Volume 696 Week 66 - Thursday 6 March 2014Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 696 Week 66 - Thursday 6 March 2014[Sitting date: 06 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16407. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Thursday 6 March 2014Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.Business StatementHon ANNE TOLLEY (Deputy Leader of the House): When the House resumes on Tuesday 11 March the Government will look to progress the Electoral Amendment Bill the Families Commission Amendment Bill and the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill. Wednesday is a members’ day. On Wednesday 12 March effective on the morning of Thursday 13 March with the agreement of the Business Committee the House will sit in extended hours to progress the second readings of theNgā Mana Whenua oTāmakiMakaurau Collective Redress Bill and theNgāPunawai o TeTokotoru Claims Settlement Bill and the third reading of the Raukawa Claims Settlement Bill.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I wonder whether I might inquire of the Deputy Leader of the House given that she said in the Business Statement that the Electoral Amendment Bill will be looked at on Tuesday just to clarify whether Judith Collins will actually show up on Tuesday—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Questions to MinistersEconomy—Interest Rates Housing Availability and Power Prices1.DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) to theMinister of Finance: How is the Government’s economic programme helping to keep interest rates lower during this economic cycle compared to the previous economic cycle in the mid-2000s?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Some increase in interest rates is inevitable in a growing economy and the Government will do what it can to ensure that it does not put pressure on rising interest rates. In particular we need to avoid the mistakes of the previous economic cycle under the previous Government where Government spending picked up rapidly house prices soared and household debt increased sharply. This left households facing floating mortgage rates of almost 11 percent by 2008 and business interest rates exceeded 9 percent. Of course these high interest rates dampened business and investment growth and sent the export sector into recession. Floating mortgage rates have fallen to below 6 percent for a family with a $200000 mortgage. That has been a saving of around $200 a week compared with what they were paying in 2008 and you can be sure that they will not want to go back to 11 percent interest rates under a Labour Government.David Bennett: What steps is the Government taking to keep Government spending under control and how will this help take pressure off interest rates?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Two areas where the Government can work to avoid putting pressure on rising interest rates are through housing market regulation and Government spending control. As the Reserve Bank regularly points out careful Government spending will help to keep interest rates lower for longer. If the Government makes large cash injections into the economy when it is growing significantly and house prices are already high then interest rates will be pushed up further bearing in mind that New Zealand households still have quite high levels of debt. The Government has set a target of returning to surplus next year by understanding the cost drivers that lie behind Government spending and getting control of those.David Bennett: What approach is the Government taking to improve housing market regulation and how will this contribute to preventing a damaging spike in interest rates?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Rapid increases in house prices are damaging for the economy because they put pressure through a high exchange rate on our export sector. They are a challenge for the Government because they put pressure on the Government to fund the affordability gap for households that cannot afford rising mortgages and they are unfair on individuals who are trying to enter the housing market. Demand for housing is rising and a turn-round in migration flows is likely to push demand even higher. Unfortunately our planning rules and attitudes within our councils and to some extent the Government have restricted the supply of new houses that can be built in response to this demand. This is why the Government has passed legislation in this House opposed by Labour to streamline planning rules and is working with the Auckland and Christchurch councils to significantly increase the supply of housing over the next 2 or 3 years so that low and middle income families can benefit from homeownership and so that we can avoid high interest rates and have a healthy export sector.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was such a long answer I wondered whether perhaps you had nodded off in the middle of it because—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order and it will in itself lead to disorder.David Bennett: What progress—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I just ask the member to please cease that loud barracking while I am calling for a supplementary question.David Bennett: What progress is being made to increase the supply of new housing as part of the Government’s wider programme to address issues around housing affordability?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The decisions on the supply of housing rest with councils but the Government can make it easier for them to make decisions to improve the supply of housing. Statistics New Zealand last week reported that the trend for new dwelling consents is at its highest level since September 2007 and double the level of March 2011. So there are some signs that the supply of housing is increasing but if we are going to avoid significant ongoing increases in house prices and therefore even higher interest rates we need councils to make more positive decisions for more housing supply.Dr Russel Norman: Does the Minister accept that the 20 percent increase in electricity prices over the last 5 years in addition to the 20 percent rise in house prices particularly in Auckland are putting pressure on the Reserve Bank Governor to increase interest rates and that his Government’s failure to control the inflation coming out of those two sectors is part of the problem as to why families are going to face higher interest rates?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No I do not accept that and for one simple reason: the rules around housing have been made by councils and it is important that we work with councils so that they understand that when they are making rules about a denser city or a more liveable city or rules that are anti - urban sprawl those decisions impact the whole economy. Particularly they can have a damaging impact on our export sector which council planners do not historically think about very much. So we all have a job to control Government spending to make our electricity market more competitive and to work with councils for more housing supply and if we do our job New Zealanders will enjoy lower interest rates than they otherwise would.Dr Russel Norman: Does the Minister believe that the 20 percent increase in electricity prices over 5 years—more than twice the rate of inflation across the rest ofthe economy—is a sign of a competitive market in the electricity sector or is it a sign of a failure of the competition in the electricity sector?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The rate of increase in electricity prices is half what it was when that member was in Government. It was 8 percent per year I think for 9 years. So this Government has taken the step of making the market more competitive. That is proving now to slow the rate of increase. Part of the increase of electricity prices is an investment programme begun by the previous Government which was necessary to spend hundreds—in fact billions—on upgrading the strength of our electricity grid to ensure security of supply and now the effect of that investment is flowing through into prices. But the market is more competitive. The last thing New Zealand needs is someone coming in destroying the competitive market putting us back 20 years to where I think Brazil is and us having to go and learn all the lessons again.Dr Russel Norman: With regard to the electricity market does he believe it is a sign of a competitive market when demand falls and prices rise?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Of course in the long run if demand keeps falling prices will eventually come into line with that. But I can tell you that the market is much better at sorting that out than that member ever would be if he became the Minister of Energy because his policy is all about Russel Norman setting the prices. In fact a better way to do it is electricity companies knocking on doors as they are now all over New Zealand offering big discounts.Power Prices—Increases2.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) to theMinister of Energy and Resources: How much more is an average New Zealand household that uses 8000 kWh of power annually paying for electricity per year as of November 2013 compared to November 2008 according to the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment’s latest Quarterly Survey of Domestic Electricity Prices?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Acting Minister of Energy and Resources): On average $70 more per year or adjusted for inflation $30 more. I would note that for the period 2000 to November 2008 the average increase was $90 per year or adjusted for inflation $60. I think that it is also important to note that the quarterly survey does not capture the discounts and deals that consumers can get from retailers—for example up to 15 percent prompt payment discounts are commonplace. These are not taken into account in that survey. Thanks to the Government’s reforms of 2010 the system is more competitive than it has ever been and substantial savings are available for consumers who choose to shop around.Dr Russel Norman: Can he confirm that according to the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment the weighted average price of electricity to families increased by 20 percent from November 2008 to November 2013—an increase of $360 a year for the typical family according to the ministry?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: No. My understanding is that it is an average of $70 per year or adjusted for inflation $30.Dr Russel Norman: Does he support the Electricity Authority’s new inquiry into large electricity price increases that have been announced in recent weeks and does he now concede that there is a problem with power prices?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Minister supports the Electricity Authority’s approach to regulating this market—the Electricity Authority of course being an initiative of this Government to improve the performance of the electricity market which it quite plainly has done because the cost increases for electricity are approximately half what they were in real terms under the previous Government. I think it is important that theElectricity Authority independently regulates and manages the market and that we encourage as much competition as possible and that is what this Government is doing.Dr Russel Norman: Does he agree with Steven Joyce who yesterday told an energy conference that the Greens-Labour plan to reduce power bills by $300 a year was “a ‘solution’ in search of a problem” or does he agree that a $360-a-year increase in power prices is actually a problem for Kiwi families?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Yes surprisingly I do agree with Mr Joyce. He went on to say that it was “a hastily thrown together press release designed to wipe millions of dollars of value from companies about to be listed under the mixed ownership model.” I agree with that. He said: “It was politically motivated and economically irresponsible.” I agree with that. He said: “to call it a ‘policy’ is to elevate to something it quite clearly is not.” I agree with that. And he said: “There is basically no international precedent for the opposition’s ideas.” I agree with that too.David Shearer: I have here in my hand—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Is the member seeking a point of order or a supplementary question?David Shearer: A supplementary question.Mr SPEAKER: Would the member please ask his supplementary question.David Shearer: And I am. On behalf of the people who have sent me their electricity bills which have gone up by up to 14 percent my question to the Minister is: does he believe that electricity prices are currently rising too quickly?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Nobody likes it when prices go up. That is a given. But the prices of electricity have gone up less than the actual after-tax wages of New Zealanders which have gone up 23.4 percent since September 2008. I do not care what the member has got in his hand. There is no way he can argue that point.David Shearer: Does he disagree therefore with the people who have written to me saying their bills have gone up by up to 14 percent and does he say to them that it is not a problem?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: As I said nobody likes it when prices go up. The way to deal with that is to have more competition and that is what this Government is encouraging—more competition. I would encourage the people who have written to Mr Shearer not to waste their time doing that but to spend their time searching for opportunities through the switching website for example to reduce their power costs because that is actually what is happening to those people who are giving that a go.Wage Rates—Growth Measurement and Inequality3.Hon DAVID PARKER (Deputy Leader—Labour) to theMinister of Finance: What will he do to “spread some of the benefits of growth” when hourly wage rates have only grown by 1.6 percent in the year to December 2013 which is close to 0 percent in real terms when 45 percent of listed corporates have double-digit profit growth?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): The member continues to use the wrong numbers on wages. Last year average hourly wages went up 2.9 percent compared with inflation of 1.6 percent. The year before they went up 2.6 percent compared with inflation of 0.9 percent. The year before that they went up 2.8 percent compared with inflation of 1.6 percent. The member mistakenly uses the labour cost index and deliberately as a way of measuring what wages people earn and it simply does not measure that.Hon David Parker: Does the labour cost index measure the change in hourly rates from year to year and did that show growth of only 1.6 percent in the year to December 2013?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The labour cost index is an index of labour cost like the CPI is an index of consumer cost. It does not measure what people earn. What people earn is measured by the quarterly employment survey. For the last 3 years wages have gone up over 7 percent at a time when inflation has been around 4 percent so real wages have been rising.Jami-Lee Ross: By how much have wages after tax grown in the past 5½ years and how does this compare historically?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Since the September quarter of 2008 real after-tax wages have increased by 12.9 percent. In other words the average wage after you allow for inflation and tax has gone up 12.9 percent in a little over 5 years. Those have been 5 pretty difficult years but it compares well historically. For example over the 9 years from September 1999 to September 2008 real after-tax wages rose 4.4 percent not 12.9 percent as it has in the last 5 years. Average workers have been considerably better off under this Government than under the previous Labour Government because their after-tax wages have gone up much faster despite the fact that we have had a major recession.Hon David Parker: Do the census figures published in theNew Zealand Heraldjust before Christmas last year show that the median income inMāngere andŌtāhuhu had dropped by 16 percent and inŌtara Papatoetoe and Manurewa it had dropped by 17 percent since the previous census and does this represent the brighter future that he promised these hard-working New Zealanders 5 years ago or is it the census that has got the figures wrong?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well I would have to look at the details—Iain Lees-Galloway: It’s called the census Bill—the census.