in New Zealand than in Australia is “an advantage and a good thing”? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I agree that it is likely to attract investment in certain areas because the New Zealand workforce is highly skilled. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: When he claimed on Television One that his finance Minister had been quoted out of context in saying that cheap wages were an advantage what from the following quote of what Mr English was saying is not clear? Espiner: “you said … that one of our advantages over Australia was that our wages were 30 percent cheaper. I mean is that an advantage now?”; English: “Well it is a way of competing isn’t it?”. And later Espiner: “But is it a good thing?”; English: “Well it is a good thing if we … attract the capital …”. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: The finance Minister gave a speech in Auckland that was quite wide-ranging. That was one point that he made. But I would make the point that when one looks at real after-tax wages from September 2008 to the present point in time one sees that in New Zealand terms they have grown 10 percent and in Australia they have grown 6.2 percent. On my calculation this Government has closed the gap with Australia. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Nobody believes it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Hon Phil Goff 
: With inflation under his Government in the last quarter at a 20-year high does he think New Zealand workers facing a rising cost of living agree with him that having wages 30 percent lower than those of their Australian counterparts is an advantage and a good thing? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: For a start off the wage gap blew out under the 9 years of the Labour Government so let us get a few things right. Secondly inflation was higher because of the GST adjustment which was fully adjusted for. New Zealand workers are happy that this Government has been cutting taxes and therefore lifting real after-tax wages. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Why does the Prime Minister go on pretending that the wage gap with Australia is closing when the 2025 Taskforce which he himself set up reported last year and I quote: “we do not see any realistic possibility that the gap in real per capita income has narrowed in the past year …”? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: If anyone is pretending it is Phil Goff to be the leader of the Labour Party because it is about to be Andrew Little. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Members know that when a point of order is called they must treat it with respect and silence. I have not asked anyone to leave the House for breaching that very strict rule but my patience is wearing a bit thin. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Is it in order for the Prime Minister to answer in that way simply because he knows that he is wrong— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No no. I extended the member the courtesy of making sure the House was quiet for his point of order and the point of order was fair enough in the way it started but then it departed from what is acceptable by way of point of order. The reason why the Prime Minister answered in the way he did was the nature of the member’s question. The member asked why the Prime Minister pretends something. When members ask that kind of question they will probably get an answer about why the Prime Minister pretends or what pretentions there may be. It is the sort of question where as Speaker I cannot insist on any particular answer. The solution is in members’ own hands and they need to be a little more cautious with the language in questions. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Was the $43 million bail-out of MediaWorks by way of a deferred payment a loan under the Public Finance Act as set out in the document that Mr English signed or not a loan as Mr English claimed on the television programme on Sunday? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I do not have the public accounts with me so I cannot confirm that. The member can look at it. But I will say one thing about that particular situation and it is this. That deal was offered to any media company. Nine companies from memory took it up. A number of companies did not. If it was such a good deal why did not every company take it up? 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Does the Prime Minister have confidence in the Minister of Finance’s decision to extend a taxpayer guarantee to four at-risk finance companies that could impose a liability on the New Zealand taxpayer of a further $1.7 billion? He did that in January. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes. 
Earthquakes Canterbury—Projected Government Spending 
2. 
CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: How much does the Government expect to spend over the next few years to help rebuild Christchurch in the aftermath of the two earthquakes? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 At this stage the Government expects to spend about $8.5 billion over the next 4 or 5 years rebuilding Christchurch. The latest estimates put the direct cost to the Government of the two earthquakes at about $5.5 billion. The other $3 billion is the cost to the Earthquake Commission of paying the excess on its insurance. These will be fully provided for in the Budget next month. Of the $5.5 billion about $3 billion relates to the taxpayers’ share of local government infrastructure insurance excesses on schools and hospitals temporary housing the costs already incurred in supporting businesses and making cash payments ACC costs and demolition costs. The remaining $2.5 billion will be allowed for to cover uncertainty and decisions that have not been made yet particularly around land remediation. 
Craig Foss 
: What impact are the earthquakes likely to have on the Government’s tax revenue? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Treasury had estimated that as a result of the two earthquakes and an economy growing more slowly than it had expected tax revenue would be $3 billion to $5 billion less over the next few years. A small bit of good news is that current forecasts show that the loss of tax revenue will be just a bit less than $3 billion rather than the higher figure of $5 billion. This will be finalised in the Budget. 
Craig Foss 
: How significant are the costs of the two earthquakes and how will the Government go about paying its share of those costs? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The costs are significant but they do not fundamentally change the economic situation or the Government’s programme. They need to be put in the context of New Zealand’s annual GDP of about $200 billion a year. So when we are talking about direct costs to the Government of $5.5 billion over the next 4 years during that time total GDP will be about $800 billion. Meeting the Government’s share will require quite a substantial front-loading of Crown debt in the next year or two because we need the money now in order to start rebuilding now and the Budget will clearly set out the Government’s plan to return to surplus. 
Craig Foss 
: Why does the Government prefer not to impose a special earthquake levy? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: When Kiwi families are under some pressure particularly because their wage increases have not been significant the last thing they need is a new tax. The Green proposal for a relatively small levy would need to stay in place for about a decade to pay for the quake but particularly at this time when we are absorbing these unexpected events but need to put them behind us and get on with growing the economy we do not want to reverse the direction of tax cuts which were intended to be an incentive for growth. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: What advice has he received from Treasury or any other Government agency on the cost of providing income support to earthquake-affected Cantabrians once the Government’s business support package is terminated in the next few weeks; if so what was that advice? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Really the only advice we have received about that is the uncertainty of knowing what will happen particularly when the employment support subsidy winds up. The point of the subsidy was to allow people sufficient time for a transition during which a number of them will have to make quite difficult personal decisions about whether they can start up their business again or whether there is a job for them. We expect that as the package runs off more Cantabrians will be applying for benefits. 
Hardship Assistance—Minister’s Statement 
3. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: Does she stand by her statement in regard to hardship assistance that “… I think it proves that the help is there when people need it”; if so why? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 Yes; because hardship assistance payments were given to 51000 people for the month of March 2008 but 91000 were given out for the month of March 2011. 
Hon Annette King 
: Why did she tell the meeting of 48 budget advisers on Friday that it was her staff’s fault for misinterpreting her instruction and not understanding her intent with regard to changes to hardship grants that have led to even more hardship for some people and what will her new directive to staff be? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: That is not what I said to the budgeting services on Friday. I said to them that there is a leadership issue—that it should start here and then go through managers to front-line staff who simply interpret what information comes to them. We said there should be budgeting activity. That was interpreted as meaning that everyone had to go to a budgeting service. We can look at changing that instruction so that we do not have quite the same number going through to budgeting services. 
Hon Annette King 
: When she said on Television One on Friday night that there would be extra funding for budget advisers from unspent funds from this year’s Budget what increased figure did she have in mind to give them? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: As I explained on Friday to those services we are still working through that process. Family and community services are looking at how we can fill some of that gap because we certainly recognise that they have had an increase and have had trouble filling it. We are looking backwards a bit to make sure we fill the gap for them. 
Hon Annette King 
: Why did it take 2 months for desperate budget advisers to get a confirmed meeting with her to discuss the explosion in the number of people being sent for budget advice and why was the appointment confirmed only the morning after their spokesperson appeared on television? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: That is not true. The meeting has been my diary for more than 3 weeks. To be fair the request came through in mid-February and we then had a wee thing called the earthquake which meant that the next 3 weeks were taken up with trying to deliver aid—which is what a Minister does and what one would expect. So when the budget advisers made the suggestion of the date Friday I confirmed it—and it was actually weeks ago. 
Hon Annette King 
: What did the Prime Minister tell her about the difficulties that low-income New Zealanders are facing and the pressure that budget advisers are under in light of his statement last week that he regularly goes out to see social services which leads one to assume that he knows what is happening to the so-called underclass in New Zealand? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: In all fairness the comments the Prime Minister makes to me about social services and what they are delivering are so many that I do not have time to stand here and relate them to the Opposition. He follows what is happening in the different regions and with the different organisations all the time. He is rather forward in giving me his opinion on them. 
Hon Annette King 
: Will she now admit that she had no idea of the level of hardship that some New Zealand families are facing and the pressure and problems that community services have been trying to deal with and does she think that turning up in a BMW—with or without a heated seat—removes her from the real world they are living in? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I will not play politics with people’s lives like that. I will say that—[ 
Interruption 
] It is about time you got riled up about something. What is happening as far as hardship assistance is concerned is that in March 2008 under the Labour Government 51000 payments were given out at a cost of $12 million and in March 2011 the National Government gave out 91000 payments at a cost of about $20 million. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I assure the Minister that the Speaker is not getting riled up about anything. 
Colon Cancer—Treatment of Maori Patients 
4. 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What action if any has been taken in light of the study  
Ethnicity and Management of Colon Cancer in New Zealand: Do Indigenous Patients Get a Worse Deal? 
 which concluded that Maori New Zealanders with colon cancer were less likely to receive adjuvant chemotherapy and experienced a lower quality of care compared with non-Maori patients? 
Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health) 
: 
 The study the member refers to was published in July last year and was based on data from 1996 to 2003. The study is however consistent with many earlier reports that show that access to cancer treatment for all needs to be improved further. The issues raised in the study were incorporated in the planning and design of the Government’s $24 million bowel cancer screening programme announced last year which is being piloted by the Waitemata District Health Board. 
Rahui Katene 
: What explanation can be given for the fact that Maori were more likely to die during their post-operative period significantly less likely to receive chemotherapy for stage III disease and more likely to experience a delay of at least 8 weeks before starting chemotherapy? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: There is a complex range of contributing factors and a range of opinions as to the relative weighting of those factors—for example socio-economic factors and the proximity of treatment services. What I can say specifically on chemotherapy is that treatment times are now being much more actively monitored and I am advised the latest data shows that no one has needed to wait more than 6 weeks to start chemotherapy and most started within 4 weeks. That is a significant improvement from the time the survey was taken. 
Rahui Katene 
: Does the Minister agree with the article published in 2010 that attention to health system factors is needed to ensure equal access and quality of cancer treatment for indigenous and ethnic minority populations; if so what is he doing to address these factors? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: I think there certainly is a need to improve the services as just stated by the member—indeed for all patients. That is one of the reasons why the Government is investing $24 million in a bowel cancer screening programme. The Waitemata project will include 7000 Maori in the pilot population. I can also advise the member that Pharmac has widened access to two additional drugs for bowel cancer: octreotide in July 2010 and capecitabine in October 2010. 
Electricity—Generation from Renewable Resources 
5. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National—West Coast - Tasman) 
 to the  
Minister for the Environment 
: What steps is the Government taking to increase renewable electricity generation in light of reports that greenhouse gas emissions from this sector have increased by 120 percent which is more than any other sector since 1990? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 Our first step in 2009 was streamlining the Resource Management Act with our new national consenting process that enables timely decisions on projects. Our second step in 2010 was the introduction of the emissions trading scheme which provides a competitive advantage for renewable generation over thermal generation. The third step which we are taking today is the new national policy statement on renewable electricity generation. It provides clear direction to our 78 councils on the importance of renewables and consistent and clear rules to enable the development of New Zealand’s wind geothermal hydro and tidal energy resources. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: What interventions have Governments made in the last decade affecting electricity generation and how have these interventions affected greenhouse gas emissions from the sector? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: An intervention was made in 2003 with the then Government deciding to build the new diesel-powered generator at Whirinaki. The Government further intervened in 2005 to underwrite the investment in the very large e3p gas turbine at Huntly. In the last decade we also saw the proportion of New Zealand’s electricity produced from burning coal more than double. These decisions contributed to New Zealand’s highest-ever electricity emissions in 2008 which was somewhat at odds with the then Government’s policy of carbon neutrality. I welcome the fact that we have seen a record high investment in 2010 in renewable generation in New Zealand. 
Companies Financial Support—Government Guarantee 
6. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Excluding the banks and non-bank financial institutions covered by the deposit guarantee scheme are there any other companies that might be provided with a Government guarantee while the Rt Hon John Key is Prime Minister? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Yes. Crown guarantees and indemnities arise in many forms. For example the New Zealand Export Credit Office has since 2001 offered a wide range of working capital and credit guarantees to a large number of New Zealand exporters. There are numerous other examples of Crown guarantees such as those by Housing New Zealand Corporation Landcorp New Zealand Railways Corporation the Reserve Bank and others. I refer the member to the fiscal risks chapter of each economic and fiscal update for more information about these guarantees. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Does he accept Treasury’s advice found at pages 30 and 32 of its paper entitled  
Crown ownership of commercial entities 
 that partly privatising the energy State-owned enterprises might create the perception of an “implicit Crown guarantee”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Probably the single action that created the perception of implicit Government guarantees was the decision made by the previous Labour Government to offer a deposit guarantee to the banks. It is now taken as implicit that all our main banks have an implicit guarantee. In respect of State-owned enterprises people will draw their own conclusions. It has not stopped a State-owned enterprise like Air New Zealand under the mixed-ownership model being a successful company. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Has he considered the possibility that an implicit Government guarantee as described by Treasury might incentivise risk taking by private investors who manage to get influence over a company and that such risk could include asset stripping and a lack of reinvestment the kinds of practices that forced the previous Government to buy back Tranz Rail and bail out Air New Zealand after they were run into the ground by private investors? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Of course that is possible but the Government is considering whether the tests it has laid out for the mixed-ownership model can be met. Those tests focus on maintaining majority Government ownership and providing an opportunity for New Zealanders as preferential investors to be able to invest in some sound long-term companies thereby encouraging more savings by New Zealanders and strengthening our capital markets which badly need it after 9 years of the previous Labour administration. 
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 
: How have the guarantees of banks and financial institutions reduced under this Government? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The coverage of the deposit guarantee scheme has narrowed considerably. The initial Crown scheme guaranteed 73 institutions with total deposits of $125 billion and most of those organisations paid no fees. The current scheme which charges commercial fees covers just four institutions instead of 73 and $1.7 billion of deposits instead of $125 billion. The current scheme will cease from 31 December this year and it is possible that at that stage we will be one of the very few developed countries that will have been able to get out of a Government guarantee of depositors. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Given that the National Government has already spent billions of dollars on bailing out South Canterbury Finance MediaWorks and now possibly expenditures in relation to AMI Insurance does he think it would be prudent to refrain from partly privatising New Zealand’s energy infrastructure eliminating the possibility that risky private sector practices could lead to future bail-outs of former State-owned enterprises? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The two issues are unrelated. The Government has been very reluctant to enter into arrangements such as the support package for AMI Insurance and the Opposition is giving the appearance of being against it which is something that member should try to explain to policyholders of AMI Insurance who are sitting in their wrecked houses in Christchurch. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Is it worth risking the failure of an energy company through privatisation when the advice he has received from Treasury says “there is”— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Oh! 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: —the Minister may not like the advice but it is there—“ 
little 
 evidence to suggest that privatisation would  
significantly 
 improve the financial performance of many of the SOE companies.”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The member needs to make up his mind whether it is a big change or a small change if it goes into the mixed-ownership model. Either hardly any benefits will come from it or it will be a major disaster. The Government is doing the work now to see whether the mixed-ownership model will meet the tests. I must say though that my colleague Simon Power has done a good job of tidying up the grossly irresponsible stewardship of our State-owned companies by the previous Government. 
Petrobras—Petroleum Exploration Permit 
7. 
JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) 
 to the  
Acting Minister of Energy and Resources 
: What is Petrobras able to do under the permit granted to it in the Raukumara basin? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA (Acting Minister of Energy and Resources) 
: 
 Under the 5-year permit Petrobras can acquire and interpret 2-D and 3-D seismic data and is consented to drill one exploratory well. At the end of the 5-year period if Petrobras wishes to move on to extraction and production a petroleum-mining permit will need to be applied for. 
Jonathan Young 
: What activities have previously been undertaken in petroleum exploration and production in New Zealand? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: New Zealand has a long history of petroleum exploration and production dating back to 1864. In 2010 18 seismic surveys were undertaken in New Zealand and 59 exploration and development wells were also drilled. This demonstrates that petroleum activity is currently carried out regularly in New Zealand in a responsible manner. Petroleum is New Zealand’s fourth-largest export earner. Last year it brought in $2.1 billion in revenue and directly and indirectly employed over 7000 people. The Government is committed to wealth-creating opportunities including the potential in New Zealand’s petroleum and mineral resources. 
David Clendon 
: I seek leave to table the exploration permit issued to Petrobras which clearly states that the company is obliged to drill rather than consented to drill within a 60-month period of commencing. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Petrobras Petroleum Exploration Permit—Environmental Protection Provisions 
8. 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
 to the  
Acting Minister of Energy and Resources 
: What environmental protection provisions if any did the Government include in the permit granted to Petrobras to explore for oil and drill off the East Cape? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA (Acting Minister of Energy and Resources) 
: Petrobras like all operators must comply with applicable law and regulations in New Zealand for the activities it conducts including the Crown Minerals Act the Resource Management Act the Maritime Transport Act the Biosecurity Act and the Health and Safety in Employment Act. Petrobras has also committed to complying with the Department of Conservation’s guidelines for minimising acoustic disturbance to marine mammals from seismic survey operations and has an independent observer on its survey vessel to ensure that is happening. 
David Clendon 
: Can the Minister confirm that outside the 12 nautical mile limit the Resource Management Act does not apply and that there is no requirement for resource consent or any equivalent environmental approval? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: In New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone and extended continental shelf beyond the territorial sea the Maritime Transport Act 1994 which is administered by Maritime New Zealand applies when a party is operating a ship or installation for seismic survey drilling and production-associated activities. Under the Maritime Transport Act safety and marine protection standards—which are known as maritime rules marine protection rules and emergency marine protection rules—apply and operators must have maritime and marine protection documents. This is an issue on which my colleague the Minister for the Environment Dr Nick Smith has been actively working as part of the Environmental Protection Authority reforms. 
David Clendon 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That was a very fulsome answer but it did not go to the heart of my question which asked about resource consent or equivalent environmental approval. The Minister referred to safety and other issues but not to environmental approval. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The dilemma I have as the Speaker is that if the question had asked specifically about resource consent processes it would have been much simpler but it went on to ask about “or equivalent” measures. In her answer the Minister appeared to me to be giving information about equivalent measures relating to other legislation that did have environmental protection implications. I cannot judge how comprehensive those are but the member has further supplementary questions to pursue that issue. 
David Clendon 
: Why has a foreign oil company been permitted to explore and drill for oil in deep water when according to the Ministry of Economic Development’s review of offshore petroleum operations there is a “lack of an environmental permitting regime”? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: As I have previously answered we have a sufficient legislative and regulatory regime in place to cover the permit that has currently been made available to Petrobras. We are addressing other wider exclusive economic zone legislation as part of our work agenda. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: Why does the Government stand by and allow these ecoterrorists to humiliate New Zealand and cost us potential jobs and income? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: Police are responsible for operational decisions and they make those decisions independently of Ministers. 
David Clendon 
: Given that there is no environmental permitting regime or requirements in the permit issued to Petrobras how can the Government be sure that there will not be a catastrophic leak such as the one that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico last year? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: I reject the premise of that question. In previous answers I have indicated the regulatory and legal regime that is in place to provide for environmental management. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: What action is the Government taking to enable people to go about their lawful legal business in New Zealand waters free from the harassment of eco-fascists who want to put New Zealand back into the Dark Ages? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not think it is appropriate to refer to any New Zealanders as fascists unless they wish to be so referred to. But more than that I do not see how the question is the responsibility of the Minister. It relates to law and order and the primary question was set down for answer by the Acting Minister of Energy and Resources. I do not want to deprive the member of a question. I invite him to rephrase his question and try to bring it into line with the Minister’s responsibilities. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: What action is the Government taking to enable people to go about their lawful business which she as Minister has consented them to do free from the harassment of these—what could we possibly call them—eco-protesters who want to put New Zealand back into the Dark Ages? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: As the Prime Minister has said and as I have repeated protesters have the right to peacefully protest but Petrobras has the permit to go about its survey business and the rule of law will be upheld by police making operational decisions that are outside my portfolio. 
David Clendon 
: Does the Minister think that one part-time inspector will be sufficient to adequately monitor all offshore petroleum activities in New Zealand? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: As I have already indicated there is a comprehensive regime in place that involves hundreds if not thousands of public servants who carry out their responsibilities under that Act. We are also reviewing areas that we need to strengthen. 
David Clendon 
: Why has a foreign oil company been permitted to explore and drill for oil in our sensitive marine environment with no prior consultation with directly affected iwi and hapu? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: That is simply untrue. Both Te Runanga o Ngati Porou and Te Runanga o Te Whanau a Apanui were invited on several occasions to contribute to the permitting process. 
David Clendon 
: What is the Government’s contingency plan if there is a catastrophic oil spill or leak resulting from exploratory drilling? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: Maritime New Zealand is responsible for ensuring that New Zealand is prepared for and able to respond to marine oil spills. The Marine Pollution Response Service consists of internationally respected experts who manage and train a team of about 400 local Government and Maritime New Zealand responders. 
David Clendon 
: Supplementary— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I believe that the member has had his six. 
David Clendon 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We are exercising the extra supplementary questions we received from the Hon Chris Carter. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Well I will allow the member to do that but I ask that in the future the member makes sure I am advised of that. I was not advised of that and normally I am required to be advised of that. But I will allow the member to ask his supplementary question. 
David Clendon 
: Apologies Mr Speaker; thank you for that. What resources or infrastructure does the New Zealand Government have to deal with a catastrophic oil spill that were not available to the American Government or BP Oil in the Gulf of Mexico? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: I believe that I answered the front end of that question in my last answer and I have no responsibility for the US response. 
David Clendon 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I do not think that the Minister addressed the question let alone answered it and I would appreciate a more direct answer than that. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The question was actually not an unreasonable question. It asked what mechanisms or resources the Government has to deal with an oil spill that were not available to the US. It may be that the Minister does not have that information because she certainly does not have any responsibility for the US. If the Minister has any information on that then it is not an unreasonable question. But if the Minister does not have any information on that then it is perfectly reasonable for her to tell the House she does not have specific information on that. 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The response I gave to the previous question was that Maritime New Zealand is responsible for ensuring that New Zealand is well prepared and that the Marine Pollution Response Service consists of internationally respected experts who train a team of 400 local Government and Maritime New Zealand responders. But as to whether they were made available in terms of the US response I cannot answer. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member is now going further than necessary. I believe that I cannot take the matter further because the Minister cannot be expected to have that information. I accept that the member’s question was not an unreasonable question but an answer to it would depend on whether a Minister has that specific information. I do not think we should take the further time of the House on that. The question specifically asked what extra facilities or resources we have and all the Minister can outline is what we do have. That may or may not be extra but we cannot expect the Minister to know what the US has. 
David Clendon 
: I seek leave to table two documents. The first is a Ministry of Economic Development report of September 2010 entitled  
Comparative Review of Health Safety and Environmental Legislation for Offshore Petroleum Operations 
 which states that there is a lack of an environmental permitting regime in the exclusive economic zone. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
David Clendon 
: I seek leave to table the Environmental Defence Society’s submission on the Ministry of Economic Development offshore petroleum review which provides evidence that the inspection office is severely under-resourced with only one part-time inspector. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The matter has just come up and I ask you to reflect on it. Speaker Hunt made a new ruling in this House by allowing parties to shift the day on which they would ask a question or indeed enabling parties to shift questions from one party to another. We have just had an instance of the apparently Independent member Chris Carter not asking his question when it came up but rather transferring it to the Greens. I ask you to reflect on whether that is allowed under the rules and indeed whether it should be allowed under the rules. Chris Carter gets a question once in a blue moon. If he cannot be bothered coming here to ask the question he can actually postpone it to another day. And he was actually elected as a member of the Labour Party not the Greens. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Far be it from me to defend Chris Carter but I would just like to remind Mr Hide that his party has come to Labour in order to request supplementary questions be transferred in that very way. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not believe we need to take this matter any further today. Supplementary questions are always at the discretion of the Speaker because there are not rules over this matter. What the Speaker did establish—during Speaker Hunt’s time as the Minister pointed out—is that supplementary questions can be transferred provided that the Speaker is advised. Today the Speaker was not advised. I re-emphasise the point. I allowed the supplementary question to be transferred. We keep track of how many questions are available to Independent members so that they cannot transfer more than they have available to them in the course of a week. We keep track of all of that but the Speaker must be advised. In the future I will not allow the transfer of a question unless I am advised. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask you to reflect. Normally you have ruled that one should not use the point of order process to cast aspersions on other members of the House or to make political points. Mr Hide clearly said in reference to Mr Carter that Mr Carter could not be bothered to turn up which was clearly a negative connotation to put on Mr Carter. He was using the point of order process in a manner that it was never designed to be used. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I hear what the member said and he will note that I did get to my feet and cut off the Minister before he had completed his point of order for those very reasons. I felt he was starting to depart from the proper process for a point of order. If I was perhaps a little slow in getting to my feet I do apologise for that. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Just for future reference Mr Speaker what assurance do you need as Speaker that in fact an Independent member of Parliament has allowed their question— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: We do not need to take further time on this. The Speaker of course must be satisfied of that. That is why the Speaker must be advised—so that the Speaker can keep track of all these things and make sure it is all done in a proper manner and we do that. 
MediaWorks Payment Arrangement—Confidence in Ministers Involved 
9. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he have confidence in all Ministers involved in the MediaWorks frequency payment arrangement? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Does he agree with Steven Joyce’s statement of 10 March 2011 that there was no Government loan to MediaWorks and with a similar statement on  
Q+A 
 last Sunday made by Bill English? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Why then did the arrangement require the approval of the Minister of Finance as a loan under section 65N of the Public Finance Act? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Because that was the accounting treatment required under the Public Finance Act. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Was Cabinet advised that this arrangement was a loan requiring the authority of the Minister of Finance under the Public Finance Act? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Not to the best of my knowledge but I do not have the papers with me. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Did he personally sign or give a specific authorisation for his electronic signature to be attached to his original answers to written questions Nos 2043 and 2044 in 2011 which said that he had not had any discussions with the board or senior management of MediaWorks about the deferral scheme? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: From memory it was about “meetings”. I did not have a meeting with them; I ran into Brent Impey at a function. In the newspapers he is actually described as saying that he was just showing me around. He said he would like to come and see me about the licence. That was it. It was very light. The conversation was a couple of sentences. I have hundreds of encounters like that with people every week. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am somewhat at a loss. I know that we are not allowed to table answers to written questions and we are not allowed to argue about answers. But the Prime Minister said the question was about meetings. I have his reply which was about discussions. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member knows he cannot litigate by way of point of order an answer given. He can put down further questions in the future if he wishes to pursue a matter and he can ask further supplementary questions today of course. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Did he read the advice from Deloitte in its report on this proposal? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: To the best of my knowledge no. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Was he told that the Deloitte conclusion was that “the licence purchases at the prices contracted with the Ministry should be affordable without compromising the longer term financial viability of the companies … This conclusion does not change even for the worst-case scenario modelled.” and that this issue was a problem of the low capitalisation of MediaWorks by its Australian private equity owners; if so what is the public interest in bailing out Australian companies that do not properly capitalise their New Zealand subsidiaries? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: At the time the Government approved that offer it was approved for a number of companies. Every company in that sector was able to take up the offer. It was brought to us by the Radio Broadcasters Association and it was considerably changed by Cabinet. The fact that some companies chose not to take up the offer shows that it was not as good a deal as that; if it was a sweet-heart deal every company would have taken it up. I might add that members on the Opposition benches seem terribly confused because last week David Cunliffe— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No I think the answer— 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: It is quite a salient point. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Opposition does not deserve to be attacked. Accusing—[ 
Interruption 
] I am on my feet. Accusing parties or members of being confused in this place is kind of an attack. The Prime Minister had given a perfectly good answer and did not need to add that last bit to it. 