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well because he keeps using the wrong measure for the increase in wages it could be that he is using the wrong measure for statistics. But I can tell you that if the people in those suburbs have been hit by the recession what they need is a growing economy with more jobs because the one thing that will lift those wages is getting jobs. If there is one thing that Labour and the Greens are against it is more jobs because every policy that this Government has introduced to give those people more hope has been opposed by Labour and the Greens.Hon David Parker: How can he deny that the benefits of growth are not being shared fairly when homeownership is now at its lowest level in more than half a century? [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The question was to the Hon Bill English.Hon BILL ENGLISH: The fact that house prices are rising pretty significantly does mean that people who currently own houses in some places get a greater share of the increase in wealth and people who are locked out of the market do not get the benefits of those wealth increases. The best thing that the Opposition can do to help that is support the Government’s measures to improve the access of low and middle income people to the housing market. So far the Opposition has opposed all of the measures that the Government has taken to give low and middle income New Zealanders better opportunities.Hon David Parker: How can he deny that the benefits of growth are not being shared fairly when rental prices have increased by around 15 percent on average across New Zealand over the past 3 years yet wage rates have increased by only 5.5 percent? [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Hon David Parker is asking the question to the Hon Bill English.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am on my feet. I now require an answer from the Hon Bill English.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You were looking at me. I know I asked the question. It is those members who need to know who is going to answer it.Mr SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. That is creating further disorder in the House.Hon BILL ENGLISH: They have had a very good answer and now they will get an excellent one.Mr SPEAKER: And I would be grateful for an answer.Hon BILL ENGLISH: If the member is concerned about the impact of the cost of housing on inequality then he should support the Government’s measures like special housing areas which are designed precisely to reduce that inequality. In fact the reason the member talks about housing as a driver of inequality now is that the measures of income inequality do not suit his argument. He has had to concede that the rich are not getting richer and the poor getting poorer that that is simply not true so now he is trying to change the argument.Hon David Parker: How can he deny that the benefits of growth are not being shared fairly when there are now more than 360000 children and older people living in poverty and many of those children are living in the households of working parents?Hon BILL ENGLISH: We could argue about the fact that the measure he is using which uses median incomes overlooks the fact that all of those people he is talking about—children and older people—are in households that have had significant increases in their income despite the fact that there has been a recession. In fact the version of poverty the Government is most focused on is persistent deprivation which is the hard end of poverty. That is where people really get trapped for life. We are advancing a programme of improving housing options reducing welfare dependency and dealing with the most difficult families constructively in a way to give them the opportunity to get into work and realise their aspirations.Oil and Gas Exploration—Exclusive Economic Zone4.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) to theMinister for the Environment: What recent announcements has the Government made on the classification for drilling for oil and gas in New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone?Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment): Last week I announced that activities involved in exploratory drilling for oil and gas in the exclusive economic zone will be classified as non-notified discretionary under the new exclusive economic zone legislation regulations. This completes the classifications of all components of the oil and gas extraction process. Operators will now be subject toEnvironmental Protection Authority oversight for each of the four stages. Initial seismic surveying and prospecting is monitored as a permitted activity then separate discretionary marine consents are required at the exploration stage and any production and decommissioning phases and as part of that are fully assessed for the actual and potential effects of the activity on the environment and existing interests. For the first time the environmental impact of the full cycle of the oil and gas process in theexclusive economic zone will be overseen and minimised by a robust independent regulator.Jacqui Dean: How will New Zealanders get to have a say on oil and gas activities occurring in the exclusive economic zone?Hon AMY ADAMS: Until now the public has never had the right to have a say on activities taking place in the exclusive economic zone including drilling for oil. Now before an oil company can make a single dollar of profit it has to go in front of thepeople of New Zealand and make its case in a full public process. This is in clear contrast to the period between 2000 and 2008 when 36 wells were drilled in the exclusive economic zone including four production wells with no public comment and no opportunity for submissions. In addition during the exploration phase the applicant is now required to have consulted with iwi and affected users and the Environmental Protection Authority has the ability to call for evidence from any parties it determines necessary.Gareth Hughes: I seek leave to table a document. It is available on the Ministry for the Environment website but it is incredibly difficult to find so—Mr SPEAKER: Just briefly describe the document.Gareth Hughes: It is a summary of submissions that found that only four people out of 22000—Mr SPEAKER: Order! If members want to search for that I am sure they are capable of finding it.Question No. 5 to MinisterGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I seek leave of the House to hold this question over until Tuesday as an additional question to see whether the Minister of Justice—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Leave is sought for this particular question to be held over.Hon Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That is actually the third time today that that member has made reference to someone not being here. He made a point at the end of that point of order—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have heard enough. I moved to put the leave very quickly but if the member did refer to the absence of any member in this House that is completely out of order and it is not to happen again. The member has sought leave for this question to be held over. I am putting that leave. Leave is sought to hold that question over. Is there any objection? There is.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It does go back to the ruling that you have made. It has been a long-term ability of members to ask and on occasion be granted the ability to hold over Ministers’ questions when they are not available—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not need any further assistance. There is no problem with the member seeking leave but referring to and highlighting the absence of a member from the House is out of order. Members can seek leave but they do not need to highlight the absent members. All members on many occasions are away from this House when they are on other parliamentary business. That is accepted. The Standing Orders are quite clear that members must not refer to the absence of a member in this House. The member has sought leave I have put the leave and that leave has been denied. That is the end of this matter and Grant Robertson can proceed with his question.Justice Minister—Compliance withCabinet Manual5.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to theMinister of Justice: When she told the House yesterday “I had previously toldOravida that it could not use my name or photograph to endorse or promote its business products or services” when was that and what specific circumstances did it relate to?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General)on behalf of theMinister of Justice: It was in October and related to her upcoming trip to China. The Minister made those comments orally when she was approached to visit theOravida branch in China. She was invited to visit its China branch last year when she was atOravida’s Auckland office opening in October last year and mentioned she would be travelling to China on ministerial business.Grant Robertson: Did she or her office follow up withOravida whether or not it had used her name or photograph following her visit to its Quay Street building in October to open its new offices?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: I very much doubt it. One does not go on some kind of jihad or super-inquiry to find out whether a photograph is being used. The Minister is very photogenic. Her photo would be taken on many occasions unlike that member’s. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! And that sort of answer does not assist the order of the House.Grant Robertson: Why given her responsibilities as Minister of Justice was she opening the offices ofOravida in Auckland in October?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: She supports New Zealand Inc.; that is why she did it. When she was in China she also supported New Zealand Inc. by going down and having a flat white at Cafe Flat White which is a company with very strong New Zealand interests. There is nothing surprising or underhand in any of this. She is a loyal New Zealander.Grant Robertson: Did she ever make contact with the Cabinet Office about a potential conflict of interest given her husband’s directorship ofOravida before this week?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: I doubt it. It would be a bizarre proposition to seek the permission of the Prime Minister to pop into Cafe Flat White in Beijing for a cup of coffee or intoOravida for a glass of milk.Grant Robertson: From whom atOravida did she receive the invitation to visit its Shanghai offices: was it her husband who is a director of the firm; was it the Prime Minister’s golf buddy Stone Shi who donated more than $55000 to the National Party; was it PeterGoodfellow the president of the National Party whose company is a supplier toOravida; or was it JuliaXu with whom she was going to Hong Kong a month later?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: I do not know the exact name. I would practically guarantee it would be none of those people. But in answer to the member’s unpleasant question I will find out and tell him.Better Public Services Targets—Role of Youth Guarantee6.COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura) to theMinister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment: How is the Youth Guarantee Scheme helping the Government achieve the Better Public Services target of 85 percent of all 18-year-olds achieving NCEA Level two or an equivalent qualification in 2017? [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I just might have to ask for the family discussion to cease. Thank you.Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment): Ha ha! Last month I released the first Youth Guarantee monitoring report by the Ministry of Education. The report showed the real difference that the Youth Guarantee scheme is making to the achievement of at-risk young people. The report showed that in 2012 83 percent of 18-year-olds in Youth Guarantee secondary-tertiary programmes—including trades academies—achieved the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) at level 2 or equivalent compared with 70 percent of a similar group of young people who had not participated in trades academies. There has also been a similar improvement for students in Youth Guarantee fees-free courses in tertiary education. For 2012 62 percent of 18-year-olds in fees-free tertiary courseshad achieved NCEA level 2 or equivalent compared with 52 percent of a similar group who had not participated.Colin King: Why did the Government introduce the Youth Guarantee scheme?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: A level 2 qualification is enormously important. It gives young people opportunities for further education and employment and equips them for modern life. Frankly if they do not obtain at least a level 2 qualification it gets very challenging. The reality is that some students are more motivated to learn and pass qualifications away from a traditional school setting and if the Government does not provide opportunities for those people they simply leave school altogether with no qualifications at all—an outcome that would be bad for them bad for the Government and of course bad for New Zealand society. The recent monitoring report showed that because of Youth Guarantee around 1000 more young people remained in education at age 17 and many more of them achieved NCEA level 2.Colin King: How is the Youth Guarantee scheme being expanded in 2014?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: This year there will be around 10000 places for Youth Guarantee fees-free courses and another 4500 places in secondary-tertiary programmes. We are also expanding the Youth Guarantee scheme to 18 and 19-year-olds participating in fees-free tertiary qualifications at foundation levels. Because of Youth Guarantee trades academies and of course the new vocational pathways we are confident that every single teenager has a fees-free path to a level 3 qualification giving them access to training and skills. Last year I also announced that all fees-free level 1 and 2 education will be for 20 to 24-year-olds as well. That means anyone under the age of 25 who is yet to obtain a level 2 qualification will be able to obtain one fees-free whether that is at a secondary school or through Youth Guarantee or a tertiary provider such as a private training establishment or a polytechnic. This is a very significant commitment to the achievement of New Zealand’s young people.Women’s Affairs Minister—Actions and Confidence in Ministry7.CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) to theMinister of Women’s Affairs: Does she have confidence in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs given their 2013 Annual Report shows that six out of seven policy outcomes have stayed the same or gone backwards in the last past year; if so why?Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister of Women’s Affairs): Yes I do have confidence in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. The seven policy outcomes referred to in the annual report are aspirational targets where the ministry seeks to achieve improved results for women through influencing and informing other departments’ and ministries’ work. When seeking to effect real change it is necessary to aim high. I thank the member so much for allowing me ahead of International Women’s Day on Saturday to expand on the great work that the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is doing and I look forward to many supplementary questions to further expand on a topic I feel very strongly about.Carol Beaumont: As the Minister is “interested in addressing the factors that still hamper women’s success” what steps has she taken to promote the addressing of pay inequality like that faced by aged-care workers receiving wages just above the minimum wage?Hon JO GOODHEW: In terms of actually addressing what is the gender pay gap which in New Zealand is currently at 10.1 percent—therefore it is higher than it should be because no pay gap is really what we should be aspiring towards—the Ministry of Women’s Affairs has looked at the many reasons why in a workforce there is gender bias that stops women from getting ahead. Additional to that there are tools—and I am going to give you one very good example—that will actually make sure that young women choose to be in non-traditional areas of work. I can use as a good example theOccupation Outlook app that the Hon Steven Joyce has launched which gives women the opportunity to see how they can improve their incomes by choosing the sort of qualification where they will get a good income and they can have a pathway that leads to them having a higher income.Carol Beaumont: What efforts has the Minister made to advise her colleague the Minister of Labour about the issue of equal pay for work of equal value which would lift women’s wages and improve their economic independence?Hon JO GOODHEW: I am able to report that I speak with many of my colleagues about the issues that face women. However I do not ever presume to tell them how to do their jobs.Carol Beaumont: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I fail to see how that answers a very specific question about talking to the Minister of Labour about equal pay for work of equal value.Mr SPEAKER: No I think on this occasion it actually did address the question. What we will do to move things forward is I will allow the member an additional supplementary question. In my mind that question was addressed. I accept it was not to the member’s satisfaction.Carol Beaumont: What assurances has she sought from her colleague the Minister of Labour about the gendered impact of changes to collective bargaining which could lead to a driving down of wages for women workers?Hon JO GOODHEW: I note that the member talks about a hypothetical possible result. I have many conversations with my colleagues about outcome improvements for women and these conversations will continue.Carol Beaumont: What representations has she made to the Minister of Justice or other Cabinet colleagues about improving rape prevention education in schools?Hon JO GOODHEW: What I am able to say is that amongst colleagues we are looking at every avenue in terms of addressing sexual violence and that includes talking to other colleagues including the Minister of Education the Minister of Police the Minister of Justice and other Ministers across the whole spectrum. This is a Government that has set a Better Public Services target to reduce crime and violent offending and we have seen—Sue Moroney: Oh whoopee!Hon JO GOODHEW: The member may not be interested but she may not realise that women are overrepresented in the statistics and we have seen real change a real lessening of violent crime and at the same time we are able to say that that means that many women are better off.Sue Moroney: As we prepare to celebrate International Women’s Day this weekend will the Minister vote against the second reading in Parliament next week of my bill to extend paid parental leave to 6 months and thereby keep her record intact as being the only Minister of Women’s Affairs in New Zealand to have ever voted against paid parental leave?Mr SPEAKER: In so far as there is ministerial responsibility the Hon Jo Goodhew.Hon JO GOODHEW: In so far as I have ministerial responsibility what I can say as Minister of Women’s Affairs is that the current Government is looking at changes to the number of weeks under paid parental leave. However this is a Government that seeks to actually balance the books unlike the previous Government. In doing so we have to make difficult but necessary fiscally sound and responsible decisions—something that certainly did not occur to the previous Government.Disputes Tribunal—Reform8.