Earthquake Christchurch—Support from Inland Revenue Department 
10. 
AARON GILMORE (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Revenue 
: What has Inland Revenue done to assist the people in Christchurch after the February earthquake? 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue) 
: 
 The Inland Revenue Department has responded both nationally and locally to this extraordinary event. Initially the response was focused on communicating to taxpayers that they should focus first on family and friends and not on tax. Subsequently Inland Revenue Department has also been working with the Ministry of Social Development to deliver the earthquake support package. The second stage of support has been focused on addressing issues with regard to ongoing tax compliance and helping taxpayers to get back on their feet. In that regard Inland Revenue Department has applied all tax discretions available to it to Canterbury people who have been affected by the earthquake. 
Aaron Gilmore 
: What policy changes has the Government announced as a result of the earthquakes and how will they help the people of Christchurch? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: A number have been announced. I made an announcement this morning regarding depreciation roll-over relief and the recognition of employer welfare contributions made to staff not being taxable. We have also provided an exemption so that businesses do not have to pay tax or gift duty on trading stock donated within 4 months of either the September or the February quakes. We are proposing to extend the redundancy tax credit to 30 September this year in order to alleviate the impost of use-of-money interest on late payments of tax. The commissioner will use his discretion to extend statutory tax dates on a case by case or class by class basis and we have exempted certain payments made to families who receive Working for Families tax credits as a result of the earthquakes from having to count as income. 
Ministerial Vehicles—Replacement 
11. 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
 to the  
Minister responsible for Ministerial Services 
: Does he stand by his statements in relation to the purchase of 34 BMWs by Ministerial Services including one with heated seats that “Yeah I don’t know what’s in Dunedin” and “It’s beyond me it’s not my car anyway”? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Minister responsible for Ministerial Services) 
: 
 No and the reason is that that was not my statement. I have a copy of the transcript and it states: “That’s what I said. I don’t know why it’s in Dunedin.” 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Supplementary question Grant Robertson. [ 
Interruption 
] I have called Grant Robertson. 
Grant Robertson 
: How are things in the fourth form Nick? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No no. When I call a member to ask a supplementary question the microphone is open and there will not be that kind of interjection. But then the House should be more orderly. 
Grant Robertson 
: As Minister responsible for Ministerial Services is he responsible for the 2010-11 budget of Ministerial Services as Gerry Brownlee told the House in February? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes. 
Grant Robertson 
: Is it correct that the decision to replace the VIP transport fleet was put to him as Minister responsible for Ministerial Services four times through March and April 2009 as part of the statement of intent process and that as Minister responsible he signed off on those documents on each occasion? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: No it is not correct. 
Grant Robertson 
: I seek leave to table a Department of Internal Affairs briefing note of 18 February 2011 that lists the four occasions on which the Minister signed off the statement of intent. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I say—and it is very much to the Labour front bench on this occasion—that points of order will be heard in silence. I will not predict when I will evict the first person for abusing that but I will not tolerate it further. Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Did I see objection? No there is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Grant Robertson 
: Can he see why given that he is the Minister responsible for the VIP transport fleet he was told about the fleet replacement and he signed it off four times perhaps people might expect just a little bit more responsibility than his channelling of Bart Simpson with his: “I didn’t do it. No one saw me do it. It’s not my car anyway.” routine? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: The statement of intent does not say what he says; it says that they “may” replace the fleet. There was no proposal that was given to me. In relation to the add-on extras commented on in the papers yesterday none of those were brought to my attention. The decisions were made by Ministerial Services with no reference to me or any Minister. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Is he responsible for the processes in Ministerial Services? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes. It depends. [ 
Interruption 
] It depends on the circumstances. I was not responsible for this particular instance because it was not brought to my attention and there was no reason for it to be. 
Grant Robertson 
: Can he assure the House that there will now be no further additional expense to the taxpayer as a result of the decision of the Minister of Finance—communicated to the media—to refuse to use the Dunedin-based BMW given that his other option is his self-drive ministerial car which is likely residing along with its owner in Karori Wellington? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: The decision to buy a heated seat for the car was made by Ministerial Services without reference to me. At the point at which it was brought to my attention when I was answering a parliamentary question my office rang Ministerial Services and asked whether it was possible to remove that extra because it was not wanted by the Government. The answer that was given was that the cars had been ordered—under the Labour contract I might add—and were on the water. 
Grant Robertson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Are members going deaf? The point of order was called very clearly and members know that they must cease interjecting. The problem is so many members are interjecting that I would have half the House out if I were to evict the offending members. But I would ask members to respect the Standing Orders of the House. 
Grant Robertson 
: My question asked the Minister whether he could assure the House that there would not be any additional expense as a result of the Minister of Finance’s decision not— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think the member’s question was so coloured that he was kind of lucky he got the detailed answer that he did. If members want to get straight answers they have to ask pretty straight questions. The member heard a very good example of that today where one of his colleagues asked a set of very straight questions and got some pretty straight answers. But if members dress their questions up with cleverness they will get clever answers. They should not seek my help as Speaker if they do not get the answer they might be looking for. 
Fisheries Ministry—Compliance Operations 
12. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
 to the  
Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture 
: What has been the result of enforcement action taken by the Ministry of Fisheries under Operation PAID and Taskforce Webb? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture) 
: 
 Last month the offenders involved in Taskforce Webb were sentenced. Aurora Fisheries Ltd and Kanai Fishing along with key individuals involved were convicted and fined a total of $840000 bringing the total penalties in relation to this case to $4.1 million. This is the most significant penalty ever achieved by the ministry and is a signal of the seriousness that the courts place on fisheries offending. Secondly Operation PAID—a 2-year operation—netted a total of 53 defendants who faced 321 charges. Most of the defendants have now been sentenced 28 of them to prison time. 
Appointments 
Assistant Speaker 
Hon SIMON POWER (Acting Leader of the House) 
: 
 I seek leave to move a motion without notice to appoint an Assistant Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none. 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: I move  
That H V Ross Robertson be appointed Assistant Speaker 
. Kia ora and good afternoon. Ross Robertson was born on 22 May 1949 which makes him a Gemini on the cusp of Taurus. I am advised that as a pair of bull-headed twins people of this sign are fascinated with gathering as much information as possible and their facility as communicators is unmatched. 
To find out what motivated Mr Robertson to enter politics after a 20-year career in management I tracked down a conference speech he gave in 1996. In his own words: “I was attracted to stand for Parliament in 1987 3 years into what is now regarded as the great modern experiment in economic reforms among the OECD nations. I enrolled into a Labour Party with a strong and well-communicated point of view about creating wealth and well-being. I delighted in the sense of a unified and broad spectrum caucus.” I am sure those sentiments are just as strong today. 
Members of the House know Mr Robertson for his unwillingness for the Chair to be drawn into the debate his respect for Maori language and protocol his potent use of members’ notices of motion and of course his scarves. But I ask how many of us knew that he has represented Auckland and Wellington in rugby at various levels and has coached softball and soccer at provincial level or that he was New Zealand’s representative at the Regional Parliamentary Workshop on Small Arms and Light Weapons in Tbilisi Georgia in 2006. 
Members on this side of the House know Ross Robertson as a member with the utmost respect for this institution and its public face. Although he has yet to find support for a code of conduct for his members I have no doubt that appointing Ross Robertson as Assistant Speaker will indirectly improve standards in the House through the unimpeachable example set by the member himself. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I stand with some mixed emotions about this motion. I have held the position that Mr Ross Robertson is about to assume for some time and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in the Speaker’s eyrie in the Chamber. One looks down upon the members and gains a particular perspective that one does not get from sitting on either the Government benches or the Opposition benches. It is a very interesting position from which to view the House and it gives one a greater appreciation of the institution. I am very happy to support this motion because Ross has previously performed this function incredibly well. Ross is well known for swotting up on his Standing Orders and his Speakers’ rulings. He has the most annotated books of  
Standing Orders of the House of Representatives 
 and  
Speakers’ Rulings  
that I have seen. He constantly reviews them and on nearly every occasion that Ross gives a ruling he will refer members to say Speaker’s ruling 97/3 and he will say it almost off by heart. He is assiduous in his study of the work. Mr Robertson is indeed an unimpeachable person in this House as far as the Standing Orders are concerned. On behalf of the Labour Party I have the greatest pleasure in supporting this motion. 
Motion agreed to. 
H V ROSS ROBERTSON (Labour—Manukau East) 
: 
 Kia ora tatou. No reira tena koutou matua Mr Speaker. It is with humility that I gratefully accept the honour that my parliamentary colleagues have offered me—to serve in this House as one of their presiding officers and this is not my first time. 
This Parliament the forty-ninth Parliament of New Zealand is blessed with many new talents alongside seasoned politicians who are well accustomed to the delicate difference of opinion in this place. I will ensure that every member has the fullest opportunity to define defend and deliver his or her vision according to the letter of the Standing Orders and  
Speakers’ Rulings  
and in the spirit of engagement that our public expects. 
This is a robust Parliament a place for full and vigorous debate but contributions will be made with respect for the traditions of the House as enshrined in our Standing Orders. This is a place where continuous streams of ideas are tested according to our Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings. It is like a river that flows from bank to bank so that its true potential is realised for all. 
I received an email from a seasoned parliamentary observer following the announcement that I was to be nominated as an Assistant Speaker. It read: “Ross is back” but he thought those words applied to Winston Churchill returning as First Sea Lord. My duty is to keep debate within the Standing Orders. After all these are the rules crafted from well over a century and a half of parliamentary practice in New Zealand and it is my duty to ensure that they are upheld. 
I trust that we will work together tatou tatou to ensure that this House grows in public esteem for courtesy is contagious and we will all prosper if we keep within the Standing Orders. Tihei mauri ora! Tena koutou tena koutou tena tatou katoa. 
Environmental Protection Authority Bill 
Second Reading 
Debate resumed from 7 April. 
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) 
: 
 I would like to be the first to congratulate Ross Robertson on reassuming the position of Assistant Speaker. My colleague Grant Robertson was saying how proud he is to be related to Ross and to bear the same name. I think in their quieter moments together he actually calls him uncle. I offer my congratulations to Ross. 
Grant Robertson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek just a small matter of clarification. Although I have great respect for my colleague Ross Robertson I am not related to him. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The House has departed from the Standing Orders considerably in the last few minutes but let us return to our Standing Orders. 
KELVIN DAVIS 
: Thank you Mr Speaker. It is true that we can choose our friends but we cannot choose our relations. 
We were talking about the Environmental Protection Authority Bill. When the debate was interrupted last Thursday I had just finished congratulating my colleague Stuart Nash on an eloquent detailed and well-thought-out speech. I congratulate him again on that speech. 
The second point I had made was that Sue Kedgley from the Green Party had said that this bill is full of double-speak. One of the areas where the Environmental Protection Authority Bill has double-speak is in its title. We would expect an environmental protection authority to have in its mission statement or its vision some sort of statement that it was there to protect the environment. The truth is that such a statement does not exist. In fact the Environmental Protection Authority’s objectives are inadequate. They do not expressly require the Environmental Protection Authority to protect the environment at all. Instead as the bill is currently worded the objective of the Environmental Protection Authority is to “undertake its functions in a way that—(a) contributes to the efficient effective and transparent management of New Zealand’s environment and natural and physical resources;”. There is nothing in that clause about the authority actually protecting the environment which is why I agree with Sue Kedgley when she says that the bill is full of double-speak. 
Last night I was at a community meeting in Wellsford which is north of Auckland. The reason for the meeting was the Kaipara turbine decision. Also raised at the meeting was the issue of the Raukumara situation whereby according to many Maori the marine environment is under attack. I raise the fact that in the bill there is no provision for the Treaty of Waitangi. I wonder—and I ask the Maori Party—why the Maori Party has allowed the bill to go ahead without any reference to the Treaty of Waitangi. Maori Party members stand in the House and claim over and over again that they speak for our people—for the Maori people. I wonder why I am standing here as a Maori member of a mainstream party the Labour Party and I am the only one asking where the reference to the Treaty of Waitangi is. What has happened so that the Maori Party members have forgotten to include reference to the Treaty of Waitangi in the bill? Why has Hone Harawira who says he is the independent voice of Te Tai Tokerau not yet taken a call and asked where the references in the Environmental Protection Authority Bill to the Treaty of Waitangi are? If there was reference to the Treaty of Waitangi and if there was concern for Maori issues we probably would not have the situation we have off the East Coast of the North Island where Ngati Porou and Te Whanau-a-Apanui are protesting that their concerns regarding the marine environment have not been heard. 
The bill “makes provision for a Maori Advisory Committee to be appointed by the EPA board to provide advice to the EPA from a Maori perspective on matters relating to policy process and decision-making.” If the Government is genuinely concerned about the Maori perspective on matters relating to policy and process I suggest that it meet with whanau and hapu in kanohi ki te kanohi—face-to-face—hui. The Government would no doubt be told the perspective of each whanau and hapu in relation to environmental matters.  
Each hapu and iwi has spent a number of years developing environmental plans. Those environmental plans spell out exactly what Maori want for their environment. Face-to-face consultation meetings and discussions with whanau and hapu are needed rather than a Maori advisory committee. I ask what the people in a committee that is brought together from all parts of the country—I am not quite sure how many people would be on the advisory committee; maybe there would be half a dozen—know about issues relating to say the Raukumara Basin the Northland Basin the Reinga Basin off the north-western coast or even the Puhi Puhi Valley in the north. There are real concerns by Ngati Wai and Ngati Hau as to the impact in that valley of what the Government intends in terms of mining and seismic surveying and all those sorts of issues. I say to the Government that it needs to meet and have face-to-face hui with whanau and hapu so that the Government knows what they want. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: They don’t turn up. 
KELVIN DAVIS 
: The Minister is calling out. I go back in the bill to where it states: “the EPA is to undertake its functions in a way that contributes to the efficient effective and transparent management of New Zealand’s environment”. Maori want transparency. When the Petrobras decision was made the Minister of Energy and Resources’ idea of consultation and transparent communication with Ngati Porou was to give Api Mahuika a phone call an hour before the media were informed that Petrobras had been given the contract for the oil exploration. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: That’s not true. 
KELVIN DAVIS 
: The Minister says that it is not true but that is how it was reported. Hopefully the Environmental Protection Authority will live up to the transparent part of the consultation because the Government’s track record in relation to the Raukumara Basin and the letting of the oil exploration permit has not been transparent. That is why Ngati Porou and Te Whanau-a-Apanui have had a flotilla off the East Coast with people jumping in the water protesting and trying to stop the seismic survey. They are concerned about what will happen to the marine environment. We all know the story. We saw what happened last year over in the Gulf of Mexico. That is the concern. 
If Maori had the opportunity for decent consultation and were able to put their views out there and if the Government met with the right people then a lot of the angst would be alleviated. Instead decisions are being made that Maori are not able to participate in fully. Their iwi and hapu environmental plans are not truly being taken into account. That is why there are Maori who are annoyed. Things are happening to them and instead of their being engaged in the decision making they are standing up and saying that they do not accept it and they want to halt things. If they were fully involved in the decision making and were active participants in it we would see a lot better progress than we are seeing now. 
Labour opposes the bill and the proposed Environmental Protection Authority. At this stage I do not think there will be benefits to Maori. I say again that it is sad that the Maori Party members have not stood up and explained why they have not included Treaty of Waitangi clauses in the bill. It is an indictment on them. Kia ora. 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 The Maori Party is pleased to speak on the second reading of the Environmental Protection Authority Bill. As Mr Davis said the Maori Party has not spoken on this bill at second reading but we are taking the opportunity to do so now; I thank Mr Davis for the invitation. 
We welcome any consideration of the protection and preservation of our environment as it is in keeping with our long-held traditions and values. Any steps that actively seek to take responsibility for caring for our environment are in themselves an expression of kaitiakitanga—the spiritual and cultural guardianship of Te Ao Marama. Tangata whenua view such responsibility as an obligation and a privilege derived from whakapapa. We see that this bill provides the opportunity to breathe life into this responsibility elevating many of the proposals of national significance and issues that were called in under the Resource Management Act 1991. 
Consultation on this bill was undertaken with Maori and iwi leaders and advisers through Te Puni Kokiri. I was advised that the key themes to emerge from Maori consultation were that Maori representation on decision-making boards should be increased to at least two representatives that there is support for the establishment of a statutory Maori advisory committee that the committee should not be seen as a substitute for local iwi engagement and that iwi had a preference that the Environmental Protection Authority be established as a stand-alone Crown agent. Each of these consultation themes could of course warrant further analysis and debate and we hope to do so through the Committee stage of the bill. 
We want to raise some issues for further consideration at this reading. As we understand it the Environmental Protection Authority will undertake all of the functions currently performed by the Environmental Risk Management Authority under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. It will also undertake administrative and registry functions for the emissions trading scheme under the Climate Change Response Act. These are weighty functions in their own right. But it might be important to also consider the opportunity for a wider mandate to provide advice on issues such as wider environmental management the Resource Management Act water and suchlike. 
What is unclear in this bill is precisely how the establishment of the Environmental Protection Authority will affect Maori environmental committees advisory boards and governance groups currently operating. We are certainly interested in participating in further discussion with the Minister for the Environment about the nature of the Crown-Maori engagement processes on natural resources within the Ministry for the Environment and how that engagement will input into the structure of the Environmental Protection Authority. 
We note too that the Local Government and Environment Committee has recommended that the Environmental Protection Authority board members not be eligible for appointment to the Maori advisory committee amending clause 17 in Part 2 by inserting new subclause (2A). We will be actively seeking comments from whanau hapu and iwi about this particular proposal. We understand that the Environmental Protection Authority board will consist of six to eight members of which at least two members are required to have knowledge of and experience in the Treaty of Waitangi and tikanga Maori. The board is also required to appoint a statutory Maori advisory committee and to agree to its terms of reference. 
I note our significant support for the appointment of Anake Goodall to the Environmental Protection Authority establishment board which the Minister announced last month. Mr Goodall has acquired a very distinguished reputation as chief executive officer of Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu. He was chief executive officer from November 2007 until February this year when he announced he was standing down—a huge loss to Ngai Tahu. He has 35 years’ experience in management and organisational leadership with particular strengths in environmental protection and enhancement and community capacity building. The Maori Party is very pleased with this appointment and believes that through Anake’s membership on the board there will be considerable leadership from tangata whenua in the establishment phase. 
We note also that establishment of the authority will not prevent Maori from having a direct relationship with the Crown on policy and other strategic matters related to natural resources. Of course a complex and sophisticated policy methodology is already in place which enables early policy engagement with iwi leaders and their advisers. This has been a key plank of Maori Party policy: that we encourage the Crown and promote opportunities for Ministers to seek advice from iwi leaders and their advisers across Government policy. We already see in place iwi advisers on fresh water from Ngati Tuwharetoa Waikato-Tainui Ngai Tahu Te Arawa and Whanganui. We see both technical and cultural advisers from whanau hapu and iwi across the resource management reforms and in the development of the national policy statement on biodiversity. We know that there is a Maori reference group on climate change and the emissions trading scheme including representatives of iwi from 13 regions right across the country. 
One piece of feedback we have received is that Maori found that they were able to engage more directly with Nga Kaihautu Tikanga Taiao as established under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. The explanation is that direct engagement appears to have been enhanced by the fact of the committee’s independence from Government. Finally throughout all there are legislative requirements to engage with Maori or to recognise the Treaty of Waitangi under such forms as the Resource Management Act or the Climate Change Response Act. 
To make it entirely clear I advise that the Maori Party will be introducing at the Committee stage a Supplementary Order Paper that will propose to include a Treaty clause in the legislation. Mr Davis has sort of taken our thunder by asking why we have not done that. In fact we are doing so. We believe that the number of obligations that Government has with iwi groups is likely to increase over the next few years and it is the absolute intention of the Maori Party to continue to monitor and actively advocate for this to occur. 
In sum therefore there is already a very complex set of arrangements through which iwi have a direct relationship with the Crown on policy and other strategic matters related to natural resources. The question in our mind however is whether we can absolutely guarantee that this new Environmental Protection Authority Bill will improve and advance the quality of engagement currently available to iwi and Maori. The answer to this question will form the basis of our votes at subsequent stages of the bill but for today in recognition of the progress made to date we are happy to support this bill at its second reading. 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 I congratulate you Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson on your appointment this afternoon. I am proud to speak in support of the Environmental Protection Authority Bill which creates a stand-alone Crown agent to perform environmental regulatory functions. I want to address a comment made by the previous Labour speaker who made claims about consultation regarding the mining permit issued on the East Coast. I thought it was worth bringing the House’s attention to an issue that arose in 2008 under the previous Labour Government when a seismic survey occurred with absolutely no consultation whatsoever. That raises the issue of a fairly strong double standard being shown by the gaggle opposite which is rather frustrating when this bill balances economic growth with environmental protection. 
In the interests of time I will speak specifically about one part of this bill and that is what is made possible in terms of national consenting. In my own electorate of Taupo it has been exciting to see the very speedy process with regard to the Tauhara geothermal plant. The initial request was lodged on 19 February 2010 and in the very same year the board of inquiry issued its final report on 10 December. That is a fantastic result and it reverses the disturbing trend under the previous Government when the consenting process took longer than the construction process. That is the sort of roadblock that this Government is pushing ahead and dealing with to make sure that we are able to get vital infrastructure projects up and running much more quickly with consultation and with the involvement of the people in the community who need and want to have their say. I am very proud to support the second reading of this bill. 
Amendments recommended by the Local Government and Environment Committee by majority agreed to. 
Bill read a second time. 
Urgency 
Hon SIMON POWER (Acting Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That urgency be accorded the introduction and passing of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill; the first readings of the Housing Corporation Amendment Bill the Education Amendment Bill (No 4) the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill and the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2); the second reading of the Auditor Regulation and External Reporting Bill; the Committee stage of the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill; and the passing through its remaining stages of the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill 
. It is important to advance the Government’s response to the Canterbury earthquake as quickly and effectively as possible and to advance other legislation to select committee. The vast bulk of those bills contained in the urgency motion are first readings to accommodate that outcome. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That urgency be accorded. 
Ayes 68 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; United Future 1. 
Noes 54 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Progressive 1; Independents: Carter C Harawira. 
Motion agreed to. 
Business of the House 
Hon SIMON POWER (Acting Leader of the House) 
: 
 I seek leave for there to be question time at 2 p.m. on Wednesday 13 April 2011 and Thursday 14 April 2011 and for questions to be lodged in the normal manner pursuant to Standing Order 372. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none. 
Business of Select Committees 
Reporting Dates 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery) 
: 
 I seek leave for the Local Government and Environment Committee to hear evidence on the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill and for this purpose to have authority to meet on 12 April 2011 while the House is sitting and during an evening while the House is sitting and to meet in Christchurch during a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 189(a) 190(1)(a) (b) and (c) and 201(1) and to report the evidence received to the House by 9 a.m. on Thursday 14 April 2011. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none. 
Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill 
First Reading 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery) 
: 
 I move  
That the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill be now read a first time. 
 The leave that has just been granted by the House is somewhat unusual and I am grateful to members for allowing this procedure to take place. Just to explain the effect of the leave essentially the bill is read for a first time now and then at the end of the first reading upon a successful vote it will be laid upon the Table of the House to be dealt with presently. Presently in this sense will mean at 9 a.m. on Thursday morning. In the meantime the Local Government and Environment Committee will be able to hear from people who have been invited to submit their opinions on the bill to gather evidence that relates to those opinions and to present that evidence to the House for its consideration during the second reading Committee stage and third reading of the bill. 
The bill is necessary because effective earthquake recovery will require timely decisions that would not be possible under current legislation. The bill describes the activities that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority or CERA will undertake and the powers that the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery and/or the chief executive of the authority will need to undertake in these activities. The bill provides appropriate measures to enable Governments to facilitate and if necessary direct greater Christchurch and its communities to respond to and recover from the impacts of the two Canterbury earthquakes. 
The purpose of the bill is to provide appropriate measures to ensure that greater Christchurch and its communities respond to and recover from the impacts of the earthquakes; to enable community participation in the planning the recovery and the rebuilding of affected communities without impeding a focused timely and expedited recovery; to facilitate and direct the planning rebuilding and recovery of affected communities including the repair and rebuilding of infrastructure and other property; and to restore the social economic cultural and environmental well-being of greater Christchurch communities. 
The bill vests powers in the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery and the chief executive of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. These powers are necessary to enable an effective timely and coordinated recovery for greater Christchurch following these events. In order to achieve the policy intent of effective and efficient rebuild and recovery in Christchurch the legislation needs to ensure that the desired outcomes identified in the recovery strategy by the Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Agency and the Minister which provides for the recovery plans are able to be efficiently and effectively delivered on the ground. 
The private sector and the wider community will be critical players in the successful recovery and rebuilding of Christchurch alongside central and local government agencies. It is worth noting at this point that in response to the initial emergency and as we have moved into recovery literally tens of thousands of people in Canterbury have gone the extra mile to make life a bit easier for their fellow Cantabrians. This bill sets out to capture that intention and that deep intensity of desire to recover. 
To achieve its policy intent the legislation must ensure that an appropriate balance is struck between providing certainty to residential communities and business investors about how the legislation will work and what is needed for the recovery on the one hand and providing flexibility for different and innovative solutions to specific circumstances on the other. The processes set out in the bill are efficient while providing appropriate safeguards. The recovery strategy and plans formulated under the bill are linked efficiently through the existing statutory planning framework in greater Christchurch. This includes ensuring that non - recovery-related activity in Christchurch does not inadvertently cut across the direction set out in the recovery strategy and plans. 
Only those powers considered necessary have been provided for and they fall into a series of broad groupings. The first is information gathering reports and investigations. These powers are necessary as critical decisions must be based on accurate information. Most notably here gathering information for a large data set that will help make informed decisions about the future viability of some streets and indeed some suburbs in Christchurch is absolutely essential. This information must be able to be shared to ensure appropriate levels of consultation and explanation of the decisions made. I hasten to add that much of the information that is provided will be available for analysis by an agency of Government but will not be generally available because of its commercial sensitivity. 
Aligned with the gathering of information is the need to commission reports and investigations to ensure that decisions are soundly based. One can only imagine what it would be like to find out that people living on one side of a road have a section that is no longer viable and may need to move but people on the other side of the road are deemed to be on a safe and stable piece of ground. Anyone in that situation will want to know that the very best of information has been gathered and the most appropriate analysis of that information has been made. 
The next grouping of powers is the power of entry. This power is necessary to enable premises to be inspected to facilitate carrying out work to assist in the recovery efforts such as informing land remediation decisions and maintaining structures on relevant land and preventing damage to them. 
Surveying powers are needed to ensure the speedy and accurate reinstatement of title boundaries which is an issue that underpins New Zealand’s economy and is central to the equity that many homeowners have in their property. It provides certainty for property rights of affected landowners. These powers will ensure that property boundaries are determined in accordance with the best interests of the Canterbury region and in a manner that enhances the recovery effort for the region. 
On building works in order to achieve the purposes of this Act the chief executive of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority must be able to carry out or commission building works including demolition. This power enables urgent action to be taken and prevents unreasonable delays that might stop necessary works. One of the worst things that could happen would be for large buildings that have big drop zones to be given months and months to sort themselves out in the process preventing many others getting into their premises preventing jobs being reactivated and holding up the general commerce of the central business district. 
These powers are complemented by additional associated powers that enable land to be subdivided to permit building works for temporary housing to be erected to authorise the use of that land and to stop or close roads. The Government has commissioned through the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority a number of temporary housing units which will go in public places in anticipation of people needing those units as their houses are repaired. This particular section of the Act enables that work. 
The powers of direction are necessary to enable work to be coordinated to avoid disruption and duplication of effort. For example the provision of power water and other services should be done simultaneously so that roads are not continuously being dug up for such works. This power includes the power to step in where directions are not followed. For private property owners these powers enable the Crown to purchase property where required to enable the recovery to proceed and enable compulsory acquisition where necessary. These powers I think will be exercised sparingly but they will be particularly important for the recovery of suburbs as well as of the central business district. 
The power to require information can be used only where information can be provided without unreasonable difficulty or expense. Before disseminating information the chief executive must consider privacy principles. The person exercising a power of entry must produce authorisation and evidence of identification and reasonable notice must be given. Before exercising the survey power the chief executive must consult the Surveyor-General and where there is a dispute a dispute mechanism needs to be put in place. 
In undertaking building works a notice is required to be served on owners occupiers or other persons with an interest in the land. In exercising powers of direction the step-in right does not include the ability to collect rates or to take action that may affect other rating decisions. Notice of the intention to acquire land is required. Persons who have had their land compulsorily acquired or demolished will be entitled to compensation and any person may appeal to the High Court against the determination of compensation against any decision in respect of which there is a right of appeal and objection under the Resource Management Act or from a dispute over a survey definition decision. 
There is one other significant control in the bill. The Minister must prepare and present to the House a quarterly report on the operation of this Act. Each report must include a description of the powers exercised by or on behalf of the Minister or the chief executive under this Act during that period. The Act is subject to the Official Information Act as is the department and the decisions by the Minister are subject to judicial review. 
Overall this bill enables the Government to move swiftly to restore the social and economic well-being of the greater Christchurch area and its affected communities. The checks and balances ensure that the necessary powers for recovery are used judiciously are open to appropriate levels of public scrutiny and provide for appeal. I commend the bill to the House. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I will deal with the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill in a more wide-ranging and general sense at this point. I know that Canterbury colleagues on this side of the House will deal with the particularity of it especially as we move through the stages. I want to say that the Labour position at this point is that we will support the legislation in the first reading in order to send it to the Local Government and Environment Committee and we will see what the outcome of that select committee produces. We reserve our position at that point. 
I will say to be generous to the Government that we did suggest some days ago when we had very short notice of this legislation and two short interactions with the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery that a select committee process may be appropriate. We offered I think through the shadow Leader of the House Mr Mallard the process of a 1-day or 24-hour select committee period at the very least in order to allow the key actors and stakeholders in Christchurch to have a say on this legislation—for instance the local authorities the unified citizens group CanCERN Ngai Tahu and other stakeholders. I say to the Minister that I am pleased that he has come to the party on that. 
But I want to observe a couple of things. There has been a lot of talk about earthquake tsars in that a chief executive who did not get an appointment would somehow be an “Earthquake Tsar” or that Mr Ombler who holds the position for a number of weeks or months is the “Earthquake Tsar”. I say to Mr Brownlee that he has wartime powers. His Government was given those wartime powers by the House to act appropriately and we did that in the spirit of non-partisanship. 
I will outline for the House so that there is no mistake how Labour colleagues have treated this whole disaster and tragedy in Canterbury. There are no politics in this issue from our point of view. Under the normal rules of engagement in this House when we see an area of criticism in respect of the Government we fire a media statement or a shot across the bows we go public and we deal with it in the public arena. 
In general we have attempted in respect of this Minister to interact at a personal level through me personally or through my colleagues. If there has been no action we have tended to write to the Minister and this folder I am holding contains the number of letters and interactions on paper we have had with the Minister since the 22 February event until today. If we have still felt strongly about it and there has still been no action at that point we have entered the public arena. We have done that with some reluctance. We have done that on only a number of occasions—specifically on the drama and difficulty that business people had in trying to gain entry to the red zone over a period of weeks. We interacted with Mr Brownlee and Mr Carter personally. It took us weeks to get a reply to our letter and we were told that we were wrong. OK that is life but that was proven to be incorrect and we were right and business people for the first time in my living memory picked up placards and stormed the barricades. 
I say to the Minister that we have approached this legislation in good faith. We have provided quite a wide range of written advice on our point of view and that advice not only gives our point of view by the way but also has been generated through our communities. We are constituent members of Parliament in Canterbury. We do not have a monopoly on all knowledge in respect of this disaster or this legislation. We have gone out and canvassed our communities and we have learnt from them. I acknowledge that there have been some amendments. I note that after a number of interventions by me and my colleagues Mr Brownlee does believe that there needs to be for instance in clause 4 a definition of the central business district which is only appropriate. After a number of interventions he has listened and I thank him for his generosity of spirit in respect of that measure. 
What have we learnt from our communities? What do Cantabrians want? I think they want what all of us want. They want detailed robust planning to be put in place. I know we have prattled on ad nauseam about this but they also want a large say in what their town—because this is a Canterbury bill—their city and their province will look like as we go forward. I know there are those who say that that is a bit PC and woolly and that we cannot have people impeding progress by going on and on and endlessly consulting. I ask the Minister to look at the most contemporary example we have which is on the other side of my electorate. It is a local authority and yes it is smaller in size but it has embarked on a series of consultation processes that were done over a 3 to 4-month period. Following the first event it took 2 to 3 months to get out the geotechnical information as was appropriate in order to work out what the hell they would do as a town and as a local authority. That local authority then drilled past politicians and interest groups. It did not bypass them it included them but it drilled past them right to the grassroots of its community. It did a really basic thing. It asked people what they wanted. 
I know Mr Brownlee has a view and I share his view that in no way do we want to impede or delay the process of people getting back their lives houses routines and livelihoods. I accept that but I have on a number of occasions invited Mr Brownlee to look at the example of Waimakariri District Council. Over a period of 3 months the council went from having basically no plan to prior to the 22 February event—and had it not been for that tragedy hitting the “Go” button—having meetings with its community where it could tell people whether they would be first or last in terms of getting their life and their house back. The council waits today for a cheque and for the tick-off from the Government and some temporary housing and it can hit the “Go” button. 
I say to the Minister that I attended some very tough meetings in my community in that half of my electorate where men were in tears and people potentially could have done dangerous things to themselves. I mean that in all sincerity so much so that people were checked the following day. People were shocked because they were told it might take some 4 years to get their houses back but the very interesting thing was that they were in support of the council. The council owned the good the bad and the ugly and they were all consulted. It does not necessarily mean that those people agreed with everything the council has done but that process was efficient and it was done over 3 to 4 months. The fact that the council can hit the “Go” button today is because it has the community’s support. It treated the people of the community with respect and as intelligent human beings and it involved them from the grassroots up. 
That is one of the pleas and central points that we want to make in the debate on this legislation. Mr Brownlee is the “Earthquake Tsar”—he holds the pen over the chief executive and all he or she will do—and it is not good enough in our view to have an appointed panel of 20 people and expect those people to be representative of the community and then say that the panel has been consulted a few times. 
Originally in the draft bill that we saw from memory the proposal was to consult the panel six times and say that was good enough. Overseas experience shows that would not be good enough. New Orleans floundered for damned near 2 years then decided to involve the community and progress took off. We do not want anybody with the ability to throw a vexatious spanner in the works. No one wants to delay this process. However we have learnt from other jurisdictions both here and overseas what happens when we involve our communities treat them with respect and give them as the Minister said accurate information not the idle speculation that we have had over a period of months such as the statement that 10000 people might be moving from a particular area. We have learnt that communities will buy into such a process and that we will have a faster and more efficient process out the back of it. 
That is one of the central points that we raise in this legislation. There are other issues to do with checks and balances in respect of the particular power that the Minister has. Let us be under no illusion: this authority will have enormous power to get things done and if that power is exercised appropriately and correctly that will be all for the good. What we are concerned about is that there should be a balance and that there should be some checks and balances so that good people who are not vexatious and who are concerned about their well-being and the well-being of their community are not mowed over. 
Mr Brownlee often says that anyone who criticises or raises their head particularly in respect of the business issues I talked about earlier or who says there may be a better way is one being political and two impeding progress. I say to Mr Brownlee that we are not being political but we do not want to do away with our right to represent our community say what we believe represent that community in a robust way and raise issues of concern. If that is impeding progress we are guilty as charged. In respect of the business community as I said to Mr Brownlee we are protecting progress. Those business people to whom we lent a voice for instance are our progress. We were not impeding progress; we were protecting it. Without those business people we will not have a central business district. I say to Mr Brownlee that we approach this bill in good faith and we look forward to a robust discussion and to Mr Brownlee and his Government perhaps listening to the representations we make on behalf of our community. 
Hon KATE WILKINSON (Minister of Conservation) 
: 
 As the explanatory note of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill points out the 22 February earthquake was an incomparable natural disaster in New Zealand’s history. Yes it is above politics but just because someone says it is above politics does not make it above politics; that claim has to be acted upon. It will be the actions rather than the words that will show there is no politics in this issue. 
We have never been faced with a disaster on this scale before. In response we need to be able to make decisions. The bill lays out the framework by which the Government will assist Canterbury and Christchurch to move forward. It is important to note in the explanatory note the general policy statement: “The Bill is founded on the need for community participation in decision-making processes while balancing this against the need for a timely and coordinated recovery process.” That is the foundation of this bill. 
Rebuilding Canterbury will be a long process. The Christchurch central business district has changed dramatically. Areas like Cashel Mall High Street and Cathedral Square are just not the same. We have spoken in this House previously about the damage inflicted on roading water services sewerage and homes throughout the region. The cordon in the central business district has gradually reduced in size though some areas are still no-go zones. Almost all schools have reopened albeit with disruption at some sites and nearly all households now have power and running water. 
But of course the substantive damage remains and it is a big job. As was noted today about $8.5 billion will be spent to fix Canterbury and the job requires a centralised response. Lessons learnt from overseas show that it is best to have a single entity in charge of the recovery efforts following major natural disasters. 
The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority has been given this very important task. Of course it will be working closely alongside the Christchurch City Council the Selwyn District Council the Waimakariri District Council and other stakeholders throughout this process. The Waimakariri District Council has shown that it is very adept at developing plans in particular those relating to Kaiapoi giving certainty to residents about the staged rebuilding process. This is the sort of experience that can be drawn upon. It may well be that Waimakariri will not need to bother the authority nor require the exercise of any of the powers but it has been included in case it does. 
This legislation aims to facilitate prompt and efficient decision-making both by the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery and the authority. I have heard the concerns that the powers go too far. The same concerns were aired over the previous Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act which is now being repealed. The powers under that Act were used responsibly as will be the powers this legislation provides. Even law academics such as Professor Andrew Geddis have admitted that the fears of abuse of powers under the previous legislation have remained unrealised. There are significant checks and balances to ensure that the powers are used properly and are necessary for the Canterbury recovery and rebuild. 
It is important that the need for community participation is balanced against the need for timely and effective decision-making. Cantabrians want a say in how their region is rebuilt. It is after all their region. This bill provides for the establishment of a community forum made up of local representatives who will provide advice to the Minister. There will also be a public consultation process in place. Cantabrians want to be heard but they want to see action. It is a matter of striking the balance between effective coordination and consultation and the need for progress. 
We want the people of Canterbury to stay and rebuild their city and their province alongside the Government over the next 5 years. Rebuilding Canterbury is one of the Government’s highest priorities and we will continue to provide the resources to make this happen over the coming weeks months and years. We are at only the start of a long journey and the sooner the people of Canterbury can see a plan in place to rebuild their city and the progress flowing from that plan the sooner they can re-establish their lives. I commend this bill to the House. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: I call the member Lianne Dalziel. I understand this is to be a split call is it not? 
Hon RICK BARKER (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Labour has four calls and the third call will be split. It will be split between the Hon Ruth Dyson and Brendon Burns. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Thank you. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I should be standing here today to say that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill is a bipartisan bill that has been through a consultative process that enables us all to have confidence that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority will support the recovery effort in Christchurch in the best possible way based on international best practice—which is something we can find on the website of the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management. But it is incredibly sad that I cannot say that neither for me nor for colleagues who have worked tirelessly since the first earthquake to bring to the Minister’s attention advice on how to address the myriad of issues that these two events have presented. My sadness is for the people of Christchurch who deserve better—much better—than this. 
The legislation is flawed for a number of reasons but fundamentally for this reason: the Government has chosen the “command and control” model essential for disaster response but the antithesis of what is required in recovery. And the Government has chosen this model it says because it is writing a multibillion-dollar cheque and therefore it has to be in charge. But as all of the experts on recovery have said—and these are not people who just sit in ivory towers; these are people who have been to Haiti New Orleans and Queensland and who have now come to Christchurch—leadership is vital for recovery. 
A leader has vision has a plan and has an open frame of reference in terms of thinking outside the square. A leader surrounds himself or herself with talent when forming the team listens to all of the competing views exercises judgment and is capable of making hard decisions. But more important he or she inspires others to do great things. That is what a leader does because from all disasters great things can emerge. In my view if we are to make sense of something as dreadful as what has occurred in Christchurch then great things must emerge from it. 
When I think of the possibilities that can emerge from the devastation of our once beautiful city and the suburbs that have been ravaged along our waterways our cliff faces and the valleys below I look to the Hon Gerry Brownlee and a Government department called the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority but it is hard to find the inspiration that I know we ought to be able to feel. This is neither a criticism of the Minister nor of the civil servants who will take up their departmental duties; it is simply a statement of reality that the model cannot serve recovery. No other country has adopted this model and in fact on looking at the lessons that have been learnt overseas I believe there is a real risk of adding another layer of disaster to the disaster that has already occurred. 
The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority may be located physically in Christchurch but the decisions will be made here in Wellington. On Saturday the Minister was reported as saying that many of the groups that had formed in Christchurch were well-motivated but that the Government would have limited capacity to listen to everyone. From a Government perspective he said it does not want to get caught in a mire of constant consultation and meetings. He went on to say that the Government would look to established organisations for business advice on recovery which effectively sidelined the groups that have sprung from the heart of the cordoned-off central business district whose members have been critical of the Government’s position on access to buildings in relation to their getting their businesses up and running. That is what is wrong with the model: any criticism constructive or otherwise is classified as politicising the tragedy. That is what happens when politicians are running the show and that is why they should not be running the show. 
Today the Minister in defending the bill said that the consultation provisions in the bill were misunderstood. But what is misunderstood is the recovery process and it is misunderstood by the Minister. Let me explain with reference to the lessons that were learnt from Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans. Much has been written about Katrina but the most compelling analysis for me was the one that identified the missing story: understanding what was going on in New Orleans pre-Katrina. People understand the storm and its aftermath including the involvement of the Federal Government but it is the missing story that offers the most important lesson for us here. 
The missing pre-Katrina story included the historic choices that had been made the patterns of physical development—a big issue in my electorate is the risk factors all around flooding—public risk and community resilience and sustainability. We have noticed whole suburbs that do not have a heart—that do not have a community centre. These are resilience issues we need to address as we recover. The lesson that was learnt by the ignoring of the third story in the recovery process was that pre-event vulnerabilities were simply re-entrenched and therefore the opportunity to reduce future disaster risk was lost. If we do not take this opportunity to ensure that we do not re-entrench those pre-event vulnerabilities then we will have learnt nothing from the overseas experience. 
From Hurricane Katrina we learnt that we need to balance speed and deliberation—and I reject the statement from the Government that this is about the balance it is putting forward. What needs to be understood—and this is where the Minister completely misses the point—is that we must reconcile the need to martial the authority of the State with the entrepreneurship of the market because together they will want to rebuild quickly. But at the same time that must be balanced with the necessity to plan in an inclusive deliberative innovative and transformative manner. I have not heard one of those words spoken on the other side of the House in either of the two Government contributions we have had so far. 
That is why the word “deliberation” is used as opposed to “discussion” or “consultation”. I use the word “engagement” a lot because that is what we are looking for. Deliberation means reflection it means dialogue and it means negotiation for decision making. It does not mean we have to agree on everything and it certainly does not mean we have to hold off until we have agreement on anything. It is not the talk-fest the Minister fears. The reason deliberation is required is that rebuilding too quickly and randomly simply imposes massive long-term costs and risks on society and when I say “society” I am reflecting on the impact that this legislation will have on New Zealand as a whole. 
The Government seems to be ignoring the fact that recovery is very complex. It is not linear; it is a very complex issue. It requires careful planning. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. I represent many of the affected suburbs. I represent Dallington Bexley Avondale the Horseshoe Lake Brooklands Spencerville and now Aranui and Parklands. What recovery looks like for each of those suburbs will be quite different from each other because their needs their issues and their environments are all different and that is why they need to be fully engaged in the process of recovery. I do not actually regard that as a disadvantage. In fact it is an enormous advantage and the Government needs to step up to the plate on this because in every single one of those suburbs recovery presents us with some real opportunities for restoration and renewal. 
The mistake is to think of recovery as rebuilding the buildings and the infrastructure—and all I ever hear the Government talk about is the buildings and the infrastructure. The rebuilding is actually only one component of the whole recovery process which demands that we look at the social the economic and the natural environments as well as our built environments. It is not a simple one-size-fits-all matter. 
I say that because these decisions will impact on our society for generations to come. That is why the process must be inclusive and must be deliberative innovative and transformative. All of the literature says that it must involve local people in joint learning and public decision-making. These are new skills that we can teach our communities and learn alongside our communities because no one person has the answer in each of those suburbs. We can capitalise on local culture and knowledge. There is so much richness of knowledge within the communities that I am privileged to represent. We can mobilise local capacity to rebuild. 
I know that the suburb of Aranui will have no difficulty with the community development model they have already locked in place over a decade of work working within their community securing the things that are good for the community and enabling them to discard the things that hold them back. I think that that is the key thing. This is an opportunity to actually get rid of some of the aspects of our communities that have been holding us back. 
What has happened in Christchurch is a disaster but we must now turn our attention to looking for the opportunities it presents to make us more resilient to make things better and to enable us in Christchurch to share those opportunities with the rest of New Zealand as well. 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) 
: 
 Of course none of us wanted this. We did not want the event of 22 February. We did not want the devastation. We did not want and never expected to have legislation of this kind before our House. I speak with some emotion having lived in the city through the past 7 months. I have experienced the sheer trauma of the death and destruction around us. I have organised volunteer groups to go into the suburbs to shovel and doorknock and initiated fund-raising for food delivery to those in need. I have attended the heart-wrenching memorial services for the dead. I have entered my office to retrieve equipment still cordoned inside a drop zone. I have visited civil defence headquarters on an almost daily basis. Just last week I toured the devastated red zone—a visually searing experience that simply breaks one’s heart. 
Yet the emotion all of us in Christchurch feel over this event must be separated from our perception of the legislation before us and our responsibility to be true to the basic principles of democratic society as we know it in this country. Not only is the Christchurch disaster unprecedented but so is this Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill. So how are we to assess it? By what criteria are we to judge it? I advance four criteria for judging this bill. Are the stated purposes appropriate and coherent? Are the powers granted for the purpose proper? Is the extent of public involvement adequate? Are our constitutional principles respected? I will begin with my conclusion: the purposes are appropriate the powers granted are excessive the extent of public involvement is inadequate and our constitutional principles are violated. 
I ask members to consider the first question. The purposes of the bill are stated to be fivefold. They are to provide appropriate measures for Christchurch to be able to respond and recover; to enable community participation in planning the recovery; to enable a focused timely and expedited recovery; to facilitate and direct the planning rebuilding and recovery; and to restore the social economic cultural and environmental well-being of Christchurch. Those purposes are entirely appropriate. We would comment in relation to the fifth purpose that the restoration of Christchurch should be pursued along sustainable lines that reflect 21st century values and technology. The devastation that is currently my city presents an opportunity not only to restore but to qualitatively grow in new directions. That is what being Green societally—not just politically—is all about. We invite the Government to proceed in that direction even if it cannot bring itself to use the word “sustainable”. 
Are the purposes coherent? It seems that they meet the Government’s purpose of ensuring that nothing stands in the way of a focused timely and expedited recovery. By “focused” the Government seems to mean that power will be concentrated enormously in one person. That in itself does not guarantee a focus of vision and effort. The goal of ensuring there is a timely recovery would seem to mean “at the appropriate time”. But then to state that the recovery must be expedited immediately contradicts that. The issue is more than semantic. Words mean something or they would not be there. The powers accorded under the bill would last for 5 years yet we are being asked to grant them in the name of expedition. That is a non sequitur. 
Let us consider the second question: are the powers granted proper for the purposes of the legislation? Clauses 20 to 40 give extraordinary powers to the Minister. They roam across 23 statutes but are not confined to those. Those 23 Acts are the bill says without limitation. We criticised that back in September when we debated the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Bill yet we were prepared ultimately to vote for that legislation. This time however the ministerial powers are far more extensive. There is a qualitative break in constitutional terms between the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act and this bill. This bill accords immeasurably greater power to the Minister and over a much longer time period. Those powers are excessive in relation to the purpose of the bill. We can perhaps draw a distinction here between what could be called the recovery period which would last 9 months until the strategy and plans are in place and the rebuilding period which would last for the remaining 4 years and 3 months. Even if some were to defend those ministerial powers for the shorter period they are not we suggest proper for the rebuild period if that rebuild is to be led and operationalised by the Christchurch community itself. 
Let us move to the third question: is the extent of public involvement adequate? There is to be a community forum but the forum is to be peopled by the Minister. Members are to be suitably qualified but that does not mean they will necessarily be representative of the Christchurch community. The community forum should be appointed on the recommendation of the House. The Minister is obliged to have regard to the advice of the forum but having given such regard he may then disregard it. The community forum has no final say in the building of the community. The Minister from central government has that. So too are the local authorities denied any final say. There is to be a parliamentary cross-party forum composed of local MPs. This too is an advisory body but the bill does not even require the Minister to have regard to that advice. 
Then there is the matter of the role of the municipal authorities. The recovery strategy is to be developed in collaboration with Christchurch City Council the two district councils Environment Canterbury Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu and other persons and organisations considered appropriate by the Minister. Yet the final approval remains with the Minister alone. In developing the ensuing recovery plan the Christchurch City Council must take the lead and must consult with the affected communities but the Minister may make any changes to the plan or withdraw any part of it and he may review it at any time and amend or replace it. The coup de grâce is given in clause 20(3): apart from the Christchurch City Council the Minister has no duty to consult with any person about the development of a recovery plan. One sees a pattern emerging here: there is an appearance of community engagement but the reality of ministerial control. 
Finally are our constitutional principles respected? It is our considered view that the powers granted to one Minister of the Crown are excessive for the purposes of this bill. Accordingly—and we shall explore this further in the forthcoming debate and in the Committee stage—the conclusion is that the bill as drafted places an unacceptable strain on the constitutional precepts and principles of New Zealand. 
The people of Christchurch deserve to have a bill that gives them the power to rebuild Christchurch themselves not one that gives all the power to one man. We are asked to personally trust the Minister and we are assured that no abuse of power has occurred under the existing Act. My reply is that this is irrelevant. The exercise of excessive powers is not a matter to be adjudicated on trust. Constraints on governmental powers are a non-negotiable principle independent of one person. It is no disrespect to the Minister concerned to say he should not be trusted with such powers. This bill effectively gives unbridled power to the Beehive for 5 years and it sidelines local councils and communities. Yet international evidence shows that community-led recovery efforts work best. We shall oppose this bill at this first reading. In the Committee stage we shall propose a number of Supplementary Order Papers with a view to making the bill acceptable in a constitutional sense and politically appropriate in terms of a genuine and adequate community engagement. More generally the Green Party will work in the communities of Christchurch as I have been doing and with the Government as we shall strive to do to ensure that Christchurch is properly rebuilt and that the society can recover and indeed grow in wholly new ways relevant to our times. 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 As the MP for Te Tai Tonga I am very proud to stand in support of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill. This is an important bill which “sets out the appropriate measures to enable the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery and/or Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) to facilitate and direct if necessary greater Christchurch and its communities to respond to and recover from the impacts of the Canterbury earthquakes.” There has been so much said already about the events of 22 February that one wonders what can be left to say and the bill itself puts this into words stating that we “simply do not have the capability to deal with a disaster of this magnitude.” But what has been so remarkable as the days and weeks have unfolded has been to see that there is indeed an incredible resilience and fortitude at every level of the response to this disaster. 
The key issue is that no one player should or could be expected to respond with a timely and coordinated recovery effort for the Greater Christchurch region. I am pleased to know that Ngai Tahu a leader of the recovery effort has supported central government intervention because in its view the range of the issues emanating from the tragedy have a scale and a complexity beyond any one institution to resolve. In my consultations with Ngai Tahu I am aware that they are confident that a close collaborative arrangement with the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority will both deliver positive outcomes for Christchurch and enable Ngai Tahu to meaningfully contribute to the recovery programme. 
Ngai Tahu submit that a bold but considered central government intervention is required due to the scale and complexity of the issues affecting Canterbury at this time. Although this legislation does not have a Treaty clause it embodies the Treaty partnership and the Maori Party joins with Ngai Tahu in strongly valuing this approach. I state from the outset that perhaps one of the most important achievements which the Maori Party wants to draw to the House’s attention is clause 58(1) of the bill which states: “Nothing in this Act affects the operation of the Ngai Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998.” and that if there is any situation of doubt the chief executive must exercise his or her power in accordance with the Ngai Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998. 
The Maori Party has advocated for the first right of refusal regarding land disposal. This is important in respect of protecting the integrity of Treaty settlements. In essence the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill makes explicit the primacy of the Ngai Tahu Claims Settlement Act. This is so important not just because it demonstrates that the Government has agreed that the existing first right of refusal is sacrosanct and should be protected but also because it demonstrates the care taken in respect of formalising the Treaty relationship with mana whenua. We are pleased to bring to the House the views of Ngai Tahu that they seek to commend the leadership shown by this Government in enacting legislation that provides for the iwi to assume a key role in the recovery of the people and place. 
The advice we have received from Ngai Tahu expresses their particular appreciation of the way this legislation embodies the commitment of Ngai Tahu to be a partner with central and local government in developing a recovery strategy. The Maori Party has played a key role in promoting the importance of government formalising a partnership with Ngai Tahu with both central and local government a relationship that will be given effect in the development of the central business district recovery plan. The Maori Party promotes the creation of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority and consultation with Ngai Tahu and locals in regard to the recovery strategy and plan notwithstanding that this is limited to consultation and collaboration. 
Finally at this first reading of the bill I want to share some of the vital data and statistics that underpin successful implementation of this bill. This bill is founded on the need for community participation in decision-making processes while balancing this against the need for a timely and coordinated recovery process. I want to share some of the amazing achievements I have been privileged to participate in through a unique development that I think of as the iwi Maori sector response. The Maori Party strongly advocates for a recovery strategy that is culturally appropriate for Maori. What we have seen unfold in Christchurch is a crisis response effort to support Maori and the wider community particularly those in Christchurch’s eastern suburbs through a collaboration between a number of iwi and Maori organisations known as the Maori Recovery Network. The network is a collaboration supported by Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu. Within this all of the whanau support has been done by Whanau Ora providers in Christchurch and other providers from a number of iwi and Maori from outside of the region including Te Arawa Tainui Ngati Raukawa and Ngati Whatua. 
The contributions of this network are as follows: total number of contacts as at Tuesday 8 April 2011—9493; whanau with home safety concerns—161; whanau requesting food parcels—550; whanau requesting water—513; whanau needing medical attention—211; whanau needing clothing bedding etc.—132; whanau needing transport—76; whanau needing assistance with filling out paperwork—31; whanau needing counselling—106; whanau needing respite for family—19; whanau needing assistance with clean-up labour—69; whanau members registered with Red Cross—1518; whanau members registered with Work and Income—1113. The watene Maori have played a particularly significant role in this collaboration as they have conducted house-to-house visits and we are all enormously grateful for their efforts. I wanted to break down this detail into actual numbers because it demonstrates to me the real mahi that is being done every day on the ground. 
That is what this bill embraces and addresses. The bill formalises the need to ensure local involvement in decision making with the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery and the authority to work alongside the Christchurch City Council Environment Canterbury Waimakariri District Council Selwyn District Council Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu businesses community interests and the private sector in order that the planning processes under the bill take into account the local views and the views of those most affected. There will also be a consultation process with locals. 