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to theMinister for Courts: How is the Government improving the way the Disputes Tribunal works to make it easier for New Zealanders to resolve civil disputes?Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Minister for Courts): I have been determined to create a modern 21st century justice system that better serves the needs of court users. In disputes tribunal that means allowing online applications so that people can apply quickly and easily—anytime anywhere—which is something a quarter of applicants are taking up; it means centralising the processing of applications to speed up processing times and to leave court staff to focus on administering court cases; it means getting key tribunal decisions published online to make processes more transparent; and it means empowering our court staff and supporting tribunal referees in trying new ways of working to provide a quicker and better service.Scott Simpson: What difference are parties to cases seeing from these improvements in the way the disputes tribunal operates?Hon CHESTER BORROWS: Our modernisation initiatives are making a measurable difference in the speed at which disputes tribunal users get results. Online applications and centralised processing mean that it rarely takes more than 2 days for applicants to get a hearing scheduled and 90 percent hear back on the same day. Our focus on faster delivery has resulted in a 15 percent drop in the age of cases last year falling from 75 days to 64 days. This means the roughly 350 individuals and businesses who come to the tribunal each week are spending less time resolving disputes and more time getting on with their lives and businesses.Internal Affairs Minister—Information Security and Advice to Prime Minister9.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) to theMinister of Internal Affairs: What action if any has he taken this year to show the Prime Minister that he has met the highest ethical standards required by Section 2.53 of the Cabinet Manual?Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Internal Affairs): All my actions since becoming the Minister of Internal Affairs have been in accord with all of the provisions of theCabinet Manual.Hon Trevor Mallard: Does he take responsibility to ensure that all answers the Prime Minister gives in this House in relation to the Minister’s suitability to hold office are accurate and if they are in any way inaccurate that the Prime Minister is given accurate information in order to correct his answer?Hon PETER DUNNE: Answers that the Prime Minister gives like answers that any Minister gives are the responsibility of the person giving the answer. I have confidence in the answers the Prime Minister has given.Hon Trevor Mallard: Have all answers the Prime Minister has given in the House this year in relation to the Minister been accurate?Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Peter Dunne in so far as he has ministerial responsibility.Hon PETER DUNNE: I am confident that they are but the ultimate responsibility—as rests with me in the case of questions asked of me—rests with the Prime Minister in respect of questions asked of him. I think he demonstrates day by day week by week in this House that he is more than on top of those matters and can best any of the questioners who are seeking to outwit him.Hon Trevor Mallard: Did he approach the Prime Minister or the Prime Minister’s office following the Prime Minister’s answer to question No. 10 on 19 February in relation to the making available of the draftKitteridge report on the Government Communications Security Bureau wherein the Prime Minister said that he relied on theMinister’s assurances in this House to inform the Prime Minister that he has never given any such assurance in this Chamber?Hon PETER DUNNE: I refer to my previous answer about responsibility for answers and I have not discussed these matters with the Prime Minister around the timing of that question.Hon Trevor Mallard: Is he prepared to make the Prime Minister’s statement I have just referred to in relation to his suitability to hold his current office accurate albeit retrospectively by today assuring the House that he did not make the draftKitteridge report on the Government Communications Security Bureau available to a Fairfax journalist.Mr SPEAKER: I will leave the Minister to answer the question but again the member is now going into something that in my opinion the Minister as the Minister of Internal Affairs does not have responsibility for.Hon PETER DUNNE: This question has been asked in a variety of forms over recent weeks. It has been answered by the Prime Minister and me and I stand by those answers.Hon Trevor Mallard: Has he discussed hisoneirataxia with the Prime Minister?Hon PETER DUNNE: I have discussed a number of things with the Prime Minister but frankly the meaning of that word escapes me and I am sure it is something that if I had a dictionary I might bother to look up.Pacific Communities—Skills Training Student Achievement and Employment10.ALFRED NGARO (National) to theMinister of Pacific Island Affairs: What steps is the Government taking to lift the skills of Pacific people in New Zealand?Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister of Pacific Island Affairs): The National-led Government has introduced a range of programmes and plans to lift the skills of Pacific people. For example Budget 2013 included the funding for theMāori and Pasifika Trades Training Initiative. That is $43 million in funding over 4 years to provide greater opportunities for young Pacific people to gain qualifications and better employment prospects. The Government is also supporting Auckland University of Technology’s Manukau campus expansion and this will see the number of fulltime-equivalent students at Auckland University of Technology increase from the current 940 fulltime-equivalent students to 4100 fulltime-equivalent students by 2020 and almost half of these students will be Pacific.Alfred Ngaro: How is the Government helping to raise the achievement of Pacific students?Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Government programmes such as Pasifika Power Up Youth Guarantee Achievement 2013-17 and trades academies are making a significant contribution to lifting achievement. Last month Minister Parata announced that National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 achievement among Pacific students in 2013 had risen to 71.8 percent. That is an increase of 16.5 percent since 2008. Tertiary course completion rates for Pacific students at all levels were up to 74 percent in 2012 and that is compared with 54 percent in 2007. Yesterday of course Minister Joyce announced the new Tertiary Education Strategy 2014-19 and one of its six priorities is about boosting the achievement ofMāori and Pacific students.Su’a William Sio: Given the Minister’s responses that his Government is so successful in doing things to lift the skills of Pacific people in New Zealand will he also take the credit for lifting Pacific people not in education employment or training from 16.7 percent in 2008 to 20.1 percent in 2013?Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: I do not have those figures to hand but what I can say is that since this Government has been in power and since the second quarter of2009 the number of Pacific people employed has gone up from 97700 to over 108200—over 11000 more people are employed.Canterbury Recovery—Housing and Human Rights Commission Report11.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) to theMinister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery: Does he accept the conclusion in the Human Rights Commission’s reportMonitoring Human Rights in the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery that “many people affected by the earthquakes continue to experience deteriorating standards of living and impacts on their quality of life that go beyond the immediate effects of the disaster”?Hon AMY ADAMS (Associate Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery) on behalf of theMinister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery: No the Minister does not accept this conclusion as there are considerable programmes of work under way to improve residential conditions in Christchurch. This includes the Winter Make it Right campaign which is focused on increasing the winter resilience of homes in Greater Christchurch and is also being made available to help those with housing issues following this week’s floods. Other work includes the residential advisory service the Ministry of Social Development’s support services the provision of temporary housing and the completion of more than 150000 home repairs by the Fletcher EQR programme. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority also regularly surveys and monitors well-being in Canterbury and there is a team within the department focused on social and cultural recovery.Denis O’Rourke: Given that reply does the Minister agree with the chief commissioner that there needs to be new kinds of people-centred thinking especially to ensure that people have secure habitable and affordable homes?Hon AMY ADAMS: I know that the bulk of the commissioner’s report actually relates to issues around housing and I can assure the member that those issues are all being worked through by the Government under a number of agencies. In respect of the different ways of thinking I can assure the member that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority is leading a number of community-led initiatives such as the Choice Christchurch summertime events and other projects. We are working through supporting communities in their homes and in their own ways to deal with these issues and I think we are doing it successfully.Denis O’Rourke: What does the Minister say to the thousands of Christchurch people who are now facing a fourth winter since the quakes without a secure warm dry affordable and properly repaired home?Hon AMY ADAMS: I think the Minister would certainly be the first to acknowledge that the times have been incredibly difficult for those in Canterbury who are still seeking to resolve their claims but he would equally reiterate that this has been an event of unheralded proportions. The fact is that they are incredibly difficult issues that are being worked through. But I would suggest to that member that he like all members in this House ensures that members of the public in Canterbury are made aware of the services available to them like the Winter Make it Right programme to make urgent weathertight and heating repairs to properties like the Canterbury Earthquake Temporary Accommodation Service to provide housing where that is needed and like the residential advisory service and the complaints service to help them progress through their claims.Denis O’Rourke: With the already historically high home rentals still increasing faster than anywhere else in New Zealand what does the Minister say to Christchurch people who are having to pay those rentals such as the person who told me recently that the best he could do for a four-bedroom house for his family was to agree to a rental of $980 per week while his own home is still under repair?Hon AMY ADAMS: As I mentioned a number of the issues referred to in the commissioner’s report relate to these housing-based issues and they are being looked at and considered by the Minister of Housing. I am sure that if the member wants to put specific issues to the Minister of Housing he would be happy to come back to him. What I would say to him is that the Canterbury Earthquake Temporary Accommodation Service has been set up for the very purpose of helping to connect homeowners in need of short-term accommodation with the available housing.Denis O’Rourke: What does the Minister say to the thousands of people who are still suffering interminable delays because their insurers and the Earthquake Commission cannot even agree whether their repairs will be under the $100000 cap or over it?Hon AMY ADAMS: What we would say to them as I said before is that this is an incredibly difficult period for people in Canterbury. We are aware of that. We acknowledge that. But it does not take away from the fact that this is an unprecedented event not only in its size but in the complexity of the issues. Everybody engaged in the process is doing all that they can to resolve it as fast as possible.Denis O’Rourke: What does the Minister say to the people whose homes are being repeatedly flooded because of dysfunctional andunrepaired drainage systems?Hon AMY ADAMS: There is no doubt that the flooding events of the last week have been incredibly difficult for a community that is already dealing with more than it should have to deal with. There are a number of issues around that one of which is that this is being regarded as a one-in-100-year flood. The timing of it is cruel and not fair on the people of Canterbury but it is what it is and the reality remains that everybody is working as hard as they can. Perhaps that member should direct his queries to the Christchurch City Council flood prevention strategy and see where that is at.Hon Ruth Dyson: Has he apologised to John Key and Cantabrians for turning the Prime Minister’s statement that “No one will be worse off as a result of these quakes.” from a promise of hope and support to a lie?Hon AMY ADAMS: I completely reject the assertion in that question.State-owned Assets Sales—Discussions with Indian Government12.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) to theMinister of Energy and Resources: Has he had any discussions with any Indian Government Ministers about selling Solid Energy assets?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Acting Minister of Energy and Resources): He met with the Indian Minister of SteelShriBeni PrasadVerma on 30 January this year. His message was that the Government openly encourages international investment in our petroleum and minerals sector but that matters relating to joint developments are commercial matters. He did not engage with the Minister of Steel on selling Solid Energy assets and nor would that be within his responsibility as the Minister of Energy and Resources.Catherine Delahunty: How does he reconcile his response to the primary question with the comment made by the Indian Minister of Steel following this meeting: “We are looking forward to the Government of New Zealand … allocating mineral assets to Indian public sector companies on a Government to Government basis.”?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: He too has read that comment. The Minister of Steel made a number of comments during the meeting but the Minister of Energy and Resources was very clear that any discussions in regard to commercial arrangements needed to be had with Solid Energy and did not engage with him on comments that he made.Catherine Delahunty: Can he confirm that there are no planned Government to Government allocations of New Zealand coalmines or mining rights to Indian public sector companies?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Yes. From time to time individual companies—including for example Landcorp and Solid Energy—buy and sell assets but there is no plan for a Government to Government interaction in that regard.Catherine Delahunty: Therefore will he rule out the partial sale of Solid Energy or the sale of Solid Energy’s coalmines or mining rights to any foreign Government or foreign public sector company?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: That is not his responsibility but I would make the point to the member that actually New Zealand State-owned enterprises do buy and sell assets from time to time. They do under this Government; they did under the previous Government according to how it works. The member may have noticed that Solid Energy is in some difficulty and I am sure that it is exploring all its options.Standing OrdersSessionalHon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): I moveThat Meridian Energy Limited be a public organisation for the purposes of the Standing Orders. As a result of Meridian Energy ceasing to be a State-owned enterprise and becoming a mixed-ownership model company it is no longer subject to ongoing financial reviews by a select committee. To make Meridian Energy continue to be the subject of financial reviews it is necessary to use this process of tabling a motion in the House to deem Meridian Energy to be a public organisation under the Standing Orders. This means that when Meridian Energy’s annual report is tabled in the House it is then referred to a select committee for financial review. Mighty River Power was deemed to be a public organisation in the same way following its initial public offering and Air New Zealand goes through a similar process. We intend to recommend that Genesis Energy is treated in the same way following its initial public offering. This process is repeated for the non - State-owned enterprise companies at the start of each parliamentary term but they can all be done together of course once Genesis Energy is floated. The reason they are being done one at a time at the moment is simply the interaction of the cycle of the select committee hearings with the State-owned enterprise floats.Of course the Meridian Energy Ltd that comes before the select committee will be a different sort of company because it will now be subject to the scrutiny of the private market—that is the sharemarket shareholders analysts overseas experts and so on. I am sure that the select committee will find that when Meridian Energy Ltd turns up it will be a higher-performing company than it ever has been through its life as a company going back to the early 2000s when it was first created. Of course it is very important that it is well monitored because Meridian Energy is facing the same challenge as the other listed energy companies are and that is an increasingly competitive electricity market. If there is one thing that Governments ought to have learnt it is that a Government is not a good 100 percent owner of companies that are working to be profitable in a competitive market.There was a time when it was relatively easy for Meridian Energy to do well particularly under the previous Labour Government when the market was not that competitive the shareholder was not that demanding and demand for electricity was growing consistently. However that has all changed. Demand for electricity is now flat to falling and that means that these companies are going to have to be considerably more competitive than they were. There is no doubt that a competitive market is a better way to get results for the consumer and to get pressure on electricity companies todeliver better results for the consumer. That is innovation in the delivery of energy of which we will see an awful lot over the next 4 or 5 years; the lowest efficient prices that can be generated; and better more sustainable returns to shareholders.I want to give just one example of how a more competitive market has delivered for New Zealand energy consumers. Security of supply has become much less of an issue than it used to be. For instance in the 8 years of the last Labour Government there were four dry year emergencies out of those 8 years—four dry year emergencies where we had high-level intervention by Ministers and we had campaigns for consumers to stop them using electricity. Under this Government and more important in a more competitive electricity market we have dealt with two extreme climate events very well. For instance 2012 saw inflows into South Island hydro lakes that were the lowest recorded in the first 6 months of any year on record. That was then followed in 2013 by the worst drought in 70 years. These were two extreme weather events and both were handled competently effectively and efficiently by a more competitive electricity market.If there is one thing that would certainly not work it would be to follow the Green Party’s NZ Power policy—the Green Party’s NZ Power policy. For instance I was today asked a question about whether falling demand should be reflected in prices not falling. Well the NZ Power policy guarantees that as demand falls prices do not. It guarantees that because it guarantees a return to the owners of the generating assets. When the Labour Party members get up they should explain that point. They should explain how the NZ Power proposal will handle falling demand. They should explain that. In the absence of a better explanation here is what will happen. As demand falls prices are guaranteed not to fall—guaranteed not to fall.That comes on top of the other aspect of the NZ Power policy which is the Greens’ emissions trading system policy which Labour in its efforts to try to distance itself from the Greens never mentions now. But actually as part of the NZ Power policy the emissions trading system policy of the Greens will add $500 a year to household electricity bills. It is designed to drive down demand. It will add $500 a year to power prices but as demand falls prices will not be able to fall. So that will be the worst of all possible worlds.Meridian Energy will front up to a select committee once this motion is passed and it is deemed to be a public organisation. It will be a sharper more commercial company and better at delivering lower prices to consumers. I invite members to consider what the future of Air New Zealand would have been had the previous Labour Government not floated some of it on the stock market.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This debate is about the status of Meridian Energy and whether or not it should be declared a public organisation for the purposes of the Standing Orders. It is not a general debate. Members must confine their comments to Meridian Energy and whether it should be declared a public organisation under the Standing Orders.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I obviously understand that ruling but I am also clear that in the earlier part of the finance Minister’s speech he spoke about the electricity market more broadly. I expect that members on this side of the House will be able to do that as well.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Sure sure. I am just making that clear now. The Minister has 2 minutes remaining to focus the last part of his speech specifically on what the Business Committee has allowed to happen. I am asking the Minister to continue.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is just a simple question. Given that you have ruled in the twilight period of the Minister’s speech areother members going to be given the same level of scope as the Minister had in his first 8 minutes?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am just making it very clear that although the Minister has said things that probably are outside the scope of the motion by mentioning other things I will allow a little bit of latitude but I will not allow a 10-minute speech as a general debate on these matters. [Interruption] Order! The Business Committee has given permission for this debate to happen and we will confine our comments specifically to the motion at hand.Hon BILL ENGLISH: I accept your ruling. The Government of course is proposing that Meridian Energy be deemed a public organisation because it still remains 51 percent owned by the Crown with 85 percent owned by New Zealanders and 49 percent publicly floated. I support the motion.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): Adhering to your ruling Mr Assistant Speaker I am going to confine my comments in the same way the Minister of Finance did. Labour will support this motion—Hon Bill English: Support the Government. Good on you.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: No no. Labour will support this motion not because we support in any way shape or form the asset sales but because we actually support this Parliament having a level of scrutiny over this entity. If this motion was not passed—and by the way this is another example of a stuff-up by that Minister and his Government because the Clerk advised me that it would have been possible to bundle all of these motions and it could have been done after the original legislation was passed. They could have been bundled up so that we would not be sitting here doing this in an incremental amateur-hour fashion. We want to examine Meridian Energy in a financial review. If this Minister had had his way and if there had not been so much public outrage he probably would not have put this motion up because we cannot now access the Official Information Act in respect of this organisation. Our powers are rather limited but at least we have the opportunity by passing this motion to examine this State-owned enterprise in respect of the financial reviews.I said in part of my speech that this is another example of a Government stuff-up because if you look at Meridian Energy it is a complete mess. In fact if we look at the whole mixed-ownership model how it was kicked off and how it was dealt with we find that it was indeed a complete mess. The Minister talked about high-level Government intervention. Well if ever there was an example of almost micro-management it is from the Minister for State Owned Enterprises who complicit with the Minister of Finance walked over in the dead of night without telling the board—and it confirmed that when it came and had a chat with us a couple of weeks ago—to do a nice little cosy deal with a company called RioTinto which made $US3.7 billion in profits last year I think. It was that Minister.Meridian Energy which is supposed to be independent had advised the Government that it had reached the bottom line. It could not negotiate a deal. The Government swept in threw in a $30 million sweetener halved the notice period for RioTinto to pull the pin and threw in a cheaper electricity price all of which was paraded and wrapped up by the Minister of Finance as some sort of job guarantee protection scheme for the people of Southland. If that were true it would be helpful to the people of Southland. Then we found out on Kathryn Ryan’s show—where we were both interviewed—when he was asked a really simple question about whether he asked for a jobs guarantee in return for all the little bits of—Hon David Parker: Corporate welfare.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: —corporate welfare that he gave to RioTinto that the answer was no. He did not even have the brains or the gumption this Minister toask RioTinto for a jobs guarantee. I accept that it may have said no. I accept that. But there is an old adage around here that if you do not ask you do not get. So because this Government had nailed itself to a must-sell time frame RioTinto sat back turned the screw and when it reached the threshold of pain on this Government and this Minister was bent over a barrel it just sprang the trap.The problem is that next time—because of course Meridian Energy post-2017 can pull the pin—Meridian Energy will just rerun the scenario except that the board will be in an even weaker situation because this Minister came over the top and put in the sweetener of corporate welfare. So the board will go in with very little moral authority and very little leverage and RioTinto—as we know it will do—will spring the trap and say: “Well we might have to pull the pin and get out of here.” because of Bill English’s ineptitude and stupidity.I have got to say that it was reported in theSouthland Times that the week before the ink was dry on the cheque for 30 million bucks RioTinto was already making machinists I think they were redundant. It was already into restructuring mode the week that Bill English signed the cheque before the ink was dry. He had the audacity to come into the House and in his answers to every question for oral answer portray this deal as protecting Southland jobs. Well we know that was totally untrue because that Minister did not even have the brains or the gumption to ask for a jobs guarantee.This is also the Minister who along with his outgoing retiring colleague Tony Ryall—you know how there is a tradition around here that when you leave they give you a silver tray; I think in his case it will be a silver candelabra. He will go down in history as the worst most negligent Minister for State Owned Enterprises. He is the man who in the Solid Energy deal stood by and just let it all happen.Hon David Parker: Told them to borrow more.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: He told it to borrow more. He told it he wanted more dividends. He ramped up its gearing to around 42 percent when mineral companies have about 0 to 10 percent gearing. Ms PipDunphy the acting chair of Solid Energy was asked by the Commerce Committee today whether had Solid Energy had a gearing ratio that was similar to other international minerals companies—that is 0 to 10 percent—that company would be in the dire straits that it is in today. The answer was no we would not be. We would not be.Hon David Parker: What did Mr Palmer say the previous chair?Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Oh well of course Mr John Palmer was waxing eloquently and orbiting a stratosphere that a number of us have not been to because he could not agree. They kept arguing about the price of coal not arguing about how you manage the path of the price of coal. He also of course—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Meridian. It’s on Meridian.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Indeed yes I am getting to that. We are not up to 8 minutes yet but I take your point. Mr Palmer of course confirmed that the Government had put pressure on Solid Energy to increase its borrowing ratios.In respect of Meridian Energy the two shareholding Ministers Mr Ryall and Mr English have presided over a complete debacle. These are the Ministers who said originally—in fact it was the Prime Minister who said that the original figure for the mixed-ownership model sales would be around $10 billion. Then it went down to—Hon David Parker: And sold to mums and dads.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: —and sold to mums and dads—about $8 billion then it was $7 billion then it was $5 billion to $7 billion. Now we know that the total amount not including Genesis which is the smallest of the lot is around $3.93 billion. That is a great success according to Bill English and Tony Ryall.Hon David Parker: And how many New Zealanders?Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: How many New Zealanders? Very very few. Look at Mighty River Power—Hon David Parker: Less than 2 percent.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: —less than 2 percent. Look at Mighty River Power which gained just 113000 so-called mums and dads. Then we find out that that of course includes companies and trusts. Then you had Meridian Energy the one we are debating at the moment where 63000 mum and dad shareholders signed up—half as many as Mighty River Power—a short time later. Then of course less than 0.1 percent of the population signed up for Air New Zealand. This is widespread mum and dad - like public ownership! Of course those people who did sign up for Mighty River Power have taken a bath. Meridian Energy has basicallyflatlined. Air New Zealand—who knows where it will go? So I say to Mr English what gall the man has to stand up and somehow take credit somehow say that this mixed-ownership model has worked.Hon Bill English: Very successful. Very successful.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: He says it is very successful. I say this to Mr English: if his Prime Minister were still working for Merrill Lynch—Hon Bill English: Good value for taxpayers.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Oh a good deal for taxpayers! Well I say this: what planet is that member on? Normally when you sell something you try to maximise the return for the owner. If John Key were still at Merrill Lynch he would say to the owner—that is the taxpayer—“You’re not going to maximise a return on these assets if you sell them now or probably in the future. Pull the pin.” The taxpayer could have got between $7 billion and $10 billion and then it was between $5 billion and $7 billion. The poor old taxpayers were washed up in a fire sale with $3.93 billion plus a few dollars thrown in and with Genesis Energy over the top. That is a disgrace that is a fire sale and that is selling most of it to your mates.We know what happened under “Mad Max” Bradford. Contact Energy was predominantly Kiwi-owned. Then of course the share register changed and now it is overwhelmingly foreign-owned. And we know what will happen to the dividends of Meridian Energy. Half of them will end up of course not in the public purse. One or two shekels might go to the odd mum and dad shareholder and the rest will head overseas. That is really smart economics—really smart. It is ridiculous. It is a fire sale. And the reason—Hon Bill English: Very successful.