The planning recovery of the Greater Christchurch region will occur through the development of a long-term recovery strategy which will be developed by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority in consultation with the organisations previously mentioned and Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu. The bill is an essential part of the recovery of the area. We are happy to support it and look forward to active participation throughout the ensuing debate. 
NICKY WAGNER (National) 
: 
 As someone who has lived in Christchurch all my life I fully support the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill. The earthquake of 4 September rattled and damaged our province but it was the violent shake of 22 February that completely shattered Christchurch its people the central business district and our suburbs. We have to fix our city. We need to restore rebuild and recover our province. We want to revitalise our towns our streets and our neighbourhoods. After all we have been through we want and we need to build a better safer and more beautiful place to live. We need to repair the land we need to fix the roads we need to rebuild our communities and we need to restore our buildings. 
The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority legislation is about response and recovery. It provides a balance between the need for community participation in the decision-making process and the need for a timely and coordinated recovery process. After the worst disaster that New Zealand has ever seen Canterbury people are determined to rebuild their lives. We want to work quickly efficiently and smartly to make this happen. To do that this bill establishes the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Forgive me I apologise for interrupting the member. I do not do it for any vexatious means. I just raise this with you Mr Assistant Speaker for some advice. The reason I do this is that we are in a very cramped time frame. I am advised by parties outside this House that the bill is not available online. The reason I raise this is that as I understand it having taken advice in the normal course of events the Parliamentary Counsel Office is instructed by the Minister and as soon as the bill is tabled it is placed online. Forgive me for interrupting the member. The reason I raise this is that we have a select committee process happening tomorrow and key submitters around the country cannot get hold of this bill. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: The point is well made and I shall direct someone to attend to that matter. 
NICKY WAGNER 
: After the worst disaster that New Zealand has ever seen Canterbury people are absolutely determined to rebuild their lives and we want to do it quickly efficiently and smartly. To do this the bill establishes the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. Its chief executive officer will coordinate the recovery and it will report to the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery. 
Everyone in Canterbury is very keen to be involved in this process so the authority and the Minister will work alongside the Christchurch City Council Environment Canterbury the Waimakariri District Council the Selwyn District Council Ngai Tahu the community and business interests. Furthermore Cantabs can have their say via a community forum made up of community leaders and a cross-party forum of Canterbury members of Parliament. There will also be public consultation processes. 
The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority is tasked with developing the long-term recovery strategy. That will set the overall direction for recovery efforts and must be produced within 9 months of the Act coming into force. Underneath that long-term recovery strategy detailed recovery plans will be developed. They can cover things like social economic cultural and environmental matters and infrastructural issues. They will be more detailed and relevant to specific areas. They are the what the where and the how of the recovery. 
There is keen interest in the rebuilding of the Christchurch central business district and that recovery plan will be led by the Christchurch City Council. Its mayor has already indicated that everyone in Christchurch will have the opportunity to have input into this process and the central business district plan will also need to be produced within 9 months. 
The Act creates powers to ensure that the recovery is well coordinated and effective but they are mainly reserve powers and are to be used only when necessary. There are numerous checks and balances in place and the Minister must present a quarterly report to the House on the operation of the Act. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority and the Act itself also must be reviewed every year and that report must be presented to the House. 
I believe that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority as established by this Act will enable Christchurch and Canterbury to rebuild effectively and efficiently. It is an enabling framework that provides a set of powers for the authority and the Minister if those powers are necessary. They may never be used but they are there to ensure that the authority can act for the greater good of the Canterbury community and for the recovery from this earthquake so that Christchurch and Canterbury can be rebuilt sooner safer and better. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Just before I call the member in response to the point of order raised by Clayton Cosgrove it is not a requirement that the debate take place; it is a courtesy. The bill must be tabled in the House; it is. The courtesy has been attended to and within 5 minutes at the very outside the bill will be posted on the Government website. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 I begin my contribution in this debate by acknowledging those who lost their lives in the quake of 22 February. It is very important for me that we hold those people in our hearts as we move forward to rebuild our region. Many others in Canterbury have lost their homes or their jobs or both. Some still have their jobs some still have their homes intact but they have lost their confidence. 
The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill is the next chance that we have as a Parliament and particularly for the Canterbury members of Parliament as local leaders to light the flame of hope for people in our patch. The bill does a lot of things. It gives extraordinary powers to the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery and sets up a new multi-agency Government department. There will be criticisms of whatever we end up with but I give our commitment—reinforcing the points that my colleagues Clayton Cosgrove and Lianne Dalziel have already made and I know that Brendan Burns will make as well—that Labour will work alongside people of any and all political persuasions to get our region up and running again. We want to work with our elected representatives our councillors and our community boards which must have a role but are not mentioned in the legislation. We want to work with our residents associations and the organisations that have sprung up—like the many springs that have literally sprung up around our city since the two quakes—to take up the challenge of supporting members of our community who need support. We need to do this together in order to get it right. The future of our city is too important an issue for any of us to waste time or energy on political point-scoring or on leaving talented people out of the loop of being part of this recovery process. 
In that vein I urge the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery to listen carefully to this debate and to listen carefully to the contributions that submitters will make tomorrow. His press statement today stated that he would be making only minor changes to the legislation as it goes through under urgency between now and Thursday. It is very frustrating to hear that sort of comment from a Minister. It is very hard to see how anyone from Canterbury can go to that select committee tomorrow with any confidence that they will make a blind bit of difference. That is an arrogant way to treat people who are putting up their hands to be part of the recovery. That is an arrogant way to treat people who have already gone through a lot but who are prepared to take the next step to step up to the mark where we need them to be. For the Minister to say that he will give people 24 hours’ notice to come along to the select committee but by the way that he will make some minor changes is not the way that we should be going into this process. It is too important. My region is too important for the Minister or any of his colleagues to trample over the views of people from that region. It is not acceptable for them to be treated like that and I urge him to give openness and democracy and real recovery a decent chance. 
I will make three points that are in my view vital to the success of our recovery. The first point is blindingly obvious I would have thought but tragically it is not reflected in the legislation. It is that the voice of our communities of Canterbury must be heard and the people in our communities must be the drivers of the recovery of our city and our region. We are the people who want to live play and work in our city. We care about it. We are more passionate more argumentative and more opinionated than any other group of people in our country. We want to have a say and we will have a say. I want the Minister to understand that and I want the legislation to reflect it. 
The second point I will make is that the process has to be open and transparent. There cannot be any secret deals. There cannot be meetings behind closed doors. There cannot be any feeling of suspicion about this. We need an open and transparent process. We need to know what is happening because it is our place where it is happening. This is our life our home our city and our region. We have the right to know what decisions are being made. The fact that we have a multi-agency Government department with one Minister is not a good start to an open and transparent process. 
The third point I will make is that the recovery must be at a good pace. We will all have different ideas along the way but none of us wants this to be slow. It has already been a long 7 months and for many an even longer 7 weeks so we want this process to be good. Again the multi-agency Government department may not be the most nimble structure to put in place and that is a very generous way of expressing my concern that this may become a grindingly slow bureaucratic process. We cannot afford that. I do want the pace to be reasonable—I do not want it to be slow—but in my view it is a much wiser choice to have a considered approach that includes the views and the aspirations of the citizens of our region rather than a rushed job that we all live to regret. I know that Minister Brownlee would get the blame for it and if this was a political issue for me I would say we should go for it because Mr Brownlee will pay for it. We cannot afford to have that happen. I want to rescue Mr Brownlee because his mistake will be one that we in Canterbury will have to live with for decades. I want to rescue him from that mistake and be part of having a clear and strong path forward to recovery. Labour extends a genuine offer of working together to get this right. We want to live work and play in a city that is thriving and that inspires passion—a city where people want to come and share our joy of our city with us. 
These have been big events. We have been through a lot since September. Some people might be asking whether Christchurch is up to this job and asking whether Canterbury is up to the task of contributing to our recovery in the way that I described. Well I want to measure that question of whether we are up to it by looking at the way our communities responded to the quake. If our communities’ quake response was an Olympic sport we would win gold. Our communities have been extraordinary. In places where people hardly knew each other they just reached out their arms and looked after people through a wide range of emotions: through grief at the loss of family members through trauma at the loss of homes—sometimes huge damage to homes for the second time—and for many just through exhaustion. The aftershocks are frustrating. They wake people up. They annoy people. Lots of people in Christchurch jump when a truck goes past their house or their room. Some of it is to do with the hugely damaged roads but for other people it is to do with their nerves being pretty frayed. If we look at the recovery model of having a community-driven response to our future and ask whether we are up to it and if we look at what we did in Canterbury after the quake we see that we can do this. We know we have strong compassionate caring and competent people spread throughout our region. We might get into a competition I know when Amy Adams speaks about people in her electorate because we are quite competitive. We know that we have fantastic people in our electorates but we are not being competitive politically about this. We want to unite our talent our passion and our willingness to be part of the recovery. We want to unite that behind legislation that can be amended to give us that choice. Thank you. 
AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) 
: 
 It is a privilege to rise to speak to the first reading of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill although it is one of those times when one wishes we did not need to be here to provide a response to this sort of situation. I know this has been said before but 4.35 in the morning on 4 September was the beginning of a hellish period in Canterbury and it was the time when everything started to change. From my perspective from that date everybody in Canterbury has been working tirelessly and doing everything they can to help to get the region back on track—and that is every political figure every elected figure of any persuasion every volunteer every household every school every business every lines worker and every council worker. I have not seen anybody in Canterbury who is not doing everything they can to try to get our communities and our region back to being the best region in the country. 
But for all that this situation is like nothing any of us have ever dealt with. I do not think anyone is taking this position but for any of us to assume that we know exactly how this situation is to be dealt with is wrong. We are learning as we go; we have to. This is without doubt the biggest natural disaster that this country has had to deal with and the repercussions from it—the loss of life the impact on the community the loss of homes and the uncertainty—will be with us for a long long time. We as a Parliament have to do everything we can to help that process to be as manageable and as survivable for everyone in Canterbury as it can be. 
Over the last 7 months we have learnt that this is a huge event and that the recovery will take years. We have learnt that we need to have a single point of coordination and ultimately control and we have learnt that there will be many many views as we go through this recovery on what should be done. As we fight our way through it and learn how to deal with it inevitably there will be disagreement on each step and on how we should get there. We all know what we want to achieve but we all know that we will not agree on every step of the way. I think there will be as many different views on what should happen in Canterbury as there are people in Canterbury. That is an absolutely valid and important part of it but equally we have to have a central hub through which progress can be made. 
We have learnt that a process is needed that can help us to move positively—because I think positivity will be a key element of this recovery—and decisively. At the heart of it all is acceptance by everyone. Acceptance will not be easy to reach but there should be an acceptance that there is no way that a business as usual approach to any of this situation will work. If we think we can simply roll out the tried and true normal business as usual approaches to decision making and to Government and judicial processes—such as having a review and consultation—in the way that we would for every other decision and in the way that we all agree is usually appropriate we will get nowhere and Canterbury will not get back on its feet within the sort of time frame in which it needs to do so. We know that after 4 September the House passed the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act which contained significant and wide-reaching powers. The Act was an appropriate and necessary response at that time and as all sensible commentators are agree it was handled appropriately and necessarily. The earthquake on 22 February made things considerably worse but the earlier period gave us the chance to learn about the sorts of things that we would have to get in place quickly in order for this recovery to work. 
I will now take the opportunity to very quickly quote from clauses 3(a) and (b) of the bill which set out the primary purposes of the legislation: “The purposes of this Act are—(a) to provide appropriate measures to ensure that greater Christchurch and the councils and their communities respond to and recover from the impacts of the Canterbury earthquakes: (b) to enable community participation in the planning of the recovery of affected communities without impeding a focused timely and expedited recovery:”. That is the framework against which any powers under the legislation have to be exercised. It sets out the key principles against which the exercise of those powers will be judged. The bill is not about setting up a structure and framework that will be implemented from day one; it sets up a framework of powers that we can access and have recourse to if they are needed. I see them as a backstop to the usual council processes so that if there cannot be collaboration and we cannot reach a point from which we can all move forward together then at the end of the day there is a backstop of ultimate decision-making. I do not see anything that says that is constitutionally inappropriate. 
I do not think anyone in my communities whom I have spoken with would not say we have to have community input. Community input is fundamentally important but at the end of the day the community must be able to draw a line in the sand and have a final decision-maker who will stand up and take a decision. If as a community region and Parliament we fail to accept that we will never get to a place where everybody agrees with the outcome then we will get nowhere. I do not realistically hear that view in the debate but I think it is worth putting that on the record. There will not be a time at which we can say yes everyone is on board and let us move forward. Yes we must have participation but let us make it very very clear that the discussion will not be endless. There will be people who leave the discussion and input without liking the results and they will therefore feel ignored. They will not have been ignored but not everyone will get the outcomes that they want. I bet I will not like a lot of the decisions we reach in this process. I might have done some things differently. That will be true for every Cantabrian. There has to be a point at which we say we have heard and listened to people but now is the time to make a decision. 
If anybody were to start going around stirring up dissension and concern on the grounds that not getting their own way means their views are being trampled on then that would be playing politics. It is politicking to telling people that if they do not get the outcome they want their views have been trampled on. It is the sort of thing that Cantabrians will very quickly turn against. If one message is coming through to me loud and clear it is that Cantabrians want to see a way forward. They want to see positivity and they want to see their leaders pulling together. Cantabrians want to see their leaders questioning being involved and disagreeing but as soon as they start to see point-scoring my view is that they will shut down and turn off very quickly. 
Cantabrians need us to provide hope positivity and vision. In this legislative chamber they need us to provide the framework within which that can happen and happen in a time frame that will allow Canterbury to get back on its feet. For those reasons I am very pleased to commend the bill to the House. 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 It is 7 weeks since Canterbury was savaged by the 22 February earthquake and this is the first time that I as the member of Parliament for Christchurch Central have had the opportunity to speak in the House. Given that most of the fatalities occurred within my electorate—the number of people who have been formally identified now stands at 172—I acknowledge the huge human toll that occurred and the impact it has had not just on families within our city but on families across our planet because many of those who died were visitors to Christchurch. 
I acknowledge the herculean and courageous efforts of so many people—doctors nurses firefighters and police—and the rainbow nation of urban search and rescue teams that gathered from around the globe to assist us in our time in need. They did outstanding work. I stood on Latimer Square watching them work on the CTV building near some of the families who were waiting for good news to come which in most cases did not come. I also stood and watched an Australian crew the day after the quake as they attempted to rescue a woman from the rubble. I turned to a gentleman alongside me and asked whether he knew who was in there. He said: “Yes it is my wife.” and I stood with him as that woman Ann Bodkin was rescued alive. 
I acknowledge also the bravery of so many ordinary people who pulled people from the rubble who risked their own lives as aftershocks continued who did extraordinary things and who were real heroes of our time. I acknowledge the stoicism of the people of Christchurch. Stoicism is a well-known characteristic of the people of Christchurch. 
I also pay tribute to the tolerance and patience of Cantabrians through these last 7 weeks and indeed the last 7 months. The earthquake on 22 February was not the second earthquake; in fact it was the third because the Boxing Day quake hit the central business district at the heart of my electorate as hard as the quake on 4 September. That tolerance and patience was exemplified at a public meeting I held last night in St Albans. It was run with my colleague Lianne Dalziel and more than a hundred people attended. Although many of the people were frustrated and angry about the processes and time being taken to settle the issues—some of which dated back to 4 September—they were tolerant. They were not savaging people which is a tribute to them.  
I hope and trust that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill will deliver the same sense of urgency that we saw applied in the first few weeks after the 22 February earthquake as the rescue efforts continued. That urgency is absolutely essential for the future of our city. The task ahead is huge but there are also huge opportunities. 
I know that the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery the Hon Gerry Brownlee is concerned that public input into the decisions that are being taken might delay what the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority is attempting to deliver. That does not need to be so. I acknowledge that as far as I am concerned there have been some improvements to the bill from an earlier draft we saw. I welcome the improvements and take some delight in the fact that the Minister has acknowledged the need for some changes to the bill. 
I welcome the select committee process—as rapid as it is. At least people will have the opportunity tomorrow to provide some input to the bill. It is hugely important when we consider that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority will dominate the life of our city for the next 5 years. It is really important to allow people that input. I also acknowledge that at least in the wording of the bill there is some reference to community input. In fact the reference has moved from clause 66 of the earlier draft to the general policy statement at the start of the current bill: “The Bill is founded on the need for community participation in decision-making processes while balancing this against the need for a timely and coordinated recovery process.” 
Community input has to be allowed to happen given the scale of the disaster we have been through and the need to do things differently this time around as we rebuild our city and rebuild it rapidly. The usual model is top-down; in this instance we need a bottom-up model. People need to be allowed genuine chances for input—and rapidly. 
There are mechanisms there for that to happen already. CanCERN the Canterbury Communities’ Earthquake Recovery Network was established after the September quake. I take some pride in the fact that I chaired the first few meetings of a group of residents’ associations then stepped back and that group went on to become CanCERN which is now accepted by the Minister for Earthquake Recovery by the community by the mayor and by the council as a very legitimate non-political set of groups from across the communities of Christchurch. Those groups are sitting at tables with Ministers and the council and are able to be heard. It is an example of how communities can form and have a say. 
I note also that in the last few weeks another group sprang up that I have been involved in. It is called ICONiC which stands for Interests in Conserving the Identity of Christchurch. It represents building owners and people with heritage interests who have had some role and input already into the civil defence provisions in terms of stopping the demolition of some heritage buildings until at least some pause can be taken and building owners can be consulted. 
I would point to the fact that councillors representing wards across Christchurch are in effect a consultative mechanism. Community boards also can play a much wider role if they are given the chance if they are given the power and if they are given the mandate to be involved and to represent their communities. The bill provides for the establishment of a community forum but it is a forum of 20 people appointed by the Minister for Earthquake Recovery with the requirement for them to meet no more than six times a year. I am sorry but that is not truly consultation. That is business as usual—doing things as they have always been done. 
We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Christchurch and for Cantabrians to have their say in the reshaping of their city. They want to do that and they want to be involved. These are their lives and these are their communities. It is their businesses and their jobs that are at stake. They need to have more than simply a hand-picked panel. 
Why not for instance establish a community forum allow anybody who wants to come and allow that to decide who the community’s representatives might be? Even if the Minister wants to still have veto powers or the right to appoint others to his forum he could actually allow the community to decide who its representatives are. That would really be a representative body not a panel of chosen representatives. 
I say as the MP for Christchurch Central which encompasses all of the central business district of our city that our business community must be very well represented on that community forum and on that panel. But it must not be just the business sector. I represent suburbs that have been hard hit and twice in some instances—suburbs like Avonside Richmond Philipstown Linwood Shirley and St Albans. They want a say in the rebuilding of their communities and their suburbs. They must be given that chance. They must be given a chance to say what sort of Christchurch they want to see. We want to see a sustainable city we want to see a strong city we want to see a safe city and we want to see a city that we can all have a say in in terms of shaping its future. We must absolutely get it right. There is a golden opportunity here a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do that. 
I exhort the Minister even though he has taken on board some of the comments that have been made to take the opportunities that are here in front of him now. If he does not and if he does not include communities then the price will come back on his head and on the Government’s head sadly—or maybe not so sadly. It will be a price too high to pay. If people do not feel a part of it if they do not feel included in it and if they do not feel empowered by a process or by a decision they will not buy into it. They will not accept the decisions and if they do they will do so through gritted teeth. 
This is a golden once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I exhort the Minister and I exhort the Government to think very seriously about inverting the usual top-down process and allow the communities of Christchurch to have their voice to speak rapidly and to be brought together in a community forum and allowed to give some indication of who they can bring together as their representatives. Let us work together for the future of our city. Kia kaha Christchurch 
AARON GILMORE (National) 
: 
 If there was ever a time in the history of New Zealand to say “cometh the hour cometh the man” this is the time with the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill before us. We have heard a lot across this House about some of the issues and about the powers that have been given to the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Gerry Brownlee in this bill. I think that is one of the interesting things we need to touch on and I will get to some of those dilemmas and slight errors and put them to the House. Gerry Brownlee post - 4 September was pointed out by some of our colleagues on the other side of the House as doing a great job. Mr Anderton sat there and told some of Mr Brownlee’s officials that they were doing a wonderful job post - 4 September—and they were. That shows us that Minister Brownlee has the ability to inspire individuals. We heard from one of the members across the House earlier that one of the key things about this bill and about the recovery is the need to inspire leadership and that is what Mr Brownlee does: he inspires leadership in his team. This bill puts in place some powers to make that happen. 
Just recently we heard Mr Burns talk about some of the dilemmas that exist around community consultation. I just want to correct a couple of little errors that were put forward. The bill provides for a community forum—that was correctly pointed out. But the forum is to meet at least six times a year—at least six times. We heard from Ruth Dyson who pointed out that there were concerns about there being no consultation procedures with the public in any way. Well that is actually not correct either and I want to point that out. Clauses 13 16 and 17 all provide for various mechanisms for consultation with the public in respect of the recovery strategies and recovery plans and they are good steps forward. They may not be the right steps forward and the Opposition may disagree with them but those mechanisms do exist. There are also reporting mechanisms to be put in place by the Minister on a quarterly basis so the public can see in a transparent way what is being undertaken. 
We heard from Mr Cosgrove about some of the issues and the problems that have occurred across Christchurch and about the issues that arise when politicians become political. I have been in a number of meetings and I have sat with politicians from our side and from the other side of the House. On a number of occasions things have gone very well and that is a good thing given what we are grappling with at a time of rebuilding Christchurch after what was New Zealand’s largest natural disaster. We have an opportunity as has been pointed out to rebuild my home city in a way that we never have had the opportunity to do before. 
A number of people were killed. While I have the chance to I just want to make quick mention of three of those who were friends of mine. Betty Dickson was an 82-year-old from South Brighton. Betty Dickson had been involved in my local party organisation and she was a wonderful lady and a supporter of mine. Samuel Gibb was a young man in the CTV building who was a cameraman. I enjoyed having a cup of coffee once a month with Sam—he was a wonderful guy. I also want to talk about Lisa Willems. Lisa worked for Pyne Gould Guinness. She was an accountant in that building and her husband Ben Willems is a very good friend of mine. 
Again these are the people whom we have seen photographed in our newspapers. They may be just names to some people; to me they are people I knew personally. We have also seen people who have lost their homes. This bill puts in place powers and opportunities so that New Zealand can collectively have control and have the ability to rebuild our city in the way we want. 
We allow a significant number of powers in this bill and there are some concerns about that. We will go to Christchurch tomorrow to hear submissions and we will hear submissions tonight from a number of people which may point out some things that we can do a bit better in respect of this bill. I look forward to that happening and I look forward to the comments that people may put forward to us. 
But time is of the essence. We cannot put in place another overlay of long-winded community consultation because we have to rebuild our city as fast as possible. I live in what is called the “no-flush zone” which means we cannot flush our toilets. Many people might find that amusing but I can tell members that it is not amusing. We have to rebuild our infrastructure so that the 70000 people who are also in the no-flush zone can live their lives and get back to normality. We have to get in a situation where the roads we are driving along are no longer ski field roads or farm track roads but ones that we can drive along in the normal way. That will all take time effort and money and this bill puts in place the apparatus to allow a back-up situation where that can be put in place—a recovery strategy that overlays what we want to do; a recovery plan that might be at a community level a social level or a thematic level in terms of issues around a particular group or organisation. 
These are good things. This is a good bill and in the time to come we will look back and say that this was the right thing to do. I think we will find that in 10 years’ time—and hopefully I will be sitting in this House in 10 years’ time—we will look back and say that we passed the bill for the right reasons. We look forward to the rest of the bill’s passage through the House. Thank you. 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 There are two things Canterbury people need. They need to get on with things as quickly as possible and they need to be involved in the decisions about the recovery of their city. For some reason there is a view that public participation is in conflict with rapid decision-making. In fact it is my view that they are both essential to each other. We cannot rebuild quickly if we do not take all of the people in the community along with us. People who are left out will challenge the process they will feel disillusioned and ultimately the process will fail. There is no point consulting if we do not get the processes and decisions moving because people will simply leave if there is inaction or they will stay away and some of them will not come back or they will try to push on on their own when what we need is to coordinate all of the efforts to rebuild Christchurch on a community-wide and collective basis. 
I support the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill because it enables the immense amount of work that Christchurch faces to be done and it offers the opportunity for genuine consultation. I say opportunity because basically it is not what is written on a piece of paper or even in legislation; it is how it is implemented and what is done about the proposals for consultation. Consultation in writing is not the same as taking the opportunity for consultation. I warn that it is critical that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority consults and that the process is open to everyone in Canterbury who wants to participate it is transparent and it is accountable. That is why I will be supporting amendments to the bill at the Committee stage. Those amendments which I have looked at carefully from colleagues on this side of the House seem to me to add some substance to particularly the community relationships and community consultation that I believe is essential. 
I recently read an article by Steven Ames who has been in New Zealand looking at issues like the recovery of Christchurch in other arenas. I summarise what he said was the challenge for Christchurch: “We have to shift our perspective from ‘recovering what we once were’ to ‘building what we seek to become’.” 
He outlines the phases on the road back from disaster and they will be clearly apparent to anyone who lives in Christchurch. Firstly there is the rescue phase when the hours after an emergency require people to be saved or the removal of those who have been killed or injured. The second phase is recovery as we reconnect the essential services of water power sewerage roading and so on. Then there is the stage that we are approaching now but we are not really there yet which we could call the rebuilding stage. But a comparison of cities that have rebuilt brilliantly and cities that have struggled shows that there is probably a need for a fourth stage. Ames describes it as “revisioning”. The ultimate success of rebuilding depends on how much the city is able to understand how its context has changed. In other words there has been a cataclysmic event. How are we now approaching that and what understanding do we have of the implications of that event on us all? How much people understand where they may be headed what the emerging trends and issues are and what lies ahead will be critically important to what they and the city aspire to be. 
I want to read into the record the conclusion that Ames comes to: “City leaders would be remiss only to think of what must be rebuilt or replaced to bring the city back to where it was on the eve of the quake. Human nature suggests that when disaster strikes we hunker down”—and we surely did some of that—“convinced that we cannot afford the luxury of thinking beyond our most urgent needs.” Then he concludes: “But this moment also represents a singular opportunity for Christchurch and all of Canterbury to rethink revision and reinvent itself.” 
The ability for Christchurch and Canterbury people to reimagine Christchurch requires leadership capable of engaging with all of the city’s people. The success of what we have to do will therefore depend much more on that leadership than it does on any structure we have. I have been in business in politics and in other walks of life long enough to know that we can have the most brilliant organisational structure imaginable but if we do not have the right people running it it is a waste of time and vice versa. The success of what we do therefore will depend on the quality of the leadership we put in place. 
I am not as concerned with the structure of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority as I am with having the right people to run it. We need people leading the rebuild who understand the stages of recovery that I have outlined to the House this afternoon. We need people experienced in managing large enterprises with an understanding of Christchurch its ethos and its culture and with a vision for its future. We need leaders who have the confidence of the people and are able to communicate with them and get things done. 
If there is one thing that I know about failure in Christchurch in the recent 6 or 7 months it is not so much the talking about the problems that are straight in front of us; it is information and communication about what is next and what can be done and involving people in those decisions the strategic plan and so on. Very few people in Christchurch have any grasp of that and that seems to me to be a lack of proper communication. 
The ability to engage the community and get things moving was a big disappointment after the first quake. I have to say that and I think the Government’s response reflects that to some extent. It did not happen well enough and not enough was done soon enough. Contrast that with what has happened for example in Kaiapoi. People say that Kaiapoi is a lot smaller than Christchurch so it is easier there. Well there is an element of truth in that but actually Kaiapoi did some things that Christchurch did not do. They got cracking early they talked to their people community meetings were held they were reheld ideas were accepted they were tested they were put back to the community and finally the community had a strategic plan drawn up which they recognised studied discussed and then signed off. Not all of them agreed of course but they did agree that they had been consulted properly and that they knew what was happening. Guess what? What is happening in Kaiapoi is happening very quickly and I have to say that Christchurch is in nowhere near the position that Kaiapoi is in. 
Dealing with the problems is not easy; that is true. But it has not been as fast as it needs to be and it has not to date adequately involved people and that needs to change. I understand why the Government is taking control and I do not blame it. It is a recognition that a lot of taxpayers’ money is at stake and also that things need to be handled better than they were after the first quake. What we need to see now in this legislation is a commitment to listening and making the community part of the rebuild. People need to feel that their views are taken into account and that the kind of Christchurch they want is being created. Otherwise if they feel it is not the Christchurch they were born into came to or want to experience again they will feel no commitment to it and it will fail. 
I recognise that the Government has not abused its sweeping and extraordinary powers under the first Christchurch emergency legislation. I am pleased to be able to say that to the House. This gives me hope that the Government will continue to use its powers in good faith in the future. But it has to do more than that. It has to reach out to a shocked and fragile community—and I do not know that many New Zealanders fully appreciate the fragility and the shock that is being felt in the Christchurch community. The Government and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority which we are setting up today has to engage with the people of Christchurch on these issues. So that is how we will move forward from recovery to rebuilding a new vision for Christchurch and in the true Canterbury spirit I know that we have the resilience and the strength to do exactly that. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 111 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 42; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 11 
Green Party 9; Independents: Carter C Harawira. 
Bill read a first time. 
Housing Corporation Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 I move  
That the Housing Corporation Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Housing Corporation Amendment Bill be referred to the Social Services Committee that the committee report finally to the House on or before 6 June 2011 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington region despite Standing Orders 187 189(a) and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
In December I announced the Government’s response to the report of the Housing Shareholders’ Advisory Group. This included a decision to consolidate housing policy advice functions within the Department of Building and Housing by 1 July 2011. Consolidating advice functions within the department will allow for a more coherent integrated overview of housing sector issues and advice to Ministers. It will also provide greater synergy strengthen capability and avoid duplication of effort across agencies. 
This bill proposes an amendment to the Housing Corporation Act 1974 to support this change. The corporation will no longer be expected to provide the Minister of Housing with housing sector policy advice or with any advice or information on housing or services that does not relate to the provision of State housing. It will no longer be required to undertake research or monitoring activities for the purpose of advising the Minister of Housing on housing or services that do not relate to State housing. 
To help give effect to these changes the Housing Corporation Act 1974 will be amended to prevent Housing New Zealand Corporation employees who are offered a commensurate position within the Department of Building and Housing from claiming redundancy. Housing New Zealand Corporation employees who are offered and accept positions within the Department of Building and Housing will be transferred on terms that are commensurate with their current terms and conditions of employment. 
The proposed amendments contained in the bill are necessary to facilitate the consolidation of housing policy advice within the Department of Building and Housing as the Government intended. I commend this bill to the House. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 Is that it? Really? Wow. I am happy to stand and speak on the first reading of the Housing Corporation Amendment Bill. The reality is this bill is just another piece of tinkering around the edges from a Government that has absolutely no plan to deal with the ongoing housing crisis in New Zealand and particularly in the instance of the Housing New Zealand Corporation the crisis in social housing. 
I will say from the outset that Labour will support this bill going to the Social Services Committee but we do so with enormous reservations and we cannot guarantee we will support it beyond that. We think the legislation is a timely opportunity to have a discussion about the Housing New Zealand Corporation and its current direction and focus which have changed dramatically since the change in Government. There has been a cultural shift in the Housing New Zealand Corporation and that shift has been punitive and has made things far more difficult for tenants. In fact tenants have been completely left out of the loop. The reports that the Minister of Housing has commissioned include the huge Housing Shareholders’ Advisory Group report which was about State housing. One group of people had absolutely no involvement whatsoever in that report: the tenants of the Housing New Zealand Corporation. The tenants whom the entire piece of research was about were not consulted were not involved and as far as I know have still not been talked to about the implications of that report for them as clients of the Housing New Zealand Corporation. 
It concerns me to hear the Minister talking about the separation of State housing policy from other housing policy. Of course housing is a continuum. It goes from the social housing that the Housing New Zealand Corporation provides all the way through to the affordable housing initiatives brought in by the previous Labour Government some of which have been continued under this Government and some of which have been scrapped. But State housing does not exist in isolation from the rest of the housing market. I am very concerned and maybe I misheard or misinterpreted the Minister’s comments but the idea that State housing policy will somehow be completely separate from policy for housing everywhere else is I believe a step backwards. In saying that I also know that there are some concerns particularly within the community housing sector that there is a conflict of interest in the Housing New Zealand Corporation providing policy advice when it is also a stakeholder. I think that is an issue we can discuss at the select committee. 
I want to talk a little bit about the history of State housing in New Zealand because sometimes Government members forget where it came from. It goes back to Michael Joseph Savage and the first Labour Government. A very wise decision was made back then that taxpayers’ money would be used would be invested to support low-income families unable to access appropriate and affordable housing. Generations of New Zealanders—generations of them—have invested taxpayer money and have done so proudly. As a country we have been proud of our investment in social housing proud of the way that we have supported those families who from time to time and for varying lengths of time have needed the assistance of State housing which started under the first Labour Government and continues to this day. It has been a very wise investment. It has provided many families with the kind of support they need to raise their families in conditions that are appropriate. 
Those families have included that of the Prime Minister of this country. The Prime Minister of this country grew up in a State house. He likes to make a big deal of it. I have to ask why then he stopped the building of 500 State houses in his own electorate. He said it would be economic vandalism for poor people to have sea views—economic vandalism. Well that is not what New Zealanders believe about State housing. It was a very very disappointing comment from a Prime Minister who has traded on his State house past. He has pulled up the ladder behind him like so many other National Party Ministers and members. 
The 1990s was a very turbulent time for State house tenants. Nearly 13000 State houses were hocked off mostly to developers under the guise—and we have heard this again now—of letting State house tenants own their own homes. Well there is a reason State house tenants are in State houses: because they are on a low income and are unlikely to be able to purchase their own homes. They cannot afford it. I note that the policy the Minister brought in again of allowing State house tenants to purchase their own homes—although this time he did not make the mistake of subsidising them for his mates; he put them out at market values—has been an abysmal failure. It raised the expectations and the hopes of thousands of State house families who thought it would be their pathway into homeownership. They were devastated when they realised that it was nothing more than a slogan—nothing more than a slogan—and that the Government was not going to do anything to help them into homeownership and to improve the affordability of homeownership. 
The Government brought in market rents. It got rid of income-related rents and brought in market rents. It drove thousands of families into poverty overnight. The Government carried out no modernisation whatsoever of the State housing stock throughout that time. I will read a comment from the housing Minister at the time Tony Ryall who is still on the National front bench. This is what he said in general debate in the mid-1990s: “I think it is much better that the State is not involved in housing and that we say to New Zealanders that our effort will go into putting people into private enterprise housing.” He then said in 1999: “National MPs inherently do not have a desire to expand the level of State housing in New Zealand. It is not an issue that is dear to our core constituency.” The more things change the more they stay the same. Nothing has changed between that National Government largely and this National Government. Those core values are still there. 
Where have we seen that? We have seen it in the fact that the State house budget was slashed—slashed—by 80 percent last year. Mr Heatley has had to swallow the dead rat of income-related rents as has his party because abolishing them in the 1990s was so unpopular. But National has not done it because it agreed with income-related rents; it has done it because it knew that it would have been politically untenable to go forward with a policy of getting rid of income-related rents once again. It took a Labour Government in the 2000s to bring back income-related rents for State house tenants. We rebuilt 8000 of the 13000 State houses that were hocked off during the 1990s and we did that at a time when there was a major housing boom and it was difficult to get builders. We carried out modernisation at a time when it was difficult to find people to do the work because in the 1990s builders had left the country in droves and the National Government had done nothing about it. It had done nothing to keep those builders in work or keep them in training. So when we came to another housing boom we did not have the skilled labour to be able to do everything we wanted. 
Does this sound familiar? Well it should because it is happening right now. It is happening again. This National Government has learnt nothing. In the last 2½ years we could have been building housing. Over the last 3 years Australia has put more than $5 billion into housing as part of an economic stimulus package. It has added 20000 State houses to its State housing stock. And do you know what? It has kept builders in work it has kept building companies in employment and it has kept local businesses open because of the purchases that are being made. It has kept income tax and sales tax going through as well. What did we do? Nothing—absolutely nothing. Our building sector is in the deepest recession it has ever been in since records began. The chief executive of the Registered Master Builders Federation said that once again we will not be able to respond to demand whenever we come out of a recession because our builders will not be there. Our builders are leaving; they are going overseas. Our apprentices are going overseas too. 
What was the Government’s answer to the housing crisis? It slashed the budget for State housing by more than 80 percent in last year’s Budget. Mr Heatley likes to say to the housing sector that times are tough and there is no money. Well there was plenty of money for $15 billion worth of tax cuts which overwhelmingly went to people who did not need them and have not spent them in the economy. There was plenty of money for the plastic waka up in Auckland; it would have been nice to spend it on housing. There was a lot more money for private schools and $2 billion for the “Holiday Highway” north of Auckland. That is the kind of infrastructure the National Government believes in: infrastructure that gets Ministers to their holiday houses 7 minutes faster. Well the kind of infrastructure that Labour believes in is housing. Housing is core infrastructure. It should be a higher priority for this Government. 
The second thing the Government wants to do is hide the problem by bringing in an options and advice service that has no function other than to keep people off the waiting list. That is what it is doing. Emergency accommodation providers are saying that people are turning up the Housing New Zealand Corporation having turned them away or put them into boarding houses. They are living in completely unacceptable situations because the Minister will not let them have a needs assessment before they are farmed out to the private sector. The only reason someone would make that decision would be to keep people off the waiting lists and I say congratulations to the Minister because it is working. The Government is hiding the figures so that it does not have to deal with them. 
The last thing to do if one is a National Government is to make it someone else’s problem. National says to the community housing sector that it is now its job to build houses not the Government’s. Labour believes in supporting the community housing sector to grow but it must grow as well as Government housing as well as Housing New Zealand Corporation housing not instead of it. Instead we have a Minister and a Government that want the community housing sector to do their job for them. Generations and generations of taxpayers in this country have not invested in social housing to provide housing for vulnerable families only for this Government to hock them off in more asset sales and to treat those tenants as though they should be ashamed to live in a State house. 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to speak in the first reading of the Housing Corporation Amendment Bill today. It is really interesting to listen to the member of the Opposition who has just resumed her seat Moana Mackey. She has a very short memory. She said that there are not enough State houses and that the houses are not good enough. She must remember that under her Government’s reign no money was spent on maintaining those State houses. The Labour Government transferred that money into building houses and turned itself into a slum landlord. What do slum landlords do? They create huge health issues. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: Get your facts right. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: Maryan Street can sit there and point her finger at me but the reality is that at the Social Services Committee when the Housing New Zealand Corporation came in and spoke to us the Labour Government was held to account for spending no money on maintaining that stock and for becoming a slum landlord. Members opposite can try to rewrite history as much as they want but we on this side of the House know the truth and we are trying to make a difference. 
As much as Labour put more money into the system and into building houses it let tenants stay in slum conditions. I know that the people of Ohariu will be proud of this Government because we are focusing Housing New Zealand Corporation on the houses that people are actually in. We are focusing the corporation on what counts and that is looking after the houses that people are in and looking after the tenants. That is where the corporation’s focus should be and that is what this bill is about: taking the policy arm out of Housing New Zealand Corporation and allowing it to focus on the tenants. 
I am taking just a short call in support of this bill. I look forward to it coming to the Social Services Committee which I chair and hearing the debate in that select committee. This is good legislation and I look forward to listening to the debate. 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak with a great deal of interest on the Housing Corporation Amendment Bill. Housing New Zealanders is a complex business. It is a difficult area for any Government to come to terms with and I will not get into a whole lot of blaming in terms of when the need first arose. I will talk about the inaction of this Government and I will talk about some history on housing. 
We will support this bill at its first reading but I say to Mr Heatley that we are very very keen to hear the arguments that explain why policy should be taken out of the Housing New Zealand Corporation which after all deals with the praxis. Why should it be removed from the area where officials are most concerned and are at the pointy end of the provision of housing for the neediest in our community? 
I start with the fact that as my colleague Moana Mackey has alluded to in the 1990s when Tony Ryall was the Minister responsible for Housing New Zealand over 13000 State houses were hocked off. They were hocked off to private developers and to this Government’s mates. That is a story that we are seeing repeated now. It does not matter whether it is through overseas development assistance contracts to Mark Blumsky or the appointment of John Hayes to a panel; it is still doing favours for mates. That is what it is about. 
Over the 9 years that Labour was in Government we built or acquired 8600 more State houses. First of all we restored income-related rents which lifted the 68000 people who live in State houses out of poverty. By restricting the rent that they paid to 25 percent of income we could allow them to live in dignity again. 
We did not fix everything but we tried to get to grips with the biggest property bubble that this country had ever seen. Between 1997 and 2007 we saw the biggest property inflation bubble that this country had ever seen. What did we do about it? We instituted the Welcome Home Loan to assist people to get ownership of their first homes. We introduced KiwiSaver and the system that allowed a young family to capitalise on their KiwiSaver savings after 5 years so that they could have a deposit to put on a first home. 
We brought in a shared equity scheme where the buyer had a part interest and the Government had a part interest. We audited all Government property and we audited local government property to see which parts of it were suitable for residential housing and which were not. But all that Mr Heatley could do in Opposition was to say that the Labour Government wanted to build a house on the Auckland Zoo. He tried to score points in that fatuous little-boy way he does and tried to make the need of New Zealanders a joke—he tried to make the need of New Zealanders a joke. But housing is not a joke and I make no apology for getting a bit wound up about it while Mr Heatley still considers it a laughing matter. 
We had Maori housing initiatives that saw State houses being moved out of areas where they were no longer required into rural areas where they were required. I saw that process working well. I saw it working well in the Ureweras. I saw it working well with Tuhoe in charge of a housing project. 
We brought in legislation so that local authorities could ensure that 10 percent of any residential building development could be put aside for affordable housing. What has this Government done? It has scrapped it. It did not even look to see whether the legislation is now even more applicable than it was when I introduced it in 2008. We concentrated on urban renewal and on greater density of State houses on Crown land. We tried and tried to develop policy that would address the housing needs of the most disadvantaged in our society. 
Not only that; through all of the schemes I have mentioned we tried to address the issue of houses whose escalating price took them out of the range of first-home buyers. Now we have an average house price in Auckland of $580000—$580000. What is this Minister of Housing bringing to the House to answer the fact that there is not a young family alive in Auckland who can afford a $580000 house as their first home? It is this bill—this tiny flimsy little piece of legislation—which barely runs to 4 pages I tell the Minister. It is a pathetic gesture that says that the Government is going to take the policy-making function out of the Housing New Zealand Corporation and put it into the Department of Building and Housing. 
Let me give members just one example. Also tabled this afternoon was the regulatory impact statement which has been put together by the Department of Building and Housing. I feel sorry for its staff; they have a Minister who does not know what to do. They are really trying not to overreach him so they have given us a regulatory impact statement that has nothing to do with the bill. I tell Mr Heatley that the bill is meant to have a regulatory impact statement attached to it but I have here the regulatory impact statement and it has nothing to do with the bill. 
The statement is talking about the Housing Shareholders’ Advisory Group report called  
Home and Housed: a Vision for Social Housing in New Zealand 
. It talks about the group’s 19 recommendations. The Department of Building and Housing has done its best to provide a regulatory impact statement for the Minister but when the Minister coughs up pathetic offerings like this bill we know that this National Government has no interest in housing the needy. It either has no interest or has no wit or perhaps has neither interest nor wit. Perhaps it is lacking in intelligence but there are intelligent people amongst the officials who have the brains to put together some policies that could address this issue. 
This is a serious issue—this is a serious issue I tell the Minister and it deserves serious contemplation. From this Government we now have a Productivity Commission. Can members guess what its first item of business is? It is to find out why houses are so unaffordable as if it is a new problem! It is not a new problem; work has been done on it and policies have been put in place for it. This Government needs only to pick up the work that has already been done by very able officials instead of coming to the House with this pathetic piece of nonsense which may well take the policy-making function away from the praxis—in other words away from the people who know what they are doing in housing. 
Let us talk about whether policy ought to be vested in the Department of Building and Housing. I tell the Minister that that issue should be discussed at the select committee. Let us hope that members opposite engage with it because we have heard no evidence from the tiny little truncated speeches of half a dozen sentences at best offered up by that Government’s members. Those speeches are a poor apology for a statement in support of a pathetic piece of legislation that does nothing to address housing affordability. 
Housing affordability is a critical issue in this country. There are people who cannot afford to make ends meet; they cannot afford the rents out there in the private sector. The Minister cares not a jot about any of those people. If he cared about them he might think up something better than this completely inadequate legislation. Let us have the conversation about where the policy should be vested whether it should be in the Department of Building and Housing or in the Housing New Zealand Corporation. Let us have the discussion but let us not pretend that this bill is an answer to housing need in this country. This bill is no more an answer to housing need in this country than Mr Heatley is a competent Minister. It is completely ludicrous that we should be debating this bill in the context of State housing today. Thank you. 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to take a call on the Housing Corporation Amendment Bill. The Green Party is disappointed that we are discussing this bill so soon after its introduction with such a poor regulatory impact statement with no evidence given by the Minister with such short calls and now under urgency. It is disappointing to have legislation going through this Chamber in such a fashion. 
The bill amends the Housing Corporation Act 1974 to consolidate housing policy advice to Ministers within the Department of Building and Housing. As the Minister of Housing said the Housing New Zealand Corporation will retain its operational policy capability in order to support its business activities but it will no longer be required to ensure that the Minister of Housing receives the appropriate advice or any other advice on information with regard to housing or to services related to housing. The Green Party is yet to see any evidence from the Minister or from other speakers that this is desirable—no evidence whatsoever—so we will be opposing this bill in its first reading. We will be entering the select committee process with an open mind because ultimately we want better State house services for Kiwis but we do not think that this bill goes anywhere near delivering that. The Green Party believes that this bill is a diversion away from the key issue facing New Zealand: the dire shortage of housing and the Government’s dismal failure to build more State houses on its watch. The Government seems intent to divest itself of its responsibility as a housing provider and this bill in that context furthers that by limiting the Housing New Zealand Corporation’s policy advisory role. 
Housing is a basic need for all New Zealanders and it is vital that the Government plays a leading role in ensuring that everybody is guaranteed this basic essential human right. I did not grow up in a State house but one of our most prominent parliamentarians did—the Prime Minister. For thousands of Kiwis a State house has meant that they have been able to grow up with opportunities in a decent house. The Housing New Zealand Corporation website for Ms Mackey’s knowledge points all the way back to 1905 to Seddon’s Workers’ Dwelling Act which was potentially the start of the State housing sector in New Zealand. The website goes through the railway department’s workers’ dwellings and the housing factories that were built through to the lenient State lending programmes of the 1920s and all the way through to the 1930s. Providing State housing and social housing has a much longer history—in fact 106 years’ worth of history—but this vital role of Government seems to be lacking from the Minister’s attention. He seems to be focusing on minutiae—on tiny bills like this one which is only 4 pages long—without looking at the big picture and without looking at the actual need that is out there in our communities. 
Today the Housing New Zealand Corporation manages—I looked it up—69489 State houses but unfortunately it has more than 8800 Kiwis on the waiting list. I think it is an indictment on the Government’s role as the State housing provider that so many Kiwis are on that waiting list when there is so much need and when builders out there are dying for work. They are looking for work yet we have so many people on the State house waiting list. 
I have been touring the country looking at some of our coldest dampest worst rental properties in my bid to promote my Energy Efficiency Conservation (Warm Healthy Rentals) Amendment Bill. What I have discovered in talking to the different sector groups is that we have 1 million substandard homes in New Zealand which every day lead to 50 people being hospitalised at a cost of $3000 a night and more than 780 people do not attend school or are not at work as a result of their poor housing standards. The economic benefits of addressing this issue are significant and I acknowledge our ability to work with the Government through a memorandum of understanding to deliver as I understand it more than 90000 warm healthy retrofits. For every $1 we are investing as a nation we are seeing $2 in economic benefits. Research from the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development shows that if we look after those 1 million substandard homes by insulating and retrofitting them productivity improvements will be in the order of potentially $17 million there will be $54 million worth of health savings and there will be smaller energy bills at an amazing saving worth $425 million. 
The 69000 State houses that the State manages make the State the nation’s biggest landlord. The State plays an important role in making sure housing affordability and standards do not slip precariously as may happen if we leave it up to the market with no State provision. The fundamental issue facing us in 2011 is widespread housing deprivation and this Government simply is not investing enough of its money in State housing or the housing sector. 
I will look at just a couple of parts of the bill. I guess there is not much to it so it will be brief. Firstly we will look to evidence presented to the Social Services Committee that the streamlining of housing policy advice into one ministry will actually achieve better outcomes but we have not seen that evidence today. This bill has just been chucked on the table. The bill states that the Housing New Zealand Corporation will no longer be expected to undertake research and monitoring activities for the purpose of advising the Minister of Housing on housing and services related to housing. I acknowledge the concern from the community housing sector and the argument that it is good to have policy advice separate from the functions that are delivered bureaucratically. If one agency provides both the policy advice could be seen to be self-serving to the bureaucracy of the agency rather than directed to the people to whom the agency is meant to be delivering. 
This bill could also be seen as simply an excuse to reduce that capacity for good policy advice on State housing. I am concerned about the Minister because the risk is that he will potentially be worse off and receive less diverse advice from which to make his decisions. The Housing New Zealand Corporation is currently the primary provider of policy advice. Although the bill makes provisions for the transfer of staff to the Department of Building and Housing I and the Parliamentary Library cannot find the actual number of staff in the policy advice section which is currently not available. I understand that the policy advice section sits within the governance and assurance business groups. The library contacted them directly on my behalf and was told that the numbers would not be released because the Minister had directed them not to. As a result of the transfer of duties they are in the process of a consultation with the affected staff and will not release that information until the final number of staff is known. I imagine there is considerable nervousness amongst the staff at the moment and I want to acknowledge that in the Chamber tonight. I ask the Minister for an assurance that there will not be policy adviser redundancies factored into the transition of the policy advice functions to the Department of Building and Housing. 
Secondly this bill is part of the National Government’s ideological trend to simply merge departments much like the legislative takeover of the National Library and Archives New Zealand by the Department of Internal Affairs or the Ministry of Fisheries being taken into the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry—for no good reason. It seems to be an ideological slogan of efficiencies and streamlining shouted out by the Government benches. I heard a few more slogans in the Minister’s speech. No doubt Labour will demerge those departments in the ongoing cycle we have seen over the last couple of decades. 
Divesting responsibilities seems to be the key aim of this bill and the Government’s whole approach to State housing. The Government needs to retain its key role in State housing. The bill does not exist in isolation and in a context where the Government is divesting its responsibilities as a State housing provider I repeat that the Government needs to retain its role in State housing. The  
Home and Housed: A Vision for Social Housing in New Zealand  
report released by the Government shows that the current social housing model is struggling to meet demand. It identified that we have between 8500 to 20000 Kiwi households living in extreme housing need. The task force found that there was a shortage of 70000 homes in New Zealand. That was needless to say before the earthquake in Canterbury. Clearly we are facing a housing crisis in New Zealand yet the Government seems intent to be divesting its responsibilities and the Green Party believes that the Government needs to retain its key role as a State housing provider and considerably increase the State housing stock. 
The Government’s housing plans are inadequate in relation to discussing renewable tenancies potentially selling State houses and leaving more up to the community sector. Rather than investing in our struggling building sector at the moment and using the housing crisis as an opportunity to boost our employment the budget for improving and buying State houses was cut by more than 80 percent by the Minister from $120 million to $18 million in the last Budget. Rather than building more State houses the Government has announced that it will potentially sell off 40000 houses or two-thirds of the State housing stock. Rather than building more State houses the Government is simply passing the buck. It is great that the Government recognises the need to build up the role of the community sector—and the Green Party wholeheartedly supports that—but support for the community sector needs to be alongside investment in State housing not despite it or instead of it. John Key’s Government needs to invest in State housing not divest its role as the most important player in the New Zealand housing market. The Government should be focused on building. Everyone in New Zealand deserves a warm dry affordable house. Decent housing is a human right. 
Earlier this year the Green Party released its Mind the Gap package which would provide investment in State and community housing. The Mind the Gap package would create 6000 new State homes over 3 years creating more than 28000 jobs and healthy warm homes for people who need those most. We would also invest $200 million in community housing to build 500 homes and create 3500 jobs. Housing deprivation drives inequality and the evidence shows that inequality is bad for everyone in society not just the most vulnerable people directly affected by poverty. In conclusion the Green Party will be voting against this bill. 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 I am pleased to stand as the MP for Te Tai Tonga to speak on the Housing Corporation Amendment Bill. Housing particularly in the South Island is something that we are really interested in. We are particularly interested in measures to provide warm housing because we really miss out on that in the South Island. 
The policy on housing for Maori in particular really needs to be looked at because so many of us have large families as Maori. I remember as my young family were growing up being crammed into tiny little houses with our five kids. It was not a pretty sight particularly when they became teenagers and we had to find room for everybody to be able study and do all of those things that would enable them to grow up healthy. In Te Tai Tonga we know that housing is one of the greatest concerns for our people. Many Maori are living in substandard housing and many Maori are tenants of Housing New Zealand Corporation so we are vitally interested in this bill. 
When I was the managing solicitor at Te Ratonga Ture the Maori Legal Service I recall that one of the top issues we dealt with was housing. Many people came into us seeking help to deal with Housing New Zealand Corporation. As a constituent MP I can say one of the top issues constituents come to us and seek our help with is housing. I say again that many people come to seek help in dealing with Housing New Zealand Corporation. 
In Christchurch Housing New Zealand Corporation has been doing a relatively good job since the earthquake but unfortunately for the people who are leaving Christchurch and looking for assistance to find houses in other parts of New Zealand again Housing New Zealand Corporation is not doing a great job. Those people really need help. Just yesterday I had another constituent come into my Kilbirnie office absolutely frustrated with the lack of service she receives from her housing manager and with the time it is taking to have her concerns sorted out. She has been complaining for 2½ years and has not received any help. 
Will separating out the policy arm from the poor implementation arm improve service? Will it improve policy advice? I do not know whether it will but I am certainly interested in listening to people to the public and to the interest groups to hear what they have to say on that. So I look forward to the select committee process and to what people have to say about this legislation. I certainly hope we have a proper select committee process. We will support the bill at this stage but I look forward to hearing from the public on it. Kia ora. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I am very pleased to speak in support of the Housing Corporation Amendment Bill. Contrary to the concerns we heard from Moana Mackey earlier in this debate in these difficult times I suggest it is more important than ever that we concentrate our resources in the Public Service on the delivery of quality services at the front line with a minimum of bureaucracy duplication and inefficiency. Ms Mackey seemed to believe that duplication and layers of bureaucracy are essential. In fact it was only when Maryan Street rose to her feet that I realised that Labour is actually in support of this— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: 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. 
TIM MACINDOE 
: Before the dinner adjournment I was making the point that it actually took two Labour speakers to clarify that the Opposition is supporting this bill at its first reading. I mention that point again because listeners to this debate could be forgiven for thinking they are hotly opposed to it. In fact Maryan Street was positively vitriolic in some of her comments even though she said Labour members would vote for the bill to be referred to a select committee. 