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: He says: “Very successful.” Well he will take that to the grave. He will take that to his political grave all right. That will be on his headstone. That will be on his headstone. And mums and dads who used to own 100 percent of these shares and get the benefit of 100 percent of those dividends know he sold the family silver in a fire sale.JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): I am rising to speak on this Government motion No. 1 today because the National Government has insisted on privatising our State-owned energy companies including selling 49 percent of Meridian Energy at an extremely poor time to be selling electricity assets. John Key persisted with the asset sales despite the fact that they were very unpopular with New Zealanders who voted 2:1 against the partial privatisation in a citizens initiated referendum last year. John Key has persisted in the asset sales even though they do not make economic sense. Even theDominion Post—not exactly known as a progressive publication—has described the asset sales as bordering on “economic vandalism”.The asset sales including the partial privatisation of Meridian Energy have cost over half a billion dollars to date once we include the partial sale of Genesis that the Government has announced. The Government’s excuse for the privatisation and sale of49 percent of Meridian Energy was that it was going to help us pay down debt. We know that that is not true. Treasury’s own numbers show that the partial sale of our State-owned energy companies is actually costing us money. It is actually costing us quite a good deal of money—half a billion dollars. It is actually worsening the Crown’s fiscal position because the returns that these companies were earning were higher than the cost of borrowing. So it is not actually paying down debt. If anything we have seen numbers that show that the fact that the Government has sold some of these highly productive assets is actually going to reduce its surplus in several years’ time.We also know that the National Government actually created its own hole in the Budget by giving away tax cuts to the top 10 percent of income earners. These tax cuts to the top 10 percent of income earners are going to have cost us more by the election this year than we will have earned by selling off our productive energy companies. So the total revenue from the asset sales thus far is less than $4 billion yet the tax cuts will have cost us more than $4 billion by the election this year. The National Government is quite keen to sign us up for new debt in the shape of sneaky public-private partnerships for motorways that have extremely poor business cases like thePūhoi to Warkworth motorway and Transmission Gully.Why would the National Government go ahead with this partial privatisation—the sale of our productive publicly owned energy companies including 49 percent of Meridian Energy—if it does not make economic sense? The answer is that it benefits the Government’s mates and that there is a bit of political ideology going on here. Earlier today the Minister of Finance said that the Government simply was not a good 100 percent owner of State-owned energy companies. Well clearly there is a little bit of that ideology against public ownership that is going on here with the National Party but also it was really about its mates the top 2 percent who had piles of cash sitting around and were able to buy up these assets at a really good price. The taxpayer got a bit short-changed in the sale of Meridian Energy but the top 2 percent of New Zealanders who had thousands of dollars just sitting around to invest in energy companies got a really good deal. Potentially they will be earning those returns instead of New Zealand mums and dads—the taxpayers who would have been earning the returns on those companies if we had maintained public ownership.The Green Party was proud to stand up against the privatisation of Meridian Energy. We are very proud to have brought the high cost of it to the attention of the public. Let me just enumerate the different costs in the sale of our State-owned energy companies including Meridian Energy. There is the cost to Treasury and the energy companies themselves the give-aways to share buyers the forgone dividends that we will not be getting back in years to come the losses on the sale and to top it all off a payout to RioTinto. If you add all of that up together we are at almost half a billion dollars. The direct sales of Genesis shares are likely to total a further $20 million plus tens of millions for the bonus share give-away and potentially much more.That half a billion dollars could have been used for other things that would actually generate a return for New Zealanders. We could have employed literally hundreds or thousands of teachers and nurses improving our health system and improving our education system. That is the type of investment that the Green Party would like to make in our country not selling off public assets to benefit the top 2 percent; not selling off public assets and forgoing dividends for years to come and giving a subsidy to a private company RioTinto in order to keep the share prices of Meridian Energy a little bit higher although it was still a bit of a fire sale.The Green Party has put forward positive solutions to households’ high energy costs. One of those wasEmpowering New Zealand which was a discussion document on electricity reform. We announced it at the same time that the Labour Party announced asimilar inquiry into the possibility of electricity reform. It is colloquially known as NZ Power.Just to give one an example of how NZ Power would work it is basically establishing a single buyer that will negotiate cheaper prices for all of us. We all know that despite the fact that electricity demand is flat as the Minister of Finance has just said prices for households have been going up and Kiwis are paying $360 more for power per year since the National Government came to power. That is a sign that our electricity market is not working and it is because it is dominated by the four big generator-retailers.The partial sale and privatisation of the publicly owned generator-retailers is not going to reduce power prices for New Zealanders. If anything it will do the opposite. As foreign private owners of those shares in those companies seek to maximise returns there will be pressure on the companies to ratchet up power prices even more. So the partial privatisation has cost the taxpayer. It is going to end up costing households. The Green Party is here with a solution that will bring down power prices by ensuring we have a single buyer that can negotiate with these now privately owned power companies. Just asTīwai Point has been able to directly negotiate cheap power prices with Meridian Energy for many years NZ Power will act in the same way by negotiating on behalf of households.We also obviously want to strengthen the role of energy efficiency and green energy within our electricity system. Meridian Energy for a long time has had a focus on renewables but arguably it is the only big player that has and that is just due to the fact that it is highly invested in hydro power. What we need is some mandate in the electricity market. We need someone with a mandate to focus on new renewable generation and where that is going to come from. The National Government is not on track to meet its own target of 90 percent renewable generation by 2025. It is very difficult to see how the partial privatisation particularly the partial privatisation of Meridian Energy is going to help in that respect. So the Green Party is proposing a smart idea that is not only going to bring down power prices for New Zealanders but also going to get a better deal for taxpayers and help increase the share of renewable generation.Of course the other smart idea that we announced recently was the Solar Homes package. That does not involve a direct subsidy to anyone unlike the Government’s subsidy to RioTinto to prop up the price of Meridian Energy but it does harness the Crown’s lower cost of borrowing and passes on those benefits to regular New Zealand households to help them purchase photovoltaic solar panels. That will help them be more independent and reduce their power prices. It will increase the total reliability of our network by having micro-generation spread across a wider number of households and the total amount of renewable electricity that is being used here in New Zealand. The Green Party cares about New Zealand families and households and we care about the long-term future of this country. If we are going to deal with long-term challenges like climate change we need to be investing now. We need those smart policies. Privatisation of Meridian Energy is taking us in the wrong direction. The Green Party wants to take us to a smarter greener future.Hon DAVID PARKER (Deputy Leader—Labour): The Labour Party will be supporting this motion because we want to have Meridian Energy scrutinised every year at select committee so that we can highlight the differences in outcome from the policies that National is pursuing compared with those that would be secured for New Zealanders in a way that would reduce their annual household electricity bill by around $300 per annum. Mr English at the start of this debate asked us on this side of the House to explain how it works. In order to get an understanding of that you have to have go back in history a bit and think about what has already happened.Meridian Energy is the largest hydro-power producer in New Zealand. That hydro power is amongst the cheapest electricity to produce in the world. The cost of production of that electricity has not changed materially in the last couple of decades. It will not have gone up even by the overall cost of inflation. The cost of producing electricity has not changed very much but the price that is paid for that hydroelectricity to Meridian Energy has gone up year after year after year because of the pricing model that is used. As the cost of new electricity from alternative sources like gas—which doubled in price—and alternatives to gas like geothermal and wind went up under the current pricing model the price paid for hydro power has risen to the same level essentially. So the price that is paid for hydro power has risen far far above the cost that it takes to produce it.This Government the prior Labour Government and the National Government before that went along with that while the extra profit that was being taken from that hydro power was going back to public purposes. The extra profit that has been taken as a consequence of the price in overall electricity prices does not come from a change in the hydro station; it has actually come from the free public fuel that flows through those hydro stations. We all went along with that when that was being recycled via the Government’s books into other things that the Government spends money on for taxpayers like hip operations or educational services. But what the Government has done now is privatise that benefit through the sale of those assets to private shareholders so instead of the public getting the benefit from the public rivers that are driving that electricity it is actually private shareholders who are getting it. We say that that is unfair. We say as a consequence that we should not put up with this profiteering from our public rivers which drive the hydro stations that Meridian Energy makes most of its money from.So how do you fix it? Well there are two ways you could fix it. You could price water. You could charge companies for the use of their water and then you could recycle that money again through hip operations and education services for the benefit of New Zealanders. That was one option that we could have pursued. The reason we did not pursue that option was that that would have been characterised by the Government and by some of the industry participants as pushing up electricity prices even though it would not have. It would have been characterised in that way and therefore we would not have been able to achieve the benefit for New Zealanders that we want to which is equivalent to $300 a year for an average consumer.The alternative is to say that you will pay different sorts of electricity producers different amounts for their power. In respect of hydro power which is so cheap to produce you do not pay them the same amount as someone who is making wind power geothermal power or gas-fired power or indeed hydro power from a newer hydro facility because you effectively take as a proxy for the price of water a reduction in the amount that they are paid for their hydroelectricity. Is this practical?Well in September last year in advance of Meridian Energy shares being offered First NZ Capital put out a document calledMeridian Energy Limited: Cash Flow Powerhouse. In it First NZ Capital considered the prospects of Meridian Energy including what would happen if the Labour proposal was imposed. It said this is how it could work. Bill English obviously has not read this. I am surprised that Treasury has not brought it to his attention given that it is a publicly available document.The document reads: “Step 1: Hydro generators are compelled by legislation to sign fixed sum annual contracts in return for all their future hydro revenue.”—that is they get paid their operating costs plus a fair return on their capital. That is the historic cost of those dams—not some artifice that is later calculated but what those dams cost them when they bought them. They are paid a fair return on capital plus their operating costswhich is a far lower sum than they get under the current market model which is privatising those extra amounts to others. “Hydro generators are compelled by legislation to sign fixed sum annual contracts in return for all their future hydro revenue.” You have got to control when the water is released and the document suggests that this would be “passed to the electricity System Operator (currently part of Transpower)” and we agree that that is how it would work.It continues: “Step 2:NZPower extractsswaption agreements from all the major thermal plant to limit its exposure to spot purchase cost”. Then “NZPower interposes itself into the current settlement process” and the market continues to work. Indeed the market would work better in our view because you would be able to separate retailers from the generators and you would get more retail competition as well. In step 4 according to this report from First NZ Capital “Financial impacts ongentailers would now be largely in place” and these steps could be completed within 1 to 2 years. So within 1 to 2 years under a Labour Government you would have processes in place that would strip out all that extra money that is being robbed from New Zealanders from the value of our public rivers and given to the 1 or 2 percent of New Zealanders who have purchased shares in those electricity companies. That money instead would flow through to lower electricity prices. The average New Zealand residential consumer would save $300 a year—around that amount—and commercial users and others would save around 5 percent on their bills.This is what would happen if you had a decent Government stopping the privatisation effectively of our rivers because that is what has happened. The Government is privatising the value of those rivers for the private shareholders of the likes of Meridian Energy to the detriment of everyone else—the 98 percent who do not get that private benefit from our rivers. This would reverse that. It would also increase competition in the market by separating retailers from generators. We would have greater competition in retail and we would have more transparency with people bringing on more generation. They would be less reliant on physical hedges if they were retailers and if they were people who just wanted to generate they could sell that into a proper market without having to be a giant generator-retailer themselves.You would get more small generators entering on the generation side you would get more competition at retail and you would have more competitive pressure on prices. You would have better demand management because those people could bid in. Instead of increases in capacity you could have someone aggregating efficiency or taking the peak off demand which is expensive to cater for. That might be someone like Vector in Auckland aggregatingphotovoltaics in the future in a cost-effective manner so you could take the peaks off demand. You would have increased competition at retail and you would have increased competition for people wishing to supply new generation because they would not need to be a generator-retailer either. You would find that some people who are willing to invest in that sort of thing would probably accept a lower rate of return than the generators that are involved in the current less competitive market.As I have said the super-profits that have been taken off our rivers would be stripped out of the system and fed into the market in a way that would reduce prices. Rather than this being an abolition of all markets it is actually not; it is just changing the way in which they are structured. It would be fairer to New Zealanders who live in a country where we