The changes in this bill will focus Housing New Zealand Corporation on its primary purpose of providing good-quality State housing to those who are most in need of such support in our society for the duration of that need. 
Hon Shane Jones 
: Come on Tim! Speak from the heart. Stop reading it off a bit of paper. 
TIM MACINDOE 
: I am sure that even the Hon Shane Jones will understand and support that objective. I have had the opportunity to see the range and quality of Housing New Zealand Corporation properties and stock in the suburbs of the Hamilton West electorate. I have been very impressed by the new houses and units that have been built in recent times. Ours is a rapidly growing city and the corporation has a big challenge in keeping up with the demand. Added to that the challenges associated with maintaining and repairing some of the older Housing New Zealand Corporation houses are considerable and can cause angst for the tenants of those dwellings. I am sure that all electorate MPs in this House will have had quite a lot of experience of dealing with concerns of that nature. 
Given the magnitude of those tasks it is appropriate that Housing New Zealand Corporation be directed to this work and not diverted by a secondary obligation to provide policy advice that is currently also provided by another agency namely the Department of Building and Housing. The building and maintenance challenges I have spoken of are properly the concern of the Department of Building and Housing and only Labour members could believe that it takes two Government departments to do the same job. That is the mentality that brought about an explosion of bureaucracy without improving core services in the previous decade and that diverted increasingly scarce resources from important areas of need. This bill will help to rectify matters in one important area of social policy and I welcome its introduction. 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson I take this opportunity to congratulate you on your elevation. 
I feel sorry for this Minister of Housing; being the Minister of Housing in a National Government is like the graveyard shift. It is like being the “Minister of Coalmines” in a Green-led Government or the Minister for State Owned Enterprises in an ACT-led Government; their heart is just not in it. This National Government is ideologically predisposed against the State intervening in the housing market to help New Zealanders get a secure roof over their heads to get people out of living in caravan parks and cars and to get them into safe healthy affordable homes. We support this light slight incidental Housing Corporation Amendment Bill. It can go off to the select committee where we can debate the pros and cons of whether the policy advice should be split between Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Department of Building and Housing or whether it should all be consolidated in the Department of Building and Housing. That is an interesting diversion but it is utterly irrelevant to the tens of thousands of New Zealanders who are on the sharp end of the housing crisis in New Zealand today. 
I am going to give the House some facts. They are readily available on television and in newspapers; in fact many New Zealanders talk of little else other than the housing crisis but this Minister of Housing does not seem to know them because if he did if he was not so out of touch with the concerns of ordinary New Zealanders he would surely have come up with something better than this pathetic bill. There are 9000 people on the waiting list for a Housing New Zealand Corporation home. The waiting list is not really a waiting list because people can wait and wait and wait for years and nothing ever happens. It is not a list they wait on when they want to get a house; it is a list where they just sit and sit and nothing happens because the fact is there are simply not enough houses for the people who need them. 
In Auckland the average price of a new home is reported this week as hitting $580000. National’s recession has slowed down the increase in housing prices but still particularly in Auckland we have some of the most unaffordable housing in the world. We have a crisis in rental housing. An ordinary three-bedroom house in central Auckland recently advertised for rent attracted 300 applicants. As if this were not bad enough the Government is doing precious little to help New Zealanders get a roof over their heads. The latest estimates from the Government’s Housing Shareholders’ Advisory Group says there is a shortage of 70000 dwellings—70000. The Department of Building and Housing has warned of an additional 25000 shortfall coming down the pipeline over the next decade. 
And what is the best this Minister can do? What is the best answer he has for this crisis? If there ever was an example of how bereft this Government is of ideas of a plan to get New Zealand moving this bill is it. It is a bill to consolidate policy-making in the Department of Building and Housing. John Key has done a remake of the classic Blam Blam Blam song “There is No Depression in New Zealand” 
 
 and it is “There is No Housing Crisis in New Zealand”. That is what he said. He probably thinks that people who are forced to live in caravan parks and cars are making a lifestyle choice. This is the Prime Minister the former State house kid who intervened personally to block the building of Housing New Zealand Corporation houses in the Hobsonville development in his electorate because he thought giving low-income Kiwis a sea view was economic vandalism. That says it all about this Government. 
This bill is tinkering around the edges because tinkering is what this Minister does best. Under his watch 87 properties have been added to the State housing stock in 2 years. Under the fifth Labour Government we averaged nearly 1000 new houses a year for 9 years and the best this Minister can do is 87 in 2 years. He has introduced an options and advisory service. Is that designed to help get more New Zealanders into their own homes? No it is a mechanism for keeping people off the waiting list. The main strategy of this Government seems to be to get people into leased private rentals. It seems to be oblivious to the fact that simply moving people from the public side of the ledger to the private does absolutely nothing to increase the stock of social or affordable housing. What is the Minister’s big contribution to solving the housing crisis? It is reviewable tenancies which will create stress and uncertainty for Kiwi families while doing nothing to increase the stock of affordable housing. That is this Minister’s stock-in-trade. 
In my community of Te Atatu people are on the sharp end of the housing affordability crisis. Things are tough in west Auckland; there are about 1000 people on the waiting list in west Auckland. That is more than any other area in New Zealand outside of South Auckland. More often than not they have been kicked out by the landlord who is selling the house; they do not have the money for a bond—it is about a thousand bucks to pay the bond for an average-priced rental in West Auckland—and Housing New Zealand Corporation cannot do a damn thing for them. Those people are often desperate; they have run out of options. 
One poor man we saw recently had custody of his four children two teenagers and two little ones and they were surviving on his sickness benefit and living in a one-bedroom unit. Is it any wonder that he was depressed? In another case we saw recently a husband and wife and five kids were living in Te Atatu North. He lost his job they could not pay the rent and they were evicted by the landlord. Housing New Zealand could do nothing for them. The only option was to go and live in the emergency shelter in Airedale Street in the central business district in Auckland which is run by the Methodist Mission. The family were classed as priority A by Housing New Zealand—the highest priority—but were told that they had no chance of getting a house. Another couple who came in looking for help recently and who had a 4-month-old baby were living in their car. 
Why is this important? It is important because housing unaffordability drives people into poverty. It blights the life chances of a generation. We remember the impact of market rents in State housing in the 1990s. Under the National Government of the day market rents were introduced for State housing. That was one of the most powerful forces that increased extreme poverty in this country and we are suffering the social consequences of that policy today. The housing crisis is a nail in the coffin of the Kiwi dream. A generation of New Zealanders have no realistic prospect of ever owning their own home. The high cost of housing denies them the opportunity that their parents and grandparents had to have a safe quality house that would give them the opportunity to live good decent lives build their capital and improve their prospects. [ 
Interruption 
] This Government has no— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Interjections between members who do not have the floor are not permitted. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: I have a memo for the Government: “Get a housing policy.” That is what I say. It must get a housing policy and I have some ideas to start with. It should use the recession as an opportunity to rebuild our housing stock. Provide work and opportunities for tradespeople and apprentices and do something to stimulate our dying construction industry. Invest resources in emergency housing so people do not have to live in the back of a car. Simply build more public housing. Work with local government to ensure that social housing and affordable housing are included in every new major housing development. Find ways to encourage high-quality medium-density housing developments in our biggest cities. For God’s sake close the tax loopholes that drive the housing bubble that makes housing unaffordable. 
We support this bill going to the select committee but we do so feeling disgusted at this Government’s total lack of interest in doing anything serious about the housing affordability crisis. It refuses to even acknowledge that there is a problem. The best of former New Zealand Governments knew how important housing was. They had a vision for this country’s future. They were nation-builders and they built stuff. They knew from the experience of the Great Depression and the Second World War that having a roof over one’s head was one of the most important factors in living a good life. The fact that Mr Heatley would bring this pathetic bill to the House says it all. 
JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) 
: 
 I heard plenty of speeches like the one made by the member who has just resumed his seat Phil Twyford during the recent Botany by-election. They are all about complaints but there are never any solutions. They are all about whining but never about ideas. Well you would struggle to believe that the Opposition is— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member is bringing the Speaker into the debate by using the word “you”. 
JAMI-LEE ROSS 
: Listeners would struggle to believe that the Opposition is supporting the Housing Corporation Amendment Bill but it is supporting this bill I suspect because it is common-sense legislation. It is common-sense legislation because it directs resources towards core front-line services and reduces backroom bureaucracy. There is absolutely no point in having policy advice coming from two housing departments under the Crown. It is good that it is coming from the Department of Building and Housing but Housing New Zealand Corporation needs to focus on its core task. 
Housing New Zealand Corporation is one of largest landowners in this country. It manages $15 billion worth of assets so it makes sense that this Government wants to ensure that Housing New Zealand Corporation is focused on its core goal. We are looking to remove backroom bureaucracy where it is wasted at the moment. 
My electorate of Botany has some large chunks of Housing New Zealand Corporation homes primarily in the Flat Bush area. The apartment block that I moved into with my wife when we became a couple had a large number of the corporation’s properties within it. After chatting to those people I know that they want to see the Government focus on providing core services. Housing New Zealand Corporation needs to make sure that its focus is on providing core services. I also note that the wider Botany population wants to see the Government run its business as efficiently and effectively as possible. This bill seeks to do that. 
The National-led Government wants to ensure that Housing New Zealand Corporation focuses its efforts on putting the right people in the right houses in the right location. That is what the Minister of Housing talked about in a speech he made last month when he was addressing a significant sector group. It is a key goal of this Government and National is delivering on its promise. It is delivering on its promise of better managing the corporation’s stock and delivering better outcomes for New Zealanders who need help with housing. 
This bill is all about ensuring that there is no double-up. It is about ensuring that a common-sense practice—one department delivering policy advice and another delivering core front-line services—happens. That is why I think the House should support this bill. 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe e te Kaihautu o te Whare. Taku mihi ki a koe i runga i nga kupu ataahua i puta i a Honore Simon Power i tenei rangi mou. Na reira nga mihi ki a koe me to hapai i to tatou reo Maori. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker of the House. I acknowledge you on the basis of the pleasant words that the Hon Simon Power expressed today about you. So congratulations on that and on your efforts to raise the profile of our Maori language 
.] 
Greetings Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. I would like to endorse some of what the Hon Simon Power had to say about you and I too look forward to seeing the speech that was delivered in 1996 during the time when the actual housing estate owned by the Crown was destroyed by the Government of that time. However I will not hold you responsible for what you may or may not have done during that period of time as a highly effective Opposition MP no doubt in 1996. 
I want to say that Labour members do support the referral of the Housing Corporation Amendment Bill to a select committee. It is a relatively insubstantial piece of legislation. It endeavours to pick up on the report by the Housing Shareholders’ Advisory Group. That report pointed out that about $2 billion at this point in time is spent by the State in the pursuit of social housing. That figure is expected to rise within another 6 or 7 years to close to $4 billion. 
We also know as a consequence of that report that over 20000 houses or units of residence—they may not be houses—are required to deal with the geometric pressures of growth in Tamaki-makau-rau Auckland. Unfortunately many of the people needing that level of assistance come from our tangata whenua Maori community and they will not all receive the handsome $2 million gift that was given to a narrow caste of favoured individuals from one hapu who presumably are aspiring candidates for the Maori Party. But there will be more on that at another stage. The broad membership of the Maori community and the Pacific Island community does require quality access to social housing and it is disappointing that this bill does not deal with the challenges that the housing shareholder body put before Minister Heatley. 
Now we may not necessarily agree that private capital should be involved in the provision of social housing but let us put the proposal on the table. It is a legitimate and positive public policy point to debate. I tell the Minister not to hide behind stories about the last 4 or 5 years. That man over there is the Minister of Housing now and I point out to him in case he has not noticed that we are no longer in control of the Treasury benches. We will do a far better job after 26 November but unfortunately for the tenants and people in “Strugglers’ Gully” who desire better housing outcomes they are stuck with that crowd there. 
If the Government wants to use private capital and come up with a model of a public-private partnership or whatever model it has in mind let that idea be put on the table so it can be a point of grand debate. There is no innovative solution being brought forward by the Minister of Housing and if the Government is going to release Crown land if it is going to make more of the current housing stock available to third parties to third-sector providers then it should crystallise a proposal put it before the public bring it to the House and then we can debate something of merit and substance. 
No one is incredibly hot and bothered about where the departmental advisory capacity rests—whether it rests in Housing New Zealand Corporation or in the Department of Building and Housing. What we are really bothered by is that over 20000 units of residence are needed every year to deal with internal migration and migration from overseas into our largest city a city that comprises one-third of the country’s GDP a city that has one-third of the country’s population and a city whose housing conditions are approaching those of a Third World country. 
It is sad that too many members on that side of the House are prepared to hide these issues under ideology. The reality is that we will have ongoing social problems amongst our youth predominantly brown in character. We will see those young people going in the wrong direction with eventually too many of them going into incarceration. The Minister of Housing should put the money into housing now and if he needs to use private money as well then he should bring the proposal forward. He should not be fearful to pursue what he thinks are his best instincts. If the Minister finds that what he learns in Australia ought to put forward then he should do so or have we harassed this Minister so much that he has lost the ability to bring even a rather harmless proposal forward? No. 
There is a lack of viable alternatives to State housing at the moment. We think that there is a great deal of worth in enabling those in the third sector to generate solutions. But in order for that to happen the Crown has to stand behind them. The Crown has to stand beside them so that they can amass the capital and deliver those services. It may come to pass that taking a swath of the houses currently owned by the Crown and entrusting them to entities such as the Salvation Army Maori housing providers Women’s Refuge housing providers or other options are worthy of us debating them possibly embracing them or dismissing them. 
That is the stuff we want to see in this policy and political debate not these phantoms and shadows—whether that be the people from the Housing New Zealand Corporation constantly wandering around the country and telling needy families that they have no options or the Department of Building and Housing with Katrina Bach and others offering perhaps a better job. 
What can be done to innovate the delivery of housing services? What exactly is the Minister of Housing offering to do? Unfortunately all that we are being told will happen is that more bureaucrats will sit their butts in chairs in another part of the Government. But where is the evidence that this Minister is prepared to bring forward alternatives to deal with the situation of poor equity and deal with the situation of an absence of innovation? There are houses located in the wrong location. There are people who are unwilling to move out into the provinces—perhaps for example Dunedin—where there are surplus houses. We want to see an innovative Minister-led solution for Auckland. 
This Government set up the super-city that it wanted. It has the structure. It has the unified group of representatives. It did not get the mayor that it wanted. It did not get a majority of the councillors who might have ideologically suited it but it got the structure and it got the institution. It is crying out for assistance and leadership from this Minister. I will not be as unkind as a colleague was earlier and describe the Minister as something of a boy scout. I think that he is genuinely interested in improving the provision of houses—I do believe that about him. [ 
Interruption 
] No no I do. 
The only things he has failed on are how he can afford it; where the houses would be; and how he would deliver in it an innovative fashion with the support of the third sector or with the support of the private sector. As a consequence of that failure he has lost the confidence of the Minister of Finance and he has lost the confidence of the actual force that runs the Government when John Key is riding around in the limousine: Steven Joyce. No he has lost the confidence of those particular senior members. Poor people have to bumble along while this Minister is hemmed in. 
The Minister should use his creative energies. He should not serve us up the trite narrow irrelevant little changes we see in this bill although they are probably a part of providing a smoother basis a primrose road for the Housing New Zealand Corporation to be sold. We look forward to a more substantial contribution from this Minister although we fear that our desires are inversely related to his capacity. Kia ora tatou. 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 Is it not great to listen to a member from a Labour Party with huge aspirations for its constituency? Those Labour members have told us that in Government National is not innovative is not creative and has no aspirations. They have told us that all National wants to do is kick people out of their homes. All the Labour Party on the other side of the House wants to do is keep them encumbered. To whom? To the Labour Party. Why? Because those members want a constituency. They do not want people living in their own homes. They do not want to elevate people to a level where they can live under their own roof and own a piece of real estate for themselves. No those members want to keep them sucking on the teat of the State. That is exactly where those members are coming from. That is exactly what Mr Twyford was saying. 
We know that that is the way those members are. When the previous National was in Government before the previous Labour Government—before we had to endure 9 long years of that Labour Government—it had an innovative policy to use derelict Housing Corporation homes 99 of which were in the electorate of Whanganui. What did that National Government do with them? The homes were derelict and it could not get people to live in them. The houses were being set on fire and the windows were constantly being broken. That Government sold those derelict homes. 
What did the buyers of those derelict homes do? The Government sold them to people who would never have been able to get into their own homes for themselves. It sold them to people who were on benefits and people who had no equity. It took a 1 percent mortgage on them to start with and it rented the house back to those people. After 5 years those people were able to gain equity from those homes and under a pre-arranged agreement with the National Bank they were able to get a mortgage. What happened to the 99 homes that were sold to people who never would have been able to achieve homeownership under any particular Government? The 99 people who bought those homes either own those homes today or have onsold them and are now living in better homes which—what do you know—they also own for themselves. 
The party on that side of the House has no aspiration for people living in State homes. Those members want to keep those people in State homes but the Housing Corporation Amendment Bill inspires those people to go on and move to the next level of accommodation and homeownership. It inspires them to own their home and to do what is best for them in their situation and for their families. That is why this Government is enjoying an unprecedented enduring level of success and confidence. The people out there including the constituents of the party opposite believe that we are the best party to be in Government. We have an aspiration for them for their homes and for their families into the future. Thank you. 
Bill read a first time. 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 I move  
That the Social Services Committeeconsider the Housing Corporation Amendment Bill 
 that the committee report finally to the House on or before 6 June 2011 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions) and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 187 189(a) and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
Motion agreed to. 
Education Amendment Bill (No 4) 
First Reading 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education) 
: 
 I move  
That the Education Amendment Bill (No 4) be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Education and Science Committee that the committee present its final report on or before 29 July 2011 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 187 189(a) and 190(1)(b) and (c). The purpose of this motion to bring forward the report back of the bill is to ensure its enactment by 1 September 2011. That will enable the new Crown agent for international education to begin operating from 1 September 2011. 
The Government is committed to achieving ongoing improvements in the performance of the tertiary education system. In the  
Tertiary Education Strategy 2010-15 
 we have signalled our priorities for the sector which include enhancing quality assurance providing incentives for providers to respond better to students and building international linkages. The bill introduces a series of measures that will assist with achieving those priorities. 
The first objective of the bill is to strengthen the regulation of the tertiary education system by improving and modernising the New Zealand Qualifications Authority’s legal arrangements. Parts 18 and 20 of the Education Act 1989 cover most of the functions of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. They have not been significantly amended since 1990. The bill revises the authority’s existing functions and powers. That includes creating a rules regime to replace the authority’s current powers to issue policies and criteria and removing the authority’s power to delegate its quality assurance functions. The bill also establishes in law the New Zealand qualifications framework. The bill creates a stronger regulatory and enforcement regime for the authority—in particular in relation to managing private training establishments. This includes raising the threshold for private training establishment registration giving the authority powers of entry to premises in cases of non-compliance and introducing new targeted offences. Good providers will benefit from the raising of overall standards in the private training establishment sector. 
The second objective of the bill is to encourage the expansion of international education and to safeguard the quality and reputation of the New Zealand education system. This includes the establishment of a new Crown agent called Education New Zealand to lead New Zealand’s drive to expand international education. The new agent will combine the functions and funding of three separate entities currently enabling it to more effectively and efficiently manage the Crown’s investment in New Zealand’s international education promotion and offshore activities. 
The third objective of the bill is to increase transparency and accountability in the tertiary education system—in particular to students. This is achieved in two areas. Firstly new measures are introduced regarding the setting of compulsory fees for the provision of student services. Under the bill the responsible Minister will be able to issue directions on compulsory student service fees including the categories of student services to be provided on a compulsory basis how the fees are held and reported on and arrangements for joint decision-making or consultation between a provider and its students. If a tertiary education provider does not comply with a direction the Minister may issue a further direction specifying to a provider the maximum limit on the amount that can be charged for the services. Secondly the Ministry of Social Development’s ability to administer student loans and allowances will be strengthened. The bill clarifies the ministry’s powers to request information from tertiary education providers and creates a new offence aimed at deterring any providers from knowingly providing false or misleading information. 
The bill also contains a number of miscellaneous amendments. Minor technical amendments are made to the international education sections of the Education Act 1989. They include the rationalising of definitions and the streamlining of administrative processes. 
In closing the bill will strengthen our quality assurance system in the tertiary sector facilitate the expansion of the international education sector and improve accountability and transparency for students and providers. I commend the bill to the House. 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 I congratulate you Mr Assistant Speaker Ross Robertson on your post. It is a pleasure to have you sitting in the Chair today. 
I will start by saying that Labour supports the Education Amendment Bill (No 4) going to the Education and Science Committee. The bill contains some good provisions that are designed to tighten up the tertiary education area. For that reason it is important that the select committee hears from submitters on those provisions. 
As the Minister for Tertiary Education just said the bill seeks to strengthen three areas. The first area is strengthening the regulation of the tertiary education system by improving and modernising the legal requirements of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. Most people would say that although the changes are not completely overdue they are positive and are working in a positive direction. 
The second area is facilitating the expansion of the international education system and safeguarding the quality and reputation of New Zealand’s education system. International education is an extraordinarily important industry for New Zealand now. It is a $2 billion industry. It has grown incredibly rapidly but is also quite fragile. Looking across the Tasman at Australia we saw what an assault on an Indian student in Australia did to the Australian international education system. The publicity around that event caused many students from India who were wanting to study in Australia to consider going elsewhere. I think New Zealand picked up a number of students as a result. So the international education system is extremely fragile. I think that by strengthening it in this regard—and I believe that this is overdue—we will be able to maintain those standards and to continue to attract not just any student but the top students into New Zealand because of the system we have and what we can provide. 
Lastly the bill looks to increase transparency and accountability in the tertiary education system. Once again I think that is an important area. In the past couple of years universities in particular have started to increase the levies on students. In 2010-11 many universities’ levies have gone up about 100 percent. Rather than being $200 they are nearly $400. In other tertiary providers the increase has not been as great but nevertheless has been fairly significant. 
Although on the one hand I applaud the Minister’s desire to change the situation and to put a cap on the levies we need to look a little more deeply at why the levies are being imposed in the first place. The real reason is that funding for universities is being capped. As a result of that last year 9000 potential students were not able to gain entry into our tertiary institutions. As a result universities have decided they need to levy students for really basic stuff like buildings libraries and extra student places. They are increasing their fees so that that stuff can take place. In addressing a number of students who were protesting about this issue Professor Rod Carr the Vice-Chancellor of Canterbury University said that the students are getting “a crap deal” from the Government because it is freezing all the other funding to universities which has meant that the universities have had to impose these levies. The levies are not imposed because the universities feel they can gain more money—no not at all—the universities are imposing the levies because they cannot afford to run the university to the right and proper standard that might attract the international students I was just talking about. The universities simply do not have sufficient funding. They are levying students to pay for the most basic of things. 
It gets worse. It gets much worse because at the same time that the bill is coming in and the Minister is making a big deal about capping levies regulating the levies that the universities are charging and making them more transparent so that the student body can have a greater say in the way that the levies are imposed—again I applaud that initiative—we have the voluntary student membership bill coming through. That bill will gut the very representation that the Minister wants to consider the levies. It will gut that advocacy and that representation. 
The students associations in New Zealand will have much less representation much less health-care and much less in the way of sports cultural events and advocacy. They will have much less of a whole range of support structures that students have come to rely on and that I and others who have gone through university paid for in the past. Students are not going to have them any more. It is very simple. We know that for a fact. It is not fiction. This bill is not about anything other than a piece of ideology looking around for a problem and saying that somehow we will provide more choice in the system. Students actually have the choice now to opt out of the students association—they have the choice now. What we know for a fact—what we know from Australia—is that as soon as we take away the nature of students associations as they are today the money that goes into them collapses. As a result we end up having less money fewer services and less voluntary support for the services the associations provide. We end up with a poorer university environment as a result. 
What happens then? Well strangely enough the universities take over the funding of some of those core activities that the students associations up till now have been providing. While the Minister is laudably bringing in this legislation to cap restrict regulate and come down on those universities that are levying students what will actually happen is that with the voluntary student membership bill coming in the fees that universities are charging will have to rise. If they do not rise the core services that the students rely on will disappear. On the one hand this bill is laudable but on the other hand it completely ignores the real problem facing universities today which is a lack of funding and the fact that the Government is about to gut the students associations and the services they provide. 
While we are on the subject of the gutting of services the pulling of services let us turn to another area of tertiary education which is adult education. 
Hon Members 
: It’s gone. 
DAVID SHEARER 
: It has gone. Let me tell members what has happened to adult education over the last few months. 
Simon Bridges 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I was just wondering about Kelvin Davis who is sitting opposite me with his computer out in front of him like that. I was wondering whether it was appropriate to have basically a broadcast from Toshiba in the House. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ross Robertson) 
: No the member will be seated. It is perfectly legitimate. 
DAVID SHEARER 
: Adult education which has been gutted in this country was an institution that New Zealanders relied on. I relied on it. Many people in this House I bet went to night school as part of their educational experience. The number of schools that are offering night school education has gone from 212 down to 24. Well done! A whole bunch of people out there who wanted to enter the education system for the second time because they had missed out somehow the first time round now do not have the opportunity. On average 200000 people a year used to enjoy adult education; now the number is a fraction of that—a fraction. Here is the kicker: for 300 metres of Mr Joyce’s “Holiday Highway” we could have had adult education every year; for 300 metres of the “Holiday Highway” which has a cost-benefit analysis of less than a dollar we could have actually funded adult education. It is about priorities. 
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 I take just a couple of seconds Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson to say how pleased I am that you have resumed your rightful place as an Assistant Speaker in this House—your rightful place. 
I listened with great care to the Labour Party’s new spokesperson on tertiary education David Shearer. It probably would have been better if that member had made his opening statement supporting the Education Amendment Bill (No 4) and then sat down. After his first sentence I thought that maybe those guys over there were at last getting the idea that this Government knows what it is doing. But the longer he talked the less relevant he became to this bill and to this debate. It just brought home to the House again the yawning gap between the Government and the major Opposition party—the gap that is seeing the Labour Party slowly consigned to the rubbish bin of history. 
It became apparent that the Labour Party has no interest at all in developing a higher performing tertiary education sector. It has no interest at all unlike the Government in ensuring better value for every dollar that the Government spends. Remember that better value means a better education for the students who are paying part of the cost of being in a tertiary education system. 
I invite the next Labour speaker—and looking across the floor it is rather difficult to imagine who that might be—whoever it is to get on their feet and tell this House that the Labour Party supports a high performing tertiary education system and supports the policy to be introduced by this Government for 2012 that will begin to link Government funding to the performance of the institution. No other measure is guaranteed to ensure a better education for the students in this country than requiring performance from the institutions they attend. That is partially what this bill is all about. 
I invite that speaker Carmel Sepuloni—I see she is desperate to get on her feet though she will have to wait a minute or so longer—to also tell this House that Labour supports the Government’s policy to increase the number of university places for young New Zealanders. While she is doing that she may like to take the opportunity to apologise to young New Zealanders for Labour’s ineptness in administering the tertiary education system during those long dark 9 years when Labour had the opportunity to influence things. 
This is good legislation it is sound legislation and it will go a long way to meeting what should be the first requirement of every student in a tertiary education organisation: the assurance that they are in a quality organisation an organisation that has been judged on its academic performance and an organisation that puts the quality of teaching first. 
I welcome the comments from the next Labour speaker and I hope that that person addresses the issues that I have raised. I commend the bill to the House and I look forward to its eventual passage. 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 I will start by saying that I have spent some time working in the tertiary sector. I spent about 5½ years working at the University of Auckland and 2 years working at a private training establishment. I trained as a primary school teacher and I do have an appreciation of good education policy and can differentiate between the two. 
Labour supports the Education Amendment Bill (No 4). We agree that it makes some necessary changes to the tertiary education sector. Mr Peachey unlike as usual is not entirely wrong. However we have some reservations. Before I get into those reservations as I have worked in the tertiary education sector I want to thank the previous Labour Government for the funding and the resourcing it put into the tertiary sector and for the difference that it made to communities like the Maori and Pacific communities in terms of participation in and completion of higher-level tertiary qualifications. I thank the Labour Government for its understanding of the fact that having a highly skilled population was all part of a successful economy. I thank the Labour Government for being in touch with communities in terms of the value that Labour placed on tertiary education and ensuring that communities had access to quality tertiary education. 
From there I want to talk a little about what this bill does well—the good things in the bill. Labour supports the creation of a new Crown agency to cover export education. We believe that it is a vital part of our economy and that it needs to be properly managed and fostered. We perceive the private training industry as an important part of the tertiary sector and we want to protect their reputation and the subsequent reputation of the wider tertiary sector. In saying that cases of qualification selling and falsifying results do harm to both. It harms students and it harms the sector. Therefore the introduction of stricter rules around the registration of private training establishments is welcomed by Labour. 
Tonight in this House the public and the other members will hear a great deal about Labour’s view that the bill’s ability to regulate student levies will be undermined by the voluntary students association membership legislation which will subsequently undermine the student voice. This House has been told by my colleague David Shearer that huge levy rises last year were the result of the National Government’s squeeze on tertiary funding which is forcing institutions to lay off staff or pass the buck to students. We hope that the National Government and the general public have listened to the concerns that David Shearer raised and that my colleagues will also raise when they get to their feet. 
I want to discuss the creation of a new Crown agency to cover export education. As I said it is a vital part of our economy and we support the creation of a new Crown agency to cover export education. However although on the one hand the National Government is working towards increasing the overseas market for our tertiary education sector on the other hand the Minister for Tertiary Education is saying publicly that we must dampen down the demand for tertiary education by New Zealanders or by our domestic market. I find it strange that the National Government would be all about encouraging international students to participate in our tertiary sector when it cannot even do the same for students in New Zealand. I think the general public would be concerned that the National Government wants to open up tertiary education to the international market but not to the domestic market. We are wondering whether the National Government’s grand plan is that we run a tertiary education system that largely caters for overseas interests rather than our own. It kind of sits alongside that whole “sell off State assets” subject as well. Tertiary education in New Zealand should be about New Zealanders and should be about first and foremost making sure that people in New Zealand have access to high-level high-quality tertiary education but the Government wants to sell it off overseas. It is exactly the same as what is happening with our State assets. 
When we hear the Minister for Tertiary Education say that we must dampen down the demand for tertiary education in New Zealand we need to keep in mind that youth joblessness is remaining extremely high. The latest OECD figures show that one in every five young Kiwis is now out of work. When we look at the statistics for Maori and Pacific Islanders since that Government came into office an unacceptably high number of Maori and Pacific students are not only not in employment but also not engaged in any education. Yet we have a Minister for Tertiary Education who would say publicly that we need to dampen down the demand for tertiary education in New Zealand. 
We have seen the National Government do things like slash funding to Adult and Community Education and night schools by a massive 80 percent that led to a trebling in fees and hundreds of courses being shut down. We should keep in mind that for many people Adult and Community Education is often their first step back into the education system. 
Steven Joyce has done little to increase the number of places in universities and polytechs. By refusing to adequately lift the cap on numbers thousands of students are being turned away from study each year. Last year Steven Joyce cut $55 million from industry training funding which could have provided places for an extra 55000 trainees who would have been able to fill the looming skills shortage. Not only have the decisions made by the Minister for Tertiary Education made us question how valuable the National Government thinks tertiary education is for the everyday Kiwi in New Zealand but we have even seen changes in our social development policy that sit alongside that theory in respect of an under-appreciation of the importance of high-level tertiary education for New Zealanders. 
We have seen cuts in the training incentive allowance that take away the opportunity for sole parents to have access to tertiary education which would not only benefit them but also their children. We have seen welfare reforms whereby from memory sole parents would be encouraged to go back and study up to level 3 but not to level 4 and beyond because for some reason or another that would not be of any benefit to them. 
It is time that the Government looked at the solutions used in Australia—for instance investing heavily in skills training and tertiary education—to help young people into long-term work. Instead this Government does nothing but deliver more cuts to the very programmes we need. Yet as I said with the expansion of international education and to safeguard the quality and reputation of the New Zealand education system Labour supports the promotion of our quality education to the international student market but we do not like it being done at the expense of ensuring that our domestic student market has access to quality tertiary education and promoting access to quality tertiary education to that market. 
If this Government does not get its act together in respect of providing those opportunities we will see a very abysmal future for New Zealand down the track. If our young people do not have access to quality tertiary education then what hope do we have of a strong economy in this country in the future? Thank you. 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora. Tertiary education is vital to our future prosperity and to building a smart economy. I am glad to take a call tonight on the Education Amendment Bill (No 4) which amends the Education Act 1989. 
I will make a quick comment on the debate so far. I think David Shearer deserves an A for his analysis of the situation. Minister Joyce has a number of portfolios and when it comes to it he seems to have his keys on the ministerial printing press. He has $43 million to bail out his mates in MediaWorks he has billions of dollars to throw at reducing competition and increasing the price when it comes to ultra-fast broadband and he has $10.7 billion to spend on motorways when we are borrowing $300 million a week. He needs to pour some of that money into our vital tertiary education sector. Mr Peachey is a well-noted educationalist but if I were to grade his speech I would say: “Needs to do more work; needs to do his homework.” It is a big bill and there are lots of parts he could have spoken on. Maybe he would get an A for his creative writing. I liked the allusion to 9 long years of Labour. There was some good creative writing there. I think if Ms Sepuloni was giving a history speech she would maybe get a C. I do not know whether she was a student under those 9 long years of a Labour Government but I was. I saw increasing fees increasing student loan burdens across the whole country and interest on student loans for 6 years before it was rightfully taken off. So I would maybe give her a C for historical accuracy. 
The Green Party will be opposing this bill tonight on its first reading. We have a mixed view on the bill which is a grab bag of things. There are some good parts some mixed parts and some bad parts. 
First I will talk about the good parts of the bill. The Green Party supports strengthening the regulation of private training establishments. Many private training establishments do fantastic work. However the whole industry can be affected by cowboys in the market. We support establishing new rules for their registration and operation and handing quality assurance back to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority but we have some grave concerns about the authority implementing the new New Zealand qualifications framework and listing approved qualifications and about its enhanced enforcement powers. 
Secondly the bill establishes a new Crown agent Education New Zealand to replace the functions of the three organisations currently managing and promoting international education as a New Zealand export earner. We are talking about New Zealand Trade and Enterprise the Ministry of Education and the Education New Zealand Trust. Streamlining seems to be an ideological mantra often repeated by the National Government without much actual evidence presented. We look forward to seeing the benefits outlined in the select committee of merging the three operations into a single agency operating under a board and being accountable to the Minister. We take this opportunity to stress that when discussing international education a strong focus on student welfare and pastoral care is vital. 
Thirdly we think it is common sense to make it easier for the Ministry of Social Development to administer student allowances by giving it the power to request enrolment information from tertiary providers. The ministry already has these powers in relation to student loans and the fact that it does not have them for student allowances seems to be a historical oversight. The bill also creates a new offence if a tertiary provider knowingly provides false or misleading information to the Ministry of Social Development regarding the administration of loans and allowances. 
Then there is the bad. The other two objectives of the bill are more problematic. Regarding student services fees it is true that they have increased dramatically in recent years but it has not happened for no reason. Institutions use them to fund vital services to get around the fee maxima which applies only to tuition fees. In short facing inadequate funding and further budget cuts from the Minister for Tertiary Education it is not unrealistic that new sources of income would be identified so that we can keep providing a world-class education service. 
In the lead-up to May’s Budget I ask how decisions that are being made currently or are about to be made will impact on our universities and polytechs. If it is to be a zero Budget as has been promoted I ask whether we will see yet another cut to our tertiary education budget. As of last year we already spend $3000 less per student than the OECD average and we are in the bottom quarter for expenditure on tertiary education as a percentage of our gross domestic product. 
On the face of it the Green Party supports moves to keep student fees down and we believe that core education services should be paid for via adequate tuition subsidies and fees not via these alternative sources. The Minister seems intent on addressing the symptom but not the cause which is the fact that he will not fund tertiary education properly. 
We welcome increased student involvement and increased transparency; the irony of course is that no students will get a chance to vote on how the student levy is raised or spent as they currently do through their students association fees. The risk is that the Minister will decide to limit the ability of students associations to make up fee shortfalls through the levy leading to a situation where either student services or core services will be cut. Facing a recessionary environment and a stagnant economy dependent on international commodity prices we need to follow the lead of Australia which is investing an extra $5.7 billion over the next 5 years to achieve its goal of 40 percent of Australians having degrees. We need to invest more in the tertiary education sector not play student services off against core services. 
The bill gives wide-ranging and extensive powers to the Minister to dictate the terms on which institutions can raise and charge service fees including which services the fees are used for and potentially to set dollar amounts. As with the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority power is being concentrated more centrally in ministerial hands. It is as if a memo has been circulated around the National Party trying to secure as much power as it can in executive hands over the legislature or the public. 
In a voluntary student membership environment institutions will have to pick up the tab for many services currently provided by students associations and there is the risk that this bill could constrain their ability to do so if the Minister sets strict rules. Whole services could fall through the gaps if the Minister decides to do so. 
I do not think it is good lawmaking to leave this important question up to the inclination of a particular Minister. The Minister needs to identify what categories of services will be allowed now because it seems unlikely that we could vote for them in further readings based on his deplorable track record in the portfolio. If a clearer framework and clarity is the policy objective of the Minister he should include that information in the legislation; he should not leave it up to a future Minister’s whim. Likewise the Minister should spell out exactly how students’ views will be represented effectively in the legislation. With a different Minister change like this could be positive but the fact that it places so much power in the hands of whoever is in power is good reason to oppose the bill. 
Lastly the changes regarding the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the regulation of private training establishments are extensive. The changes implement recommendations by the targeted review of qualifications undertaken from 2009 to 2010 which was focused on the proliferation of low-quality courses. The bill establishes a new New Zealand qualifications framework that lists the approved qualifications. We look forward to finding out more in the select committee as to what is likely to make it on to the list of approved qualifications because in an increasingly complex world we need to provide students with all the opportunities their creativity their entrepreneurial skills and their social potential demand. 
Some elements are concerning—for example the fact that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority is given quite Draconian powers under this legislation for enforcement. The authority can enter premises access or copy information and question staff. 
In conclusion the Green Party supports some of this bill but other parts like those provisions relating to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the student levy powers are concerning. We may change our vote down the line but only if the bill actually sees better tertiary education outcomes. Kia ora. 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to speak in the first reading debate on the Education Amendment Bill (No 4). I will start with some thoughts about what the tertiary education strategy says. The strategy calls for an ongoing improvement in the educational and financial performance of tertiary education providers. It also says that during tight fiscal times tertiary education organisations need to improve their efficiency and performance. That is probably a very appropriate theme because when we compare the previous administration with the Government of today we see in particular in respect of the health portfolio that billions of dollars were thrown at health with no noticeable improvement in outcomes. It was exactly the same case in regard to tertiary education. Enormous amounts of money were thrown at tertiary education with no real noticeable improvements in outcomes. 
This bill is very appropriate at this time because it is the first occasion that we are making amendments in respect of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority which was set up in 1990. We are talking about an authority that was set up 21 years ago. Although it was cutting edge at that time it needs modification. When we look at that authority we see that it had over 6000 qualifications and on that basis it was essential that we went through those qualifications in order to rationalise them. The Minister for Tertiary Education has begun that job and an outcome of it all will be a much improved more appropriate in tune New Zealand Qualifications Authority. 
The Minister talked about reporting this bill back to the House on or by 29 July so that gives us only 3 months. The select committee will need to be very adept at hearing the submissions and working collegially on the Minister’s vision for tertiary education. Many speakers tonight have talked about tertiary education and I am sure they were not intending to talk about tertiary education in a context of its own. Education definitely needs to be a continuum and when we hear about and lament the people who find themselves unemployed at the moment it really does drive home how important it is that education has that continuum and that our children learn to read and write and become independent learners. 
One of the things that is very noticeable is the fact that unless secondary school students get up to level 2 of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement they will more than likely fail when it comes to doing a national qualification at level 4 independently. There is a lot of very very positive stuff in this bill. It has been a long time coming. A lot of thought has been put into it and I certainly see some good outcomes coming from this work. 
I want to pick up on a comment that was made about the industry training organisations and $55 million being stripped out of them. I tell members that $55 million was put into universities to create more opportunities at a higher level. We were aware that some of our industry training organisations had up to $20 million in surpluses so it is about using the taxpayer dollar more effectively. I understand why Labour will try to pick holes in things; it was in Government for 9 years and did nothing. I commend the bill to the House. 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to rise and speak in the first reading debate on the Education Amendment Bill (No 4). I was very excited when I saw this bill tabled in Parliament just last week because I thought that maybe the Government was about to do something about the shambles it had created in education. Maybe I thought this was the time when it would introduce legislation to reverse the funding cuts it meted out to the early childhood education sector at the last Budget in May 2010. I thought that maybe that was what the Government was amending in the Education Act 1989 but I was disappointed to find that that was not the case. Perhaps it was the Government’s opportunity to realise that it had made an absolute shambles of the national standards in the primary school sector. Maybe the amendment to the Act would address that critical issue in the country but I was disappointed on that front as well. 
Perhaps the Minister had realised that it was not OK to try to resolve the very serious bullying issues that are going on in our schools at the moment simply by sending a letter to schools. Perhaps the Minister had been all along working on a legislative approach to that very big problem that our secondary schools in particular are facing at the moment but that is not to be addressed either. 
I wondered whether in fact this bill might retrospectively show a realisation on the Government benches that cutting funding for adult and community education was a big mistake as well but the bill did not recognise that issue. I thought in a last-ditch attempt that maybe—just maybe—this Government had realised that recessionary times were the very best time to allow New Zealanders wanting to get that step-up in their lives to access a tertiary education if they had not had the opportunity to do that at any other time and that the Government could do that by lifting the cap on tertiary institutions and investing in skills development for this country’s future but I was to be disappointed on that front as well. This is very much a lost opportunity. The Education Amendment Bill (No 4) could have addressed the significant issues at the heart of this country’s problems as we go forward into the future. That is what education is all about. It is the best opportunity for this country to build its future and sadly this bill does not address any of those issues. 
But what more can we expect from a Government whose goal it seems is to lower wages in this country—as a strategy. Bill English is now telling this country that he is deliberate about having wages 30 percent lower in New Zealand than they are in Australia. He thinks that having lower wages will give us a competitive advantage. Well that is not the vision on this side of the House; I can inform listeners to this debate of that very fact. That is why I was worried but not surprised to see that the Government had once again failed to take an opportunity by introducing an education amendment bill that would do something to make a difference in terms of lifting living standards in this country and lifting people’s opportunities to get the very best education. The Government has missed the opportunity in this bill to address those very substantial issues. 
However on the issues that are in front of us in this amendment bill I will say that Labour is prepared to support the bill to select committee so that we can hear how the public responds to it. I am pleased to say that we will get to hear from the public this time. We never ever heard from the public on national standards and look at the shambles that has turned out to be. Not one parent teacher student or board of trustees member got to come to this Parliament and say what they thought about the concept principle or legislation on national standards. They never got that opportunity and therefore we have the shambles that is in front of us now. National standards are a complete and utter shambles and it started from that process. Just this weekend 750 principals voted no confidence in the Government’s education policy. 
Jo Goodhew 
: They did not. 
SUE MORONEY 
: Oh yes they did I say to Mrs Goodhew. They absolutely did. 
Jo Goodhew 
: I read the press release. That’s not what it said. 
SUE MORONEY 
: They voted no confidence in the education policy of the Government and they voted no confidence in the leadership given by the Minister over the introduction of national standards. If the Government has not heard that and if it is in denial about that it does not listen and it is completely out of touch with what is happening in the education sector. The Government does not want to hear from the leaders of the school communities the principals up and down the country—750 of them. It is unprecedented. For the first time ever the Principals Federation voted no confidence in the Government’s education policy. I think it is a great shame that Government members opposite are shaking their heads because they have not heard it or they do not care. That is how out of touch they are with the current issues facing the education sector. 
This bill however introduces some positive changes. They are not the changes that we really need to see made to our education system none the less there is a little bit of tinkering around the edges which is what this Government tends to do. We would like to hear the views of the sector on those changes. We support the creation of a new Crown agency to cover export education because that is a vital part of our economy and it needs to be properly managed and fostered. 
We approve of the introduction of stricter rules on the registration of private training establishments. That is also welcome to Labour but we are keen to hear what the sector has to say on that. I say “the sector” and my definition of the sector includes those who work in the industry and those who use it so we want to hear from the students the families of the students and the training providers. The private training industry is an important part of the tertiary sector and cases of qualification-selling and falsifying results do harm to that sector to students and to New Zealand’s reputation so we look forward to supporting the aspects of this bill that will help to resolve that problem and tidy it up. 
Here is the real doozy to do with this bill: student levies. This Government now wants to pretend that it wants to sort out the huge increase in student levies that has happened under its watch in tertiary institutions up and down the country. Here is the real joke: the right hand does not know what the right foot is doing. Another bill that came from the ACT Party but was supported by the Government is making institutions pick up more and more student services by getting rid of the student unions that provide those services now. The Government wants those student unions to go down the tubes. The student support services the unions provide will go with them and the institutions will be left to pick up that problem but this bill comes in to say the institutions should not even think about increasing levies on students as a result. We know that institutions will not get any increased funding from the Government so what are they to do? Student services will decrease and students will be the poorer for it. 
JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata) 
: 
 The Education Amendment Bill (No 4) gives this Government a very important opportunity to continue to work towards a more accountable higher-performing tertiary education sector. That is consistent with what this Government is hoping to achieve right across the State sector. 
We are absolutely focused on getting better value for every dollar—not our dollars but the dollars of every taxpayer in New Zealand—and we take that very seriously unlike the previous Government which squandered that money as if it was coming off a tree or being printed by somebody not coming out of the real live pockets of New Zealand taxpayers. We will get better value for every dollar spent. 
It is time to put a little bit of truth and a little bit of perspective into the argument and to talk about some of the stuff that is already happening in the tertiary education sector. To set the scene I tell the House that we will be funding almost 3000 extra university places over the next 2 years with a stunning total of 119000 university places in 2011. That is an absolutely stunning total; it has never been as high as that before. We are also funding 16500 more places in tertiary education than were funded in 2008 under the previous Government. 
Members opposite are quiet now; I wonder why. It is because they cannot refute this argument—these are the facts rather than the rhetoric. It is time for the facts. I hear some agreement coming from Opposition parties about our plans for international education. That sector is worth close to $2 billion to this country so it is important that this bill deals with it. 
I will spend a very short time talking about the reasons for some of the provisions in this bill. On the tertiary education side of things we are looking at the Minister being able to issue directions on student services fees. Why would that be? Well it is because there has been a creeping unease amongst students and amongst those of us watching when we have seen the average levy increase by 102 percent between 2009 and 2010 across all universities. That is an increase in the average levy from $194 to $392 but it is an increase by stealth. 
The increase is not really for what the institutions say it is for so the Minister has decided to rein that in to make sure we know what those fees are for. Under the bill the Minister will be able to require that fees are for a specified reason and held in a separate audited account and that the categories for student services be made available. This bill is about transparency which is something this Government really values. 
When we look at the regulatory impact statement on the changes to student services levies we can see why we have to introduce those measures. Currently the Government has no power to control the amounts that tertiary education providers may charge as compulsory student services fees. There is a risk without such controls that there will be very little incentive for providers to prioritise the services they deliver and to deliver them really efficiently. 
I can tell members that State sector employees are getting a very clear message from this Government that when they spend taxpayers’ money they need to do it efficiently. They need to get absolute value for money. This bill is a continuation of that requirement and most certainly the message is getting out there. 
Do members know what? My constituents say that they like that. They like the fact that this Government demands value for money at every turn. It demands value for money. They understand when this Government says that something is nice to have but is not necessary. This bill will be a good bill. I will enjoy hearing from submitters in the Education and Science Committee and I commend the bill to the House. 
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) 
: 
 The previous speaker Jo Goodhew mentioned that we had gone quiet on this side of the House. It was because we had all fallen asleep. But I have to admit that with that gnarly voice it was like being lulled to sleep by the Wicked Witch of the West. 
I also draw attention to the contribution that Simon Bridges made to this debate on the Education Amendment Bill (No 4). When we wanted to talk about education what did we get from a member on that side? We got points of order about laptops. That just about describes the quality of their debate about education. 
I have to commend though the Minister for Tertiary Education. I see here a press release of his from 6 April 2011. The headline is: “Combined international educational agency to boost sector”. I will not read it all but I will read the part where he says: “We have in New Zealand excellent schools well respected Universities institutes of technology and private providers.” It is wonderful at last to hear an education Minister from National actually showing that he values education and that he values educators. 
When we look at the first part of the sentence “We have in New Zealand excellent schools” I have to ask what makes an excellent school. We have students first and foremost and we have communities. Then we have the teachers; the teachers make excellent schools. But above the teachers guiding and leading we have principals. As my colleague Sue Moroney stated just before 750 principals from around New Zealand descended on Wellington and on Parliament to have their annual conference. The feedback we have received is that they were absolutely stunned that the Minister of Education Anne Tolley who was invited to welcome them here at Parliament on the Wednesday evening did not even reply to their letter inviting her to come and speak. They wrote to the Prime Minister and asked whether he would be interested in coming to the opening of their conference but he said that that was a job for his Minister of Education. There was still no reply from Minister Anne Tolley. 
I received today an email from a principal a friend I went to teachers college with who was at that conference. I will not say his name but I invite anybody here who wants to to come and see the email later to verify that it is a genuine email. It says: “Greetings. It was good to catch up at the Beehive last week. I am pleased that there are people like yourself with common sense kicking around parliament. I liked what Sue Moroney talked about.” Sue Moroney is our spokesperson on education and a woman who speaks sense when it comes to education. 
Here we get to the sad part: “Unfortunately I was disgusted by the Minister on Saturday and her comments following her address to the conference. Calling NZPF a one issue political lobby group that has never [brought] anything positive to the table is offensive and shows her total lack of any thought of negotiation or discussion. Anne Tolley obviously believes she knows best and is not even willing to talk to anyone else. I despair at where our education system is heading with her trying to lead change. Maybe it is time I gave it away”—this principal is so disillusioned with the direction of education in New Zealand that he is considering giving the game away—“and did something else—I do not want to be forced to implement such a terrible system that National Standards offers. Thankyou again to you and your colleagues for your hospitality.” 
Here is the clincher—here is the clincher everybody: “I have never voted Labour in my life but in the coming elections will be doing so—National no longer represents what I believe in for the future of New Zealand. Keep up the good work!”. I tell Dr Paul Hutchison that that email is from a principal from his electorate. He needs to be concerned because the tide is turning when it comes to educators. That email is indicative of how people in the sector are feeling about the direction that education is going in New Zealand. 
This is the Education Amendment Bill (No 4). As I said during the debate on the Education Amendment Bill (No 3) in the debate on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) and probably in the debate on the first Education Amendment Bill once again we are debating an educational issue that actually does nothing to raise achievement. 
Here we have an education amendment bill that looks at export education. “Export education” is code for trying to lure international students into New Zealand. There is nothing wrong with that. It is about tapping into the lucrative Korean market Japanese market Chinese market and Indian market. Each of those students brings money into New Zealand and that money helps to subsidise the education system which is so underfunded by this National Government. 
Talking about tapping into that lucrative Asian market reminds me of the old Billy T James skit where Billy T James is asked what he thinks of euthanasia. Billy T James says: “Well I think we should look after our own kiddies first.” I totally agree. We should look after our New Zealand students before we start looking after everybody else’s. Nothing in this bill will actually help New Zealand students to lift their achievement or make them achieve better so we can have better social outcomes at the end of the day. 
In terms of the national standards debate obviously kids are meant to achieve national standards and they can then go on to university and tertiary education. But National has actually said because of the disjoint between its policies that it does not believe that national standards will work when it comes down to it. All the rhetoric over on that side of the House says that it is the best thing for New Zealand but when we look at National’s policies in totality we see there is a disjoint between national standards and other policies. 
If national standards are to work then we would expect all of these really positive outcomes. We would expect better health outcomes less incarceration in prisons and all those sorts of things. But Bill English stood up and said that over the next 10 years the biggest Government department in New Zealand will be the Department of Corrections. I ask how that can be—how the Department of Corrections can be the biggest department over the next 10 years—if national standards are meant to cure all those ills. If New Zealand students are meant to be achieving and doing so well why will they head off to prison and make sure that the Department of Corrections is the biggest Government department? It proves the disjoint between National’s policies. As a colleague said earlier the right arm does not know what the right foot is doing. They are trying to take them both out of their mouths at the same time. 
I am also Labour’s spokesperson on tourism. Tourism New Zealand is an organisation that promotes New Zealand internationally so that tourists will come here. Let me tell members now that Education New Zealand the new organisation might as well be an arm of Tourism New Zealand because its job is “to deliver strategies programmes and activities for promoting … New Zealand education overseas;”. There is nothing about making students learn; it is all about promoting New Zealand as an educational tourism destination. 
We are debating the Education Amendment Bill (No 4) and we should be debating something that will make students learn better learn faster and achieve beyond their potential. Instead all we are talking about it is how we can attract students to come to New Zealand so that they can spend more money to subsidise the underfunding of the New Zealand education system. 
The one part of the bill I agree with though is that once we get those students here we need to have rules about making sure they are looked after and that the courses are not trying to rip them off. There has been a bit of a history of dodgy training programmes and some students have been ripped off. I agree with the part of the bill that looks at the private training establishments. We cannot have our educational reputation being sullied because students come here and are ripped off by dodgy courses. 
Labour supports the bill to go to the select committee. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Education Amendment Bill (No 4) be now read a first time. 
Ayes 111 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 42; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 11 
Green Party 9; Independents: Carter C Harawira. 
Bill read a first time. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I remind members that if they are voting against a motion they must make it very clear that they are voting against it and then ask for a party vote. 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Police) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister for Tertiary Education 
: I move  
That the Education and Science Committeeconsider the Education Amendment Bill (No 4) 
 that the committee report finally to the House on or before 29 July 2011 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions) and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 187 189(a) and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
Motion agreed to. 
Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Police) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Justice 
: I move  
That the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill be referred to the Law and Order Committee for consideration that the committee report finally to the House on or before 15 August 2011 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 187 and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
In recent years our police and corrections officers have been subjected to an increasing amount of violence. Assaults on police officers increased by nearly a third between 2005 and 2009 and assaults on corrections officers have more than doubled although serious assaults have dropped. The Government believes that as the first line of public protection against violent individuals and prisoners police officers and corrections officers are deserving of greater protection in the course of their jobs than the law currently affords them. At present there are several offences that specifically apply when the victim is a police officer or a corrections officer including assault on an officer and using a firearm against an officer. However when other types of assaults are involved the accused is charged with generic offences that apply regardless of whether the victim is a police or corrections officer. The law does not require the court to take the victim’s status as a police or corrections officer into account as an aggravating factor in sentencing. That is left to the discretion of the sentencing judge. 
The Government believes that attacks on police and corrections officers who are upholders of the law and protectors of the public should be explicitly denounced in legislation. This bill will ensure that the courts take the status of police officers and corrections officers into account as an aggravating factor at sentencing for crimes committed against them while acting in the course of their duties. In addition to the new aggravating factor the Ministry of Justice Department of Corrections and the New Zealand Police will continue to examine the adequacy of existing offences relating to assaults against police and corrections officers. Officials will report on the adequacy of the existing special offences by June 2011. 