have amongst the lowest electricity production costs in the world with 60 percent of our electricity being probably the lowest-cost electricity in the world like other hydro-rich areas. Those benefits would flow through to consumers.We have plenty of disadvantages in New Zealand. We are distant from large markets with the risks of exports and exchange rate fluctuations being faced earlier by our businesses than in countries with larger economies. Those other economies do not facethe transport costs that we have for long distance exports. For goodness sake! At least our businesses could have the advantage of our natural bounty which is low-cost electricity rather than concentrating that benefit in the hands of the 2 percent of people who purchased shares in the likes of Meridian Energy.TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Every now and then it is worth stating the obvious. I think I am probably repeating the obvious but let us be clear. This motion is necessary only because Meridian Energy Ltd has been partially sold by the National Government. Let us be 100 percent clear: that is why the motion is needed. It is our view that the sale of Meridian Energy Ltd was completely contrary to New Zealand’s national interest.This motion merely cements in the fact that a National Government has been a complete and utter disaster for the New Zealand electricity system. The National Government took a functional and essentially sound system run by a Government department and destroyed it. Starting with Max Bradford’s theory-driven ideologically based so-called reforms it has foisted a total dog’s breakfast on the New Zealand public and this motion shows that it has learnt nothing. This madness—the folly that keeps on taking—continues. After over 5 years in Government National has brought absolutely zero improvement to this sector.The Minister of Finance’s opening speech merely reinforced that this National Government is still addicted to the market however much a fantasy that is especially in the electricity generation and distribution sector. Through the sale that necessitated this motion what do we actually have to thank this National Government for? Firstly for high electricity prices for New Zealanders despite as Mr Parker just said New Zealand as a nation having a great advantage in renewable energy sources notably in hydro power. It is a huge comparative advantage that has been squandered. We now have a system that is good only for generating higher prices for the long-suffering consumer. We now have a system of mind-numbing bewildering complexity under which any sort of price hike can be rationalised and justified. Thanks to a National Government the electricity sector is now so bewildering so arcane and so impenetrable that it needs an army of consultants and business.Thanks to a National Government we have a proliferation of organisations in this sector. We have an explosion of management and chief executive officers all generating immense costs in justifying their existence. Recently we had the absurd spectacle of the Electricity Authority trying to tell us that night was actually day. It claimed that a study of power charges over the last 30 years shows that “consumers in the past were hugely under-charged for their electricity.” This breathtaking claim was of course immediately exposed for the nonsense that it was by objective and independent commentators but this is typical of the Orwellian double-speak that now characterises the official party line on the electricity sector. Many a National Party spin doctor would be proud of the audacity of the Electricity Authority’s ability to rewrite history. With the $230000 that Dr Brent Layton receives as chairperson of the board of Meridian Energy and the $270000 that the chief executive officer Carl Hansen receive—along with a possible performance bonus of an additional $48000—the New Zealand public are quite right to ask what actual value the Electricity Authority provides.But of course no National Minister has any interest in the real truth and the truth is that over the past decade electricity prices have risen at twice the rate of inflation. National’s asset sales programme including the partial sale of Meridian Energy has been an act of economic sabotage. It is nothing less than an economic crime. It is no exaggeration to say that the sale of public energy assets like Meridian Energy has been an exercise in robbing the people of New Zealand to favour a few.We pick up the point that Mr Parker made around water. When I was recently in the Republic of China a local Minister asked me: “How will you defend your water when the water crisis comes?”. We do not need an army to try to come and take our water. The National Government has started selling our access to it through partial privatisation of our rivers and through the partial privatisation of our power companies.Electricity supply is fundamental to society and the economy. It is the basis of our standard of living. Yet instead of creating electricity policy on the basis of the common good and on the basis of the national interest the National Government has used it to loot the public.This motion is a meaningless procedural gesture. It is an insult to the public. After all the damage this National Government has done to an essential part of New Zealand’s infrastructure New Zealand First will strongly oppose this motion.DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): This motion would be opposed by the Labour Party but the inevitable has happened now that these State-owned enterprises have been sold off. The State-owned enterprises have been sold off and what has happened? Our electricity prices have started to go up at a rate that is extraordinary. I have just received power bills from people who have told me that their Meridian Energy power price has gone up by 15 percent—15 percent their bill has gone up by. This is what a person said to me when they wrote in: “Attached is the advice I received from Meridian Energy telling me to expect a 15 percent increase in my electricity bill at a property I own.”—a 15 percent increase—“Meridian Energy blames the lines companies for this increase.” Are you telling me that the lines companies have put his bill up by 15 percent? I do not believe that. I do not believe that and all over the country right now people are receiving bills with 10 11 12 13 14 and 15 percent increases.This is what the person went on to say. He said he had tried to get in contact with Meridian Energy—rung it up written to it—and still does not have an adequate explanation of why that power price has gone through the roof. He said to me: “It is of course impossible to work out from a typical power bill who is taking what cut as amongst the retailer the lines company or Transpower. Obfuscation seems to be the standard practice in the power industry. We don’t know what is going on because it suits the power industry to make sure that it stays that way.”This is in a country where John Key said that power price increases and the power price at the moment were OK. Simon Bridges our Minister of Energy and Resources said that actually power was not too expensive. For most New Zealanders they have seen power prices increase in the last year by four times the rate of inflation—four times the rate of inflation. So while inflation has been going up at 1 percent the power prices have been going up at a rate of at least 4 percent. That is wrong. That is wrong because we know right now that the electricity market at the moment into which the Government has sold Meridian Energy is oversupplied and has been oversupplied for the last 5 or 6 years that it will continue to be oversupplied for electricity probably for the next 5 to 10 years and that the demand has actually gone down. Free-market principles would tell you that in that sort of situation prices come down. The Government says the market is working efficiently. Adam Smith of course would be very interested in this because apparently it does a different thing to what he actually proposed back in the 18th century. Prices are going up despite the market being oversupplied and demand is going down. That is absolutely wrong.A number of companies are making a lot of money out there. One of those companies is the company we are talking about at the moment which has just been sold off. Its new private shareholders are not mums and dads. They are not mums and dads; they are the corporates. They are the 2 percent of the population that can afford to buyshares. They are the overseas companies that have bought into our industry so that the profits can be shipped off offshore and our current account deficit can get ever-steadily worse. Those companies are going to be demanding more profit. That is why people like the person whom I have spoken to and who has written to me says that his power bill is going up by about 15 percent.That is why we oppose asset sales that is why we oppose electricity price increases and that is why we support this motion. This is a cynical Government which took hold of Transpower. The person who sent me this Meridian Energy power bill is asking the question that is on everybody’s lips. If anybody is watching this right now and wants to send me their power bill please send it to me with the story of the power increases in your household. I would be happy to read those out talk about those and take those to the Government. This person does not know what part of his bill is what. It is just a big blur. Well let us take the power increase in Wellington alone which is 7 percent if you are with Contact Energy. If you are with Contact Energy it is 7 percent. Of that 4 percent is supposed to come from the lines companies.The lines company in the Wellington area says well actually 2 percent was passed on by Transpower. What is the story with Transpower? Transpower used to have a generator dividend a profit and that dividend was spent by the previous Government on upgrading our electricity grid. This Government—no no no—says: “No you give this Government the dividend because we need it to balance our books. You charge the consumers for the upgrade of the grid.” That is exactly what has happened. If you are wondering why your power bill is going up and why your Transpower prices are going up that is the reason. Two percent of that electricity price increase in the Wellington area is Transpower. Two percent is the lines company increases. Who knows where the other 3 percent came from? We have no idea because the power bills at the moment will not spell that out.The Electricity Authority created in 2010 4 years ago finally woke up to the fact that there might be a problem with the electricity prices in New Zealand—finally woke up. Mr Brent Layton who is the chair of the Electricity Authority after passing on a lot of information to the Minister of Energy and Resources to help him with combating our New Zealand power policy said he probably would not work under a Labour Government. Well that is fine. He has finally come to the realisation that the authority is going to have to look at this particular issue.Yesterday I drafted a member’s bill to go into the ballot so that in our power bills the charges will be unbundled. We will have the generation charge the wholesale charge the Transpower charge the retail charge the lines company charge and so on. Each of those will be separated out because we cannot have the situation we have at the moment where it is a complete blame game between all of those various parts of the electricity sector. Two hours after I put out my press release the Electricity Authority put out its press release and said it was going to look at the “blame game”—it used the same language. It is going to look at the blame game and it is going to try to distinguish between the various components of the electricity market. It needs to do that because like this Government it has looked the other way and relied on a market that is clearly broken while power prices have continued to go up. Meridian Energy’s power prices have gone up Mighty River Power’s prices have gone up and Contact Energy’s power prices have gone up. They are all blaming each other and blaming the lines companies but I can tell you one thing about one lines company called Vector which dropped its prices by 8.4 percent—at the instruction of the Commerce Commission I might add but nevertheless it dropped it by 8.4 percent—and guess how much of that 8.4 percent flowed through to the customer? Zero percent. The power companies pocketed that saving instead of passing it on. They pocketed that saving to increase their profits.This legislation where we have split off these power companies will add to the power prices of New Zealanders. They will hit those people who can least afford to pay. We will see more disconnections. There were a record number of disconnections more than at any time in the past in the third quarter of last year. More people than at any time in the past had their power disconnected and that is just because of this Government.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Members this debate has concluded. The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye to the contrary No. The Ayes have it.Le’aufa’amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR (NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am terribly sorry. I missed the counting. You went so fast. We wanted to vote on that motion.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I have already declared the result that the motion was passed. Members must be observant and listen to the proceedings of the House. I cannot allow it. I have already put the vote. No one opposed it. No one asked for a party vote and so my ruling stands.Le’aufa’amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR (NZ First): I totally accept the fact that perhaps I was not alert at the time when you were calling for the voting and I apologise for that. However with your guidance can I please seek leave of the House to reconsider giving the opportunity for New Zealand First to put forward its vote?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am just seeking some advice on this matter. The member can seek leave to have her party’s vote recorded. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection.A party vote was called for on the questionThat Meridian Energy Limited be a public organisation for the purposes of the Standing Orders.Ayes112New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14;Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1; Independent: Horan.Noes7New Zealand First 7.Motion agreed to.Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3)Third ReadingHon TODD McCLAY (Minister of Revenue): I moveThat the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) be now read a third time. This bill continues the Government’s efforts to ensure proper governance over the student loan scheme by proposing tougher measures to deal with persistent non-payers and by raising the repayment obligation of overseas-based borrowers. Although the overwhelming majority of borrowers accept the responsibility to repay their taxpayer-funded loan the reality is that some do not despite having the financial ability to do so. The main provision in the bill will allow the Inland Revenue Department to seek an arrest warrant to deal with the small group of mainly overseas-based borrowers. As I previously made clear this action would be taken only in the most serious of cases when the borrower clearly has a financial ability to pay and when all other efforts to persuade that person to make their repayments to the New Zealand taxpayer have failed.The second major proposal in this bill raises the repayment obligation for overseas-based borrowers to bring them more in line with their New Zealand-based counterparts. Overseas borrowers with a loan balance over $45000 will now have their repaymentrates increased. This will speed up the repayment rates for these borrowers and reduce the amount of interest that they have to pay on their loans. These are the principal features of the bill.I want to acknowledge the work of those who have contributed to the successful passage of this bill so far. Particularly my thanks go to the policy officials and drafters who have worked on the detail of this bill. I want to recognise members of the public and representative groups who have made submissions on the proposed legislation and have come before the Finance and Expenditure Committee and the committee itself for its recommendations to improve the transparency and cohesiveness of the student loan scheme. Finally I want to thank all those who will vote in favour of this bill because what this does is it sends a very clear message to those who have been afforded a very good education—because the taxpayer has decided to provide them with loans that are interest free in New Zealand with interest when they go overseas—that they do have an obligation to hard-working New Zealanders New Zealand taxpayers up and down this country who have made this possible.Finally I must thank members of the House for recognising the importance of these measures and ensuring that the student loan scheme is managed efficiently and fairly. The student loan scheme and the student loan debt book are in better shape than they have been. They are certainly in better shape than when those opposite left the Government benches and they are much much better than they will be when—one day in the future—they come back and ruin it again. Thank you.Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): Well that was a poor excuse for a third reading speech from the member opposite the Hon Todd McClay. He is normally better than that. He really failed on the whole way through this bill the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) to give any good justification for the gimmick the tasteless gimmick that is contained in this bill—the movement by that party opposite to bring populist politics into the collection of debt for the student loan scheme.On this side of the House we support entirely the collection of student debt. Those who have borrowed in order to get ahead to better their own lot to better the lot of their families we believe should repay the loans so that other generations can get ahead. This Government takes quite a different view. It does not really pursue constructive options to regain the debt. It does not. It washes its hands of it and then gives out these gimmicks that cannot be enforced and if they can be enforced they are tasteless and likely to alienate young New Zealanders. Instead it is focused on restricting access to education. This is the Government that is restricting access to education.Let us not forget that the interest-free loan scheme that we have in New Zealand was introduced by the Clark Labour Government. We had an interest-bearing loan scheme before that. Let us not forget also the many moves that Steven Joyce has taken to restrict access to tertiary education. We on the Labour Party side of the House believe that every New Zealander should have the opportunity to get ahead should have the opportunity to make the best of their talents and if they choose to pursue tertiary education for their own benefit for the benefit of their families communitieswhānau they ought to have that opportunity and they should not be restricted from studying on the basis of not having enough money in their wallets or in their parents’ wallets to pursue that education.This Government now supports the interest-free student loan scheme through gritted teeth—gritted teeth. It has introduced administration charges because it could not return interest to the loans without really facing a huge backlash. But the students of New Zealand have woken up to it. The Government is not popular on campus. When I have been to visit in Otago [Interruption] there is a rising unpopularity among students asthey realise that this Government is restricting access to education more and more and more.I have an example of that. I hear an example is being called for from the other side. There is a 23 percent drop in the number of students claiming a student allowance in Dunedin this year as compared with the previous year which shows that the Government’s policies are pricing New Zealanders out of education. Postgraduate students are no longer eligible to receive a student allowance nor are students who are studying towards a degree that takes over 200 weeks to complete. This constant restriction to access to education is a pattern. This is a Government that wants to preserve the interests of capital.It is the same justification the same reason for restricting representation on university councils. This is the Government’s latest trick: converting university councils from a representative body that produces good outcomes by virtue of having all the stakeholders—the students the unions the staff the academics and management principles—represented around the board table to a cutback model that the universities do not like that the universities have spoken out against. And the question still lingers in the air: if Steven Joyce really believes that 20 people around the board table make ineffective decisions what is he doing with that Cabinet structure?Why is Steven Joyce making these decisions in the Cabinet structure which he hates? Why is he doing that? He is imposing on universities a system that they do not want which will produce less effective outcomes for New Zealanders. He is trying to stamp down on access to education through any means possible and that is an outrage. It is an absolute outrage. We on this side of the House the party of education the Labour Party the party that believes in access to education interest-free student loans and the betterment of our society will not let that go unchallenged.Hon Amy Adams: Well in this bill you have tocos it’s not in there.Dr DAVID CLARK: Ms Adams says “Well you have to let it gocos we’re just going to make it happen.” That is the kind of arrogant out-of-touch Government that we are seeing across the House. It is saying: “We are going to roll this through and we will not listen to any voices of criticism. We will charge interest when we like. We will put gimmicks into law when we like. At the borders we will stop people who are coming home to family funerals and we will arrest them and we will make an example of them. We will alienate young New Zealanders because we are only interested in preserving the interests of capital. We do not want just anybody showing up at the university. We are going to clamp down on the management structures”—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Look we are on a third reading debate. If the member looks at Speaker’s ruling 122/4 it says: “Members must confine themselves to the general principles of the bill as it emerged from the committee.” I have given some latitude and I ask the member in the time remaining to focus on the essence and the subject of what this bill is about.Dr DAVID CLARK: I will come back to the bill but I would note that the interjections opposite have inspired me to point out the hypocrisy from members across the House as they promote this as a bill that encourages education because they are against that and there are no two ways about it.The Tertiary Education Union said of this bill that it is “a poor alternative to making education more affordable and accessible”. Those are the words of a submitter to the Finance and Expenditure Committee and the Minister of Revenue got up and had the audacity to thank the submitters for making this bill easier to pass through the House. They did not like it. They tried to tell the Minister that this bill does not help with access to education that there is a cheap gimmick in it that is an attempt to popularise a voiceagainst access to education and this Government did not listen. The Minister has beans in his ears. He did not want to hear those submitters who were critical of the bill.The original intent of the student loan scheme was never to turn young New Zealanders into exiled enemies of the State. But the bill is so very National Party. There is no evidence at all that this bill will increase compliance reduce loan balances or any such thing. It is simple authoritarian posturing and I expect that students around New Zealand and those who have student loan balances will see it for what it is. This Government is a Government that is out of touch with the needs of New Zealanders. It is out of touch with the aspirations of New Zealanders to better themselves through a broader education and that is why we have this measure in the bill that is designed to further restrict access.The measure is designed to keep some of our talent overseas it seems because they will be fearful of coming home for a family wedding or a funeral. The police have said in respect of this part of the legislation the part that has the arrest at the border provision that they simply do not have the resources to implement it. So Mr Sabin opposite who was yelling before might like to ask his mates in the police why they said that and why they directly criticised this aspect of the bill that we are debating now. Why did his mates in the police say that the National Government has no idea—no idea—whatsoever what it is asking for here and that the police cannot implement this bill? You would have thought they would have spoken to each other but this is a Government that is out of touch. It is a Government that is out of touch and not interested in engaging even with those who would do the work of supporting it by implementing the populist measures it is trying to introduce today.We asked at the select committee of course for some estimates of how this would change the lot of ordinary New Zealanders what would happen at the border whether it could be implemented how it would be implemented and what measures would be used. And there was nothing convincing that told us that this bill would increase the repayment of student loan balances. We heard from the submitters only the credible answer that this will alienate young New Zealanders. This is a ridiculous measure it should not be in the bill and the Government members are very quiet about it it has to be said. There was not much in the previous speech mentioning that measure and they are rightly—and they have gone quiet—embarrassed about this legislation.John Hayes: No we’re not.Dr DAVID CLARK: Mr Hayes of course is the only one who is not and that is typical because I think he has missed the point. Mr Hayes is not embarrassed by it but he is on his own over on that side of the House and that is not an infrequent occurrence.This is a Government that is going after the big end of town. Sorry it is going out for the interests of the big end of town. I wish it was going after the big end of town. It is more interested in chasing one or two New Zealanders coming through the border who have a few thousand dollars outstanding but no means to repay it and it is letting in the meantime the likes of Google Facebook and others go completely unchallenged as they do not declare for tax purposes the revenues coming out of New Zealand. We know for example that Google declares for tax purposes only less than 5 percent of its revenues out of New Zealand.What is the Government across that side of the House doing about that? Absolutely nothing—absolutely nothing. It is chasing a few students saying “We’re going to arrest you at the border if you come home.” That is an arrogant out of touch Government that is posturing ahead of the election and that has no idea about how it is actually going to recoup the student loan balances. It is a Government that is out of touch and out of ideas and should be sent packing at the next election. We need a Labour Government thekind of Government that is interested in broadening access to education and in giving opportunities to all New Zealanders to better their lot for themselves and their families.PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): The previous speaker David Clark obviously came from the school that says that if you do not have a strong argument shout. That was his approach for that speech. It really surprises me because the Labour Party says that it supports the general principle that loan borrowers should meet repayment obligations for the money they have borrowed from the Crown. That is what it says. But when it comes to it Labour does not really want to do anything about it. The reality is that we have a problem with default for people not paying back their loans when they go overseas. We have 110000 overseas borrowers at the moment and 61370 of them are in default with an amount outstanding of $543 million and the total loan balance is estimated to be around $3 billion.That according to the Labour Party is not a problem it is not an issue and it is a ridiculous thing to even try to get it back whereas we here in the National Party take the responsible view towards taxpayers and the people who have borrowed money from the scheme. The responsible thing to do is to make sure that people pay their loans back. The alternative it seems to me is to carry on doing nothing. So when we know that somebody has a very large loan outstanding to fellow New Zealanders we just say hello to them at the airport say “Thanks. Have a nice day.” and do nothing about it. Well we are not going to do that any more and this proposal is for only when every other opportunity and avenue to encourage people to pay back their loans has been exhausted—to have a final sanction in place. I think that that is absolutely appropriate and very much in tune with the thoughts and needs of New Zealanders who want to make sure that their money is spent wisely.The Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) is part of National making the student loan scheme sustainable into the future because we know that we are not going to get very far if we are not even concerned about $543 million being owed to fellow New Zealanders and we are not going to lift a finger about getting it back. It seems to be a theme. There seems to be a theme in the Labour Party at the moment that you say one thing and you do another. You thunder about trusts and you have one of your own. You thunder about the politics of envy in leafy suburbs but you live in one yourself. You say that you care about paying back loans but when it comes to the crunch you do not do anything about it—you do not do anything about it. So this debate is all about making sure that the more than 100000 overseas-based borrowers do their duty and pay back those loans.I just want to drill into one area here that we are talking about. The potential for arrest at the border is a targeted measure aimed at those who consistently fail to meet their responsibility to repay their loans. I do want to say that there were some constructive comments during the select committee process particularly from the New Zealand First Party—not so much from the Labour Party unfortunately and the Greens still seem to have a rather adolescent attitude to all this which is that somehow we should just throw the money at everybody and it is not a big deal if they do not pay back the $543 million that is owed to fellow taxpayers. This bill is a responsible bill. It is about bringing some discipline back to the scheme. We have been stepping away very carefully very cautiously and sending a clear message that we expect people to pay back their loans. I think that is fitting and appropriate and on that basis I commend this bill to the House.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): The Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) represents a disingenuous and confused Government when it comes to the issue of student loans and student support. It is disingenuous because despite all the high-minded rhetoric about the importance of getting our loanspaid back the Government knows that doing this will affect very few loans. It will get very very little money back as a result of this bill but it is waving a giant big stick around that will have the effect of saying to many young New Zealanders overseas: “Don’t come home. Don’t bother. We don’t want to see you. We don’t want your contribution.” So on the one hand it is the big proud Paul Goldsmith standing up and saying “We’re not going to stand up for loan defaulters.” but on the other hand all through the documentation the message is “We’re not really going to use it.” So in other words it is disingenuous.The Government is trying to look good. It is a gimmick. It is not a proper policy to see student loans paid back. It is not a proper policy that talks to young New Zealanders overseas and says: “Come back home and contribute to your country.” It is a disingenuous gimmick from the National Government to look like it is being tough on loan defaulters and to look like it is doing something about getting student loans paid back but in reality all it is doing is putting a gimmick in front of New Zealanders.This is a Government that is out of touch with those New Zealanders overseas who have that debt. I think that all members of Parliament will have received communications from people affected by this legislation. The overwhelming message from young New Zealanders overseas to us in those communications is: “This is putting me off coming home. This is making me say ‘Why should I come back to my country?’