This bill denounces the conduct of those who flagrantly attack the men and women who are charged with protecting our communities. An attack on a police or corrections officer represents an attack on the community and on the rule of law. Our police and corrections staff keep the community safe from our most dangerous people. This bill sends a strong signal that the Government will do everything in its power to protect them while they are on the job. I commend the bill to the House. 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak in support of the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill. Labour will support the referral of this bill through to the select committee. I think the comments of the Minister of Corrections about what this legislation will achieve are somewhat overstated but I will come back to that point. 
Let me start by saying that on the day when we are having the first reading of this bill I saw in today’s  
Dominion Post  
a story with the headline “Bashed policeman says motorists saved his life”. This is the story of highway patrol officer Steve McLardy of Turangi who was bashed unconscious and received multiple punches. He was arresting a man who had given false information after a failed breath test. This was less than 5 months after Waiouru officer Bruce Mellor was beaten with a machete near Taihape. 
Paul Quinn 
: We read the paper Carol. We can read over here. 
CAROL BEAUMONT 
: None of us in this House despite what Mr Paul Quinn was saying would condone that sort of behaviour. We find it offensive that the people who serve us and look after our interests by trying to uphold law and order in this country be they police officers or prison officers should be treated in this way. We are all concerned about these sorts of gratuitous attacks on our police officers and it is interesting that on the day when we are debating this bill there was such a story in our newspaper although that is not uncommon. 
The bill would make the fact that an offence was committed against a police officer or a prison officer who is acting in the course of his or her duty a listed mandatory aggravating factor at the time of sentencing. As I have said we agree that assaults on police and prison officers should be taken very seriously and we have no problem with supporting this bill. However we do not think it will make any difference as the courts can and already usually do take into consideration that that is an aggravating factor when sentencing offenders. This is where I think the Minister somewhat overstated what this legislation is likely to achieve. I want to note that our public servants and our State servants—people like police and prison officers but others as well—do a very difficult job often in very trying circumstances: often with people who are angry under the influence of drugs and alcohol or feeling disenfranchised or who for whatever reason are just plain bad or feeling just plain angry. Police and prison officers and not just people in those jobs but also nurses doctors in our emergency departments teachers in our schools Work and Income staff and Housing New Zealand Corporation staff—our State and public servants—have to deal with these sorts of problems on a fairly common basis. 
I wonder what is happening to those workers police and prison officers but the rest of them as well the other State servants and public servants who are under enormous pressure from Government cuts and who are under pressure because the public they are dealing with are stressed are unemployed and are struggling to make ends meet. Those things make doing the job a whole lot more difficult that it was previously. I just think that when we talk about legislation like this we should talk about that context: the real fact that these people are being put under pressure by Government policy and in fact in many cases are having the support that they are given and the number of staff in their organisations cut. Of course we will all wait to see what happens in the Budget in that regard. 
Going back to the specifics of this bill as I said we have no objection to the bill but we think the Government is just tinkering around the edges instead of providing evidence-based plans to reduce crime. The Sentencing Act already provides that a court may take into account any aggravating or mitigating factor that it thinks fit in addition to the specific factors listed in section 9 of that Act. The Act lists a whole number of things that are aggravating factors including the fact that the offence involved actual or threatened violence or the actual or threatened use of a weapon and a whole lot of other factors. It then puts in place a number of mitigating factors which include things like the age of the offender whether and when the offender pleaded guilty and the likes of that. So there is already quite a comprehensive list of aggravating and mitigating factors set out in sections 9(1) and (2) but the Act also says those things are not the end of the line. Nothing in those sections prevents a court from taking into account any other aggravating or mitigating factor that it thinks fit. Nothing in the sections that I have just referred to implies that a factor referred to there must be given greater weight than any other factor. So there is already provision for this type of assault to be treated as an aggravating factor at sentencing. 
This amendment bill does not require a court to take any specific action in terms of the type or severity of sentence it imposes. It means the court will be required simply to take this factor into account along with the other specified and unspecified aggravating factors in arriving at the appropriate sentence to be imposed in a particular case. The regulatory impact statement says the court would already usually take this factor into account—that courts have traditionally regarded assaults on law enforcement officers as serious. In fact there is a quote from the High Court describing an attack on a police officer as “equivalent to an attack on the community because our police are the representatives of the community in the matter of law and order in our society. They are society’s front line.” That was from a 1985 court case. 
So we say we will support this bill but we do not think it will make a great deal of difference. In fact this is another piece of meaningless law and order legislation from a Government that does not seem to have any ideas for reducing crime other than supporting “three strikes” - type legislation from the ACT Party. We are sick of seeing ad hoc and piecemeal law and order legislation from the Government in reactions to particular topical issues without the Government trying to make a coherent whole and without it trying to really address the real spectrum of issues that are so important—the causes of crime victims’ rights appropriate levels of punishment and appropriate rehabilitation. What sorts of things are actually leading to the increase in violent crime in our society? They are issues around poverty issues around parenting and issues around alcohol and drugs. And what about unemployment and what about the fact that so many people are struggling to make ends meet? None of those things which are actually really important factors in driving crime seem to get anywhere near the Government’s radar. Instead the Government seems to be willing to just have another very brief headline-grabbing piece of law and order legislation to say it is being tough on criminals and responding to law and order issues even though in fact the legislation is all fluff. 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill which is a small yet elegant bill that proves without a doubt something that the Opposition members—in particular Carol Beaumont—do not seem to understand which is that this Government backs the police. The National Government backs the police and the prison service and furthermore is prepared to do something about it. For that very reason I am quite pleased that the likes of Carol Beaumont do not sit on the Law and Order Committee which is charged with the scrutiny of this bill. Following that rather woeful speech which showed for all time that Carol Beaumont neither reads the legislation nor understands it when she does read it I hope this bill will have decent scrutiny. 
I turn to the regulatory impact statement which spells out in plain English for those of us who can understand it that the Sentencing Act currently provides that the court may take into account any aggravating or mitigating factor it thinks fit in addition to the specific factors listed in section 9 of the Act. But this amendment to the Sentencing Act which shows without a doubt that this Government backs the police and the corrections service will provide an element of certainty by requiring the court to take into account the fact that an offence is committed against a prison officer or a police office. 
If Carol Beaumont stuck her head above the union parapets and went into the provinces she might notice that over the past 5 or so years a number of our police officers and prison officers have been under sustained attack by members of criminal elements in our society. What about that prison constable in Oamaru who was attacked in February last year while going about his duty on Thames Street? He was set upon by a couple of absolute cowards who beat him into the gutter. That police constable was working alone. Those people had beaten him into the gutter. They had done their work and proceeded to try to leave. Do members know what he then did? He got up out of the gutter and went and gave them a seeing to. That is the kind of policeman that our Government will back. 
What about the policeman in Wanaka who was going about his duty as a sole-charge policeman? I tell Carol Beaumont that in the provinces our police have to go about their duties in a sole-charge position. That is the way it is in the country. That policeman went to check out a woman driver. She took off in her car and he was dragged down the street. That police officer the police officer in Oamaru the police officer in Alexandra and the police officer in Ranfurly know that this Government has their backs. The Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill shows our police and the Department of Corrections that without a doubt this Government backs them. I commend this bill to the House. 
RAYMOND HUO (Labour) 
: 
 From time to time we learn from the media that yet another police officer or prison officer has been attacked. There has been a significant increase in the number of recorded assaults on police over the past 5 years. Total assaults increased by 33 percent over the 2004 to 2009 period while serious assaults leading to charges under the Crimes Act increased by 38 percent. Taking into account the increase in the number of sworn police staff over that period the rate of total assaults increased by 14 percent and serious assaults by nearly 19 percent during the period. 
The increase in the number and rate of assaults on prison staff over the same period has been sharper than the increase for police officers. Total assaults and serious assaults have both doubled during this period. There was also a sharper increase in the rate of assaults on prison staff compared with police officers although this rate is still much lower for prison officers than for sworn police officers. 
It is therefore understandable that the objective of the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill is to ensure that the court takes into account the fact that an offence is committed against a police officer or prison officer acting in the course of his or her duty as an aggravating factor at sentencing. Labour supports this bill to go to the select committee. 
The current law especially the Crimes Act 1961 and the Summary Offences Act includes a small number of offences that specifically apply when the victim is a police officer—for example using a firearm against a law enforcement officer aggravated assault and assault on a police officer. The court must impose a minimum term of 17 years for the murder of a police officer or prison officer acting in the course of his or her duty unless it would be manifestly unjust. There are not currently any other special offences for assaults on prison officers. 
Section 9 of the Sentencing Act sets out a number of aggravating and mitigating factors that must be taken into account when the court is imposing a sentence. These include factors such as the use of actual or threatened violence whether the offence involved unlawful entry into a dwelling place and whether the offence occurred while the offender was on bail or subject to a sentence. The list of aggravating factors also includes factors that reflect community values such as whether the offender abused a position of trust or committed the offence due to hostility towards a particular group on the basis of race or religion. 
The regulatory impact statement by the Ministry of Justice notes that the courts have traditionally regarded assaults on law enforcement officers as serious. The High Court has described an attack on a police officer as equivalent to an attack on the community because our police are the representatives of the community in the matter of law and order in society. They are society’s front line. The Court of Appeal has emphasised the gravity of using serious violence against police officers and upheld deterrent sentences in a number of cases. 
In a press release dated 13 October 2010 the Minister responsible for this bill the Hon Simon Power said: “Though the new aggravating factor does not automatically require an increase in an offender’s sentence I’m confident that explicit legislation denouncing this type of offending will help ensure courts impose tough penalties.” What the Minister meant to say was that the proposed amendment would not require the court to take any specific action in terms of the type or severity of the sentence imposed. The court will I gather simply be required to take this factor into account along with other specified or unspecified aggravating factors in arriving at the appropriate sentence to be imposed in a particular case. 
In most circumstances the process the consideration and the conclusion that the court comes to will not be the slightest bit affected by this proposed amendment because the fact that an offence has been committed against a police officer or prison officer is something that the court would usually take into consideration already. On that note I look forward to learning more about how the bill would actually help ensure that courts impose tough or tougher penalties. 
I note that the Minister of Police and Minister of Corrections the Hon Judith Collins said that the Government through this bill wants to send a strong and clear message that offending against law enforcement officers is unacceptable. Again I look forward to seeing how that message will assist the bill being developed to achieve its objective. 
Having said that here is a message for the Minister: although our police must be congratulated on their successful intensified crime-fighting the crime rate drop may be short-lived and could be quickly reversed if police are targeted by Government cuts to the public sector. Who said that? The Police Association. Its president Greg O’Connor said that the gains were down to extra investment which has seen 1000 extra police officers added since 2006. So a big thankyou to Labour. The members opposite simply cannot deny the fact. As the president said the gains were extremely fragile and could be reversed if a razor was taken to the police budget. 
The message to the National-ACT Government from the police and from the general public is strong and clear: do not undo the good work. Thank you. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will be supporting the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill being referred to the Law and Order Committee. It will be interested to see the submissions at the select committee level because it is a somewhat puzzling bill. As other speakers have said it is a very short bill. It adds an aggravating factor to a number of aggravating factors that judges have to take into account in sentencing. But as has been pointed out they already do so. It is clear that police officers and prison officers put themselves in harm’s way for our good and I think judges always take that fact into consideration. They try as best they can to protect police officers and discourage people from committing offences particularly assaults against them. 
There are already some provisions in the Crimes Act and Summary Offences Act in relation to assaults on police officers. The provisions under the Summary Offences Act carry a maximum penalty of 6 months’ imprisonment. Under the Crimes Act the maximum penalty is 14 years’ imprisonment for using a firearm against any police traffic or prison officer and there is a maximum of 3 years’ imprisonment for aggravated assault on a constable in the execution of his or her duty. So some provisions are there already. If the Government thinks it needs to add to the aggravating factors in the Sentencing Act that judges take account of during sentencing that the victim is a constable or a prison officer acting in the course of his or her duty it probably would have been a better course to put it into a bigger bill instead of going through all the hassle of this small bill. 
As even the regulatory impact statement indicates this is a fairly meaningless extra provision. It would be very hard to test the impact on sentencing if any of what we are voting on here and if it goes through to its third reading what we are voting on as a Parliament. To quote from the regulatory impact statement issued by the Acting General Manager Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Malcolm Luey: “The proposed amendment will not require the court to take any specific action in terms of the type or severity of sentence imposed. The court will be required to take this factor into account—along with other specified and unspecified aggravating factors—in arriving at the appropriate sentence to be imposed in a particular case. Because judges’ assessment of aggravating and mitigating factors are not amenable to empirical analysis and the proposed amendment does not entail specific action by the court no monitoring or evaluation of the proposed amendment is possible.” So we are left a bit up in the air about the effect of this amendment. 
If we look at the existing aggravating factors under the Sentencing Act 2002 we see that they are pretty common-sense ones that judges would take into account anyway such as whether the offence involved actual or threatened violence or involved actual or threatened use of a weapon. Obviously judges would take those factors into account. Judges also take into account whether the offence involved unlawful entry to or unlawful presence in a dwelling house. A home invasion would obviously be taken into account. Whether the offender was on bail is a factor that judges take into account every day. Other factors include whether there was particular cruelty or abuse of a position of trust and whether the victim was particularly vulnerable because of age or health—was disabled etc. Clearly judges take those factors into account. I suppose the next one is relevant to be put in that particular section of the Sentencing Act. It is whether the offender committed the offence partly or wholly because of hostility towards a group of persons who have the same characteristics of race character nationality gender identity sexual orientation age or disability. I think it is good to single out that factor because we do not want the cancer of prejudice extending and expanding in our society. So that is quite a good one. 
Whether the offence involved a terrorist act is an obvious one to put in. Other factors include whether the person is part of an organised criminal group whether there was premeditation and the nature and extent of previous convictions. Those are obvious things to put in as aggravating factors. There is nothing particularly wrong I suppose with adding whether the offence was committed on a police or prison officer but we are not adding a great deal to the law by doing that. 
The other side of this measure is worth commenting on. The other side of adding this factor as an aggravating factor and the other side of the other provisions in the Crimes Act and Summary Offences Act for an extra penalty for assaults on police officers in the pursuit of their duty is that police officers have to take particular care not to misuse that provision of a harsher penalty. We sometimes hear of complaints from people who are up before the courts and sometimes from the lawyers defending them that the charge of assault on a constable has been unnecessarily brought. Often there is a grey area between obstruction of a police officer resisting arrest and assault on a police officer. If there is to be a significant extra penalty for assault on a constable a police officer who happens to be a bit prejudiced towards somebody has to be careful not to slap a charge of assault on the person rather than a lesser charge of obstructing or resisting arrest. That is the other side of the equation. If Parliament is to protect police officers and prison officers in this way which we think is a good thing an extra responsibility is placed on police officers and prison officers not to misuse that provision. 
With those few words I say that the Green Party will be interested in the discussion at the select committee. We will see what the experts—particularly the legal experts law societies and whatnots in this field—say about the additional provision in this massive bill of less than a page really. Thanks. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 It is always a pleasure to follow the Green member Keith Locke who I understand is retiring at the end of this parliamentary term. He will be sorely missed from the House. I have never seen a member who can stand up and speak in favour of legislation and so convincingly spend the whole time arguing against why it is such a good idea. It is a skill. It takes a while to develop the skill to be so convinced that something is a bad thing but support it. 
The reason the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill has come about is simply that there has been an increasing number of crimes against officers in the course of their duties whether he or she is a police officer or a corrections officer or whatever jurisdiction he or she may be in. There is a long list of assaults against officers and of police officers in Hamilton Dunedin and various other places suffering all sorts of quite substantial bodily harm from attacks. As a result the National Party as part of its manifesto and election campaign to the public said that in Government it would take a close look at things related to law and order and do something about what has become a growing issue as far as the public are concerned. 
The purpose of the bill is to ensure that the fact that an offence is committed against a police officer or prison officer acting in the course of his or her duty is taken into account as an aggravating factor at sentencing. The notion—and hopefully it will be successful—is that the offence will be taken into account before criminals decide to take the law into their hands and start attacking those who are there and who are charged as the previous speaker said with looking after the wider good of the public and the community in the course of their duty. 
I have no doubt that if the judiciary picks up and takes on board what Parliament is suggesting it should longer or stiffer sentences might come about as a result. The whole reason why the bill has come about is that there have been a growing number of offences against officers. There seems to be a bit of a cavalier approach in society generally towards those who are in authority and I guess one could say a lack of respect for the rule of law. Hopefully the bill will send the message. 
I know from my own experience and from years of studying case study in Parliament and outside that one cannot solve violence with violence but society has to set some standards and to put in place some bottom line so that for those who choose to challenge the standards and cross the line there will be a sanction that befits the crime. I suspect that over time because we are a liberal egalitarian society with a very open and free democracy we become more and more concerned about the rights of those who have been the perpetrators of crime as opposed to the victims of it. 
A rebalance is necessary. That is not a political comment. If we look at what has started to develop on both sides of Parliament in terms of policy particularly around law and order we see that when Green Party members get up and support such a bill going to the select committee at least then there is a political reality that the public in general are looking to Parliament to set some higher standards in regard to law and order. National wants to send a clear message that assault against law enforcement officers is unacceptable. Over the past 5 years there has been a significant increase in the number of rates of assault on law enforcement officers. 
I look forward to the bill going through to the Law and Order Committee which I am a member of. I will listen with great interest to submitters who raise concerns such as the Law Society and others who may submit on the bill. As we go through the process I will take into account any of the concerns they may have. The bill is simple as the previous speaker mentioned so there is not a great deal of alteration that could take place but there may be some areas and unintended consequences that we have not thought of at this stage that may come to light during the select committee process. I look forward to that process. 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 I stand to speak on the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill. Labour supports the bill going to the Law and Order Committee. We agree despite what a previous National speaker said earlier in the debate that assaults on police officers and prison officers should be taken very seriously. We have no problem with supporting the bill. However we are concerned that it will not really make any difference as the courts already can and usually do take consideration of assaults as an aggravating factor in sentencing. It is interesting that the Government is taking the issue of the safety of prison officers and police officers so seriously when with the legislation that has been passed and some of the changes the Minister of Corrections has made we have to question whether she has taken the issue seriously in the past. 
I was a member of the Law and Order Committee about 6 months ago. A few things came to the select committee that really put at risk the safety of prison guards. I will mention just one thing to start with: double-bunking which the Minister of Corrections thought she would introduce and which had evidence against it suggesting that it would jeopardise the safety of prison guards. We have seen the privatisation of prisons legislation go through and we had submissions at that time that suggested that in the past when we had a private prison in New Zealand it was a safety risk to the prison officers who were in there at the time. The submissions stated that because of the performance bonus environment the prison guards were working in unfortunately a lot of what should have been reported was not reported and their safety was directly at risk. 
Here we are tonight discussing the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill and members on the other side of the House are discussing the fact that it is all about the safety of prison guards. Very clear legislation has gone through the House that puts their safety at risk. 
As I said we support the safety of our police officers. We along with every other member of Parliament in this House are appalled at the statistics in respect of the increase in assaults that have occurred for police officers over the last 5 years and that have occurred for prison officers over the last 5 years. The reality is that although we support this bill because it does no harm it actually will not do any good either. The unfortunate reality is that in 2 years’ time when we look back at the statistics from now to 2 years moving forward we will see that there is no change in the number of assault cases occurring and unfortunately we will probably see a continued steady incline of the actual assault cases that take place. 
When we talk about police officers and prison guards as victims of assault we take that very seriously; we take it very seriously when we are talking about victims of any crime. We are disappointed on this side of the House that the National Government seems to pick and choose when victims’ rights and when victims’ safety are of importance. We have seen in recent weeks a real undermining of the safety of everyday New Zealanders with the cuts to family violence prevention programmes. That will not do any good for those women who are in situations where they are victims of domestic violence. We will see resourcing and funding taken away so they will no longer have the support they need if they find themselves in that situation. That is a clear indication that the National Government is not looking after victims. 
Another case where it is not looking after victims is in regard to the Domestic Violence Reform Bill which is languishing at the bottom of the Order Paper which was consulted on with the sector widely and which had much time and resources invested in it yet that side of the House does not take it seriously enough to move it up the Order Paper quickly. I think in that first 100 days of office the things that the Government prioritised at that time were from memory not even very important. 
Carol Beaumont 
: Workers’ rights. 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: Attacking workers’ rights. What else did it do in that first 100 days? 
Carol Beaumont 
: Tax cuts. 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: Tax cuts for the rich. I think in that first 100 days it gave $30 million to private schools and it did a whole lot of things that were not priorities. That is another example of the National Government not prioritising victims. It did not prioritise the Domestic Violence Reform Bill. Instead we saw attacks on workers’ rights. 
The Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill purports to be an indication of the Government’s support for the safety of police officers and prison guards. Yet as I said every other victim has been hung out to dry by the National Government. The reality is—and I say this sadly because we wish that it would help—that the bill will not make a difference at all. We do not have any objection to this bill as I said. Our real concern is that it will not make a difference. The Sentencing Act already provides that the court may take into account any aggravating or mitigating factor that it thinks fits in addition to the specific factors listed in section 9 of the Act. That is something that is already happening. In terms of aggravating factors and in terms of looking at that when sentencing takes place we do not need this bill to make that happen. It is something that is already happening in our courts. 
The proposed amendment will not require the court to take any specific action in terms of the type or severity of sentence imposed. The court will simply be required to take this factor into account along with other specified and unspecified aggravating factors and to arrive at the appropriate sentence to be imposed in a particular case. In most circumstances the process considerations and conclusion that the courts come to will not be in the slightest bit affected by this proposed amendment because the fact that an offence has been committed against a police or prison officer is something that the courts would usually already—as I said before—take into consideration. 
The Ministry of Justice pointed out in the regulatory impact statement to this bill that courts have traditionally regarded assaults on law enforcement officers as serious. The High Court has described an attack on a police officer as equivalent to an attack on the community because our police officers are the representatives of the community on the matter of law and order in society. They are society’s front line. The Court of Appeal has emphasised the gravity of using serious violence against police officers and has upheld deterrent sentences in a number of cases. 
This bill certainly will not have any effect on the likelihood that an offender will assault a police officer or prison officer. Offenders do not stop to consider mitigating and aggravating factors that may be taken into consideration by the court when committing an offence. It is another example of the National Government doing things like this in a punitive manner where it does not make a difference. We saw it with the “three strikes” bill and we know from the submissions that came before the Law and Order Committee that having “three strikes” legislation will not make an offender stop and think before committing a crime. Basically it is not effective at all. This bill is another meaningless piece of law and order legislation from a Government that does not seem to have any ideas for reducing crime other than increasing sentences. 
In terms of what is going on at the moment out there such as people struggling because the cost of living is going up the Government proposing State asset sales despite the fact that 60 percent of New Zealanders say they do not want it and only 10 percent say they do the fact that increasingly children are showing up at our schools without having had breakfast and without lunch in their bags it makes members on this side of the House wonder why legislation like this which we know will not be effective should be a priority of the National Government. It is window dressing. It is about the National Government trying to look like it is being hard on crime trying to look like it is dong something in respect of law and order but at the end of the day we on this side of the House know—and time will tell—that none of these measures that the Government is putting into place will be effective in any way. Thank you. 
MELISSA LEE (National) 
: 
 I am rather disappointed in the previous speaker Carmel Sepuloni. First of all she said that the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill will do nothing to reduce crime levels. I guess she tried to say that the courts were already dealing with aggravating assaults when she said there were already mitigating factors but there is a huge difference between something that may be considered in sentencing and something that is required to be considered. 
It is similar to the difference between attempted murder and murder. There is a huge difference between attempted murder and murder and there is a huge difference between something that may be considered and something that is required to be considered as a mitigating factor. There is a huge difference. 
Labour members who claim that National has done nothing had 9 years to deal with this issue. Now they are saying that the Government is not doing anything for victims. Hello? The police officers are not victims? We are looking after the victims. 
Every time our police officers don their blue uniforms they put their lives on the line. Whether they are answering a 111 call investigating a disturbance or patrolling a beat police officers on the front line are working for us. They are working to keep us safe but every time they do their duty to protect us their lives are on the line. Prison officers too come up against violence in the course of performing their duties. It is part of their job. That is what we expect them to do. They accept that their job comes with a certain amount of risk and danger. 
But what happens when a police officer or a prison officer is attacked? We have all seen in the newspapers and on TV the horrific injuries suffered by police officers in their line of duty. Over the last 5 years as other members have said there has been a huge increase in both the rate and the number of assaults on police officers and prison officers. That is why the Minister of Justice is putting forward this bill and I commend him for doing so. Unlike Opposition members who claim that this bill does nothing I believe that it will make a difference. 
I do not know how many of us would want to do what front-line police officers and prison officers have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. I certainly would not want to do what they do. They put their lives in danger and their families are constantly worried about their safety every time they go out there to do their jobs in order to keep us safe. 
The purpose of the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill is to ensure that the fact that an offence was committed against a police officer or prison officer acting in the course of his or her duty is taken into account as a mitigating factor at sentencing. As mentioned by the previous speaker Carmel Sepuloni that recourse is currently available but only as a “may be”—it may be considered as an aggravating factor. As I said there is a huge difference between a “may be” a “should be” and a “must be” in respect of what the court is required to take into account. 
National wants to send a clear message that assaults against law enforcement officers are unacceptable. We back our men and women in blue. We support our police force. That is the reason why I support the bill and I commend this bill to the House. I look forward to its passage through to the Law and Order Committee. 
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) 
: 
 I am pleased to stand and offer some comments on the Sentencing (Aggravating Factors) Amendment Bill. I will simply restate that if one was to listen very carefully to this debate one will hear that Labour backs the police. We are certainly sure that it is important to care for and protect our policemen our policewomen and our corrections officers. All that we are saying in supporting the bill to go to the Law and Order Committee is that we do not think it will make a big difference because judges at the moment can take into account aggravating factors around existing crimes. In fact if one looks at the situation when they do take aggravating factors into account one will see some variance within the judiciary in terms of when they make their sentencing options known after some consideration. 
Having listened to the member before me speak I can say that volume is no substitute for clear thought. Melissa Lee certainly demonstrated that. We want to ensure that the House is very clear on Labour’s position because anyone who listened to what Government members were saying would have heard them try to insinuate that Labour has no care or regard whatsoever for the good people who serve our communities day in day out in our provinces and in our cities in order to protect everyday Kiwi citizens. We absolutely believe that their protection should be at the forefront of the difficult duty that they do. 
I will raise the issue of security guards which my colleague Carmel Sepuloni brought to the attention of the House. It relates to what is happening in our prisons. Corrections officers themselves will say that double-bunking in prisons alone actually creates an environment in which it is less safe for them to carry out their tasks. Let us be very clear: the Government introduced double-bunking recognising from the sector—from corrections officers—that it was creating a more unsafe environment. This bill will do nothing to enhance the safety of corrections officers who work under those circumstances. We raise those types of issues as they present very real opportunities for the Government to take action and ensure that corrections officers are better protected in the workplace. 
If one were to take a somewhat cynical view of this bill one would say yes it prepares the way for National members on the Government side of the House to have a slogan that they can take out to the community. But it does very little in terms of delivering to where it is needed most: to those front-line officers to ensure that they are protected in their workplace. One of the members on the Government side talked about the provinces and the fact that police officers go out into rural communities by themselves every day. But those same members say nothing about ensuring that there is double-staffing in rural police stations. They are not raising that issue as a potential opportunity to address safety issues in rural communities although it could be a real practical step towards safety for officers who serve in those rural communities. 
I am concerned that the Government is misrepresenting the view of Labour. We support the police. We back them and we back corrections officers. We back the provision of a safe environment for them but we do not believe that this legislation will do anything to make a difference. 
Debate interrupted. 
Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)