.”This Government if it was really serious about getting student loan debt repaid would be looking at other sorts of arrangements which we discussed in the Finance and Expenditure Committee. For instance we could have a repayment regime that is actually about what people living overseas can afford to pay—not some arbitrary measure that has been set in this bill but rather an earnings-based assessment. We were told by the officials: “Oh that’s too difficult.” Well it is not. For the vast majority of people they are living in countries where we have agreements that could facilitate that and we do. We are talking here about Australia and the United Kingdom. It is actually perfectly possible to come up with a regime that is about what people can afford to pay. One of the most common things we hear is that it is too complicated and it is too much money or it is not a realistic assessment of what someone is earning and their outgoings overseas. A Government committed to getting repayments would actually sit down and work out a regime where that could happen. But instead this Government wants to come up with a policy that frankly as well as being disingenuous is unworkable.At this point in the debate I would love to be able to refer to the pros and cons of this idea from the regulatory impact statement. There were a variety of options proposed for what could be done to increase repayments. The pros and cons for this particular one—border restrictions—are not here. They are not in the regulatory impact statement. They have been withheld from it. So the National Government does not actually want us to know what the arguments for and the arguments against this were. It just wants to come to the House and say: “Agree with this gimmick. It will sound good. It sounds like we’re doing something about it.” Well that is simply not good enough.It is not good enough to expect this House to agree to a provision that fundamentally changes what has been a civil matter the repayment of loans and turns it into a criminal matter. That is a serious change. If the National Government wants parties in this House to support that it should at least come with some evidence. It should at least come and say “This is why we think this will work.” But instead the regulatory impact statement is completely silent on the pros and cons—and in particular the cons—of this proposal. That is because it is not really designed to work. It is actually designed as a gimmick.What is in the paper as it outlines this option is the fact that it says—I will read you a piece. Think about how this will work: “Once the borrower is located at the airport Police would make a judgement as to whether to execute the arrest warrant or not. It is important for Police to use their discretion and the decision to make an arrest may have consequences for other passengers the airline and airport security. It may not be appropriate for example to arrest a single adult accompanying a young child if adequate arrangements cannot be made for the child.” Oh well maybe if we make arrangements for the child we will just go around and arrest people! This is ridiculous policy. It sounds like a farcical situation. The police have told us quite clearly that they do not have the resources to be sitting at the airport trying to work out whether to arrest people or not. It is a farcical policy and without proper justification.What the Government could have done in this bill was talk about what it could do to make the student loan scheme fairer. While this bill has been winding its way through Parliament the Government has made a number of changes to the student loan scheme and the student allowance scheme. It has abolished postgraduate allowances. No postgraduate student in New Zealand can now get an allowance. Along with a number of other members of this House I have been visiting university campuses over the orientation period. I have been told at our two largest universities that there has been a significant impact on the number of postgraduate enrolments.For those people who can continue to do postgraduate study there is a massive increase in debt because they will have to use a student loan scheme that does not adequately fund their living costs. In fact a number of people particularly psychologists architects ophthalmologists and those who have to do postgraduate qualifications in order to practise are leaving going overseas because once again the Government is saying: “There’s no reason to stay in New Zealand. We don’t value a postgraduate qualification if you are not rich enough to be able to pay your way yourself.” That is not good enough. So that happened while this bill was going through the House.Also what happened were the restrictions on access to loans and allowances based on age. If you are over 55 years old you cannot borrow living costs under the student loan scheme which limits the opportunities for people to retrain. If you are over 40 under this National Government there are 3 years of entitlement for allowances through your whole lifetime and it is retrospectively applied as well. If you got 3 years of allowances in your twenties and you then worked but you lost your job you then think: “I need to retrain. I need to do something so I can contribute to the economy.” This National Government says: “We don’t value you. You can’t have an allowance. You have to apply for a loan which you won’t be able to afford to live on.”John Hayes: Not true. Not true. Telling porkies.GRANT ROBERTSON: It is true Mr Hayes. Read your own policy Mr Hayes. There are no allowances if you are over 40 if you have already had 3 years of allowances. But it goes on—it goes on. It used to be that when you came to New Zealand as a new migrant you had to wait for 2 years before you could draw on the student loan and support scheme. Now it is 3 years. I have had people in my office who want to be in training and contributing to New Zealand. They have migrated to New Zealand and they want to start a life here but they are not able to do that because of the policy of this Government.So while this bill has been going through the House access to the student loan and allowance scheme has been cut back. The Government has introduced an administration fee on the student loan scheme because it was not brave enough to reintroduce interest on student loans which we know it wants to do. The Government has put on an administration fee—another additional cost.We could have been having a conversation on this Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) about how we use the student loan scheme to get more people into tertiary education and to give more people the opportunity to benefit themselves their communities and their families. But instead we have a silly gimmicky disingenuous policy that criminalises a whole lot of New Zealanders. It sends a message to those New Zealanders overseas: “Don’t come home. Don’t come back to contribute to your country.” On this side of the House we believe this is a backward step. It is a silly policy.What we should be doing is saying to New Zealanders overseas: “There will be opportunities for you.” I can assure those people who are overseas and their families here in New Zealand who are listening today that under a Labour-led Government we will ensure that the student loan and allowance scheme actually works to encourage people into education. Steven Joyce has said he wants to dampen demand for tertiary education. I want to see enrolments increase qualifications increase and the tertiary education system contributing to a positive future for all New Zealanders. Under this Government it is a total failure. This bill is a ridiculous gimmick and we will oppose it.HOLLY WALKER (Green): The Green Party takes tertiary education seriously. We see it primarily as a public good and we consider that all New Zealanders benefit from having a highly skilled and highly educated population. We think that tertiary education should be affordable and accessible to all and we think that every student including those aged over 40 and those doing postgraduate study deserves access to student support in the form of student loans and allowances. We think we need a fundamental review and rewrite of the student loan scheme with the principles of access and affordability at its heart. Sadly this Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) is not that. In fact it is one of a series of bills tinkering around the edges of the student loan scheme which is fundamentally broken and from which this National Government is trying to wring every last dollar without looking at the bigger picture of how we fund tertiary education and why we fund it. The Green Party in Government would step back and we would take stock of how we fund tertiary education and student support to implement a better smarter fairer system that reflects the public good inherent in an educated population.John Hayes: Why didn’t you bring it to the committee?HOLLY WALKER: Because I was on maternity leave Mr Hayes. It is time to stop tinkering with the system and putting even more strain on the Inland Revenue Department’s broken computer system with bills like this.It is timely that this bill should come up this week when thousands of students around the country are heading for their first or second week of lectures. Many of them will not yet be thinking about how they are going to repay their student loans or whether they are going to live in New Zealand or overseas after they graduate. They are probably not aware that this bill will have a real impact on those decisions in the future. This House has a tendency to deal in stereotypes and the “lazy” student borrowing from the “generous” student loan scheme to fund an education that will primarily deliver them personal benefit in the form of high wages is one stereotype that we hear all the time. National MPs like this stereotype because it means that they can pass punitive little bills like this one without thinking too hard or feeling too bad about whom they are affecting—never mind the fact that these so-called lazy students are the same ones whom John Key was busy takingderp-facedSelfies with up at Victoria University yesterday. I guess that they are good for just a laugh and a political photo opportunity but are not worthy of serious policy consideration.But actually although this bill will impact the future decisions of current students the people it primarily affects right away are not current students so the GovernmentMPs cannot hide behind that “lazy” stereotype this time. The changes in this bill to crack down on overseas borrowers by increasing their repayment responsibilities and allowing them to be arrested at the border—that is very disproportionate right there—will primarily affect graduates. Graduates do not fit that stereotype of the lazy student. They are people like the family who emailed me when the changes were announced in last year’s Budget. This family lives in the United States so that the husband can pursue his academic career. He earns US$41000—a fairly moderate income. His wife is also a PhD graduate. She is currently caring for their two small children. They both have student loans in New Zealand which they are fully committed to repaying. Because of the changes in this bill their minimum annual repayments will go up from $6000 a year to $9000 a year with no means testing and no accounting for the fact that only one of them is in paid work and that they have two dependants. At the current rate of exchange that means they will be paying approximately 19 percent of their income back towards their student loan debts—19 percent of their income.This family has a strong intention of returning to New Zealand. They fully intend to repay their loans and they are currently compliant with all of their student loan obligations. But these new payment obligations are totally unaffordable for this family and they cannot see a way to meet them that will not break their budget. If they default on them because they simply cannot afford to meet their repayments they now face being arrested at the border if and when they return to New Zealand. Is this fair? Is this proportionate? Is it a good use of time and resources to chase up families like this? Of course it is not. But this is how this Government chooses to spend its legislative resource.I have lived and studied overseas and I can confirm that it is quite difficult to keep up with student loan repayments while you are overseas. Information is hard to come by. Making voluntary repayments is complicated. Communicating with the Inland Revenue Department from overseas is difficult. Negotiating a repayment holiday or an interest exemption is unnecessarily complicated. Many New Zealanders living or studying overseas simply give up and resolve to deal with the problem when they return to New Zealand. Should they give up? No. Should we make it easier for people in this situation to meet their repayment obligations? Absolutely we should. But is the way to do that to whack them with non - means-tested repayment increases and arrest them at the border if they fail to comply? Absolutely not. This bill actually makes it more difficult for people in this situation to come home and sort out their student loans. That is what we should be incentivising them to do. What it does is whack them with a massive disincentive to ever come home because they will potentially face arrest and criminal conviction.It is madness I would contend for New Zealand to be introducing laws and policies that make it less likely for our tertiary graduates living overseas to come home when we have huge numbers of New Zealanders leaving every year and not coming back. We need policies that encourage them to come back to New Zealand and to stay in New Zealand. In Government the Green Party would introduce a debt write-off scheme for graduates to encourage them to stay and contribute in New Zealand because the Green Party would invest in their future. This bill is disproportionate. It is not likely to be particularly effective as we have heard from all of the advice that was given to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. It creates yet more incentives for graduates like this to never return to New Zealand. It is symptomatic of a Government that does not value tertiary education as a public good a Government that sees student support as a political nuisance and a Government that sees the student loan scheme and amendment bills like this as opportunities to put the screws on graduates and squeeze more and more students out of eligibility for student support. We have the opportunity in NewZealand to design a modern smart and fair tertiary student support system. The Green Party in Government would grasp this opportunity with both hands and invest in our future by investing in our students.Hon KATE WILKINSON (National—Waimakariri): I rise to take a brief call on the third reading of the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3). This bill is about sending a message that if you owe money you should pay it back. The student loan that has been granted to students to enable them to continue and advance their tertiary education is not a gift given by hard-working taxpayers in New Zealand; it is a loan and with that loan comes the reciprocal obligation that it is to be paid back.We have heard that there is about $3 billion owing by overseas-based borrowers of which there are about 100000 borrowers and of those quite a significant proportion 61000 borrowers are not meeting their repayment obligations. That is money that is owed by the students. They borrowed it fully aware that they had to pay it back. It is not a gift as I have said; they borrowed it from other New Zealand taxpayers. It is only reasonable to send them that message and to expect them to pay it back. I do not believe that it is disingenuous to expect repayment of a debt. I think that is being fair. I come from the school of thought that says if you borrow money that comes with obligations. You pay it back.What is wrong with expecting repayment of a debt? What is wrong with expecting personal responsibility? We are not talking about lazy students. We are not talking about them at all as the previous speaker Holly Walker has just said. What we are talking about is expecting them to comply with their loan obligations. It is as simple as that: sending them a message. If you owe money pay it back. This is a good bill. It sends the right message. It is certainly not tinkering when we are talking about $3 billion of taxpayer money. I commend this bill to the House.TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora. Unfortunately for Ms Wilkinson her numbers are somewhat inflated. The reason why there might be about $3 billion outstanding at the moment is not that there is a large number of overseas-based borrowers whose payments have been outstanding for a large period of time; it is that there has been a large number of overseas-based borrowers whose 3-year repayment holiday has just finished. That has upped the numbers as has the fact that the Inland Revenue Department does not recognise these as overdue debts until they are 5 years old. So unfortunately Ms Wilkinson might have wanted to do a little bit more study before she launched into that particular diatribe.We have attempted to talk sense with the National Party over this issue. We have attempted to get a win-win situation out of this bill the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3). We have attempted to get the National Party to see that it makes better sense to stop a citizen on the way into your country when they are on their way in for a period of time when they can provide you with a third party when they can organise to set up automatic payments and when they can perhaps even borrow the money from a family member and pay the debt instead of arresting them on their way out—instead of arresting your citizen on their way out.I think Ms Wilkinson has done the country a favour. She has made it quite clear that this is not about collecting debt; this is about sending a message. This is about sending a message. And the only thing I can say to the New Zealand citizens who are out there overseas listening to the fact that Ms Wilkinson said that this Government is not actually interested in your money is that it wants to send a message by making an example of you. It wants to arrest you at the border. It wants to pull you out of a line-up. It wants to make an example of you in front of your peers in front of other citizens so that other people will be afraid of their Government. There are many many people currently afraid of the National Government but this is just another little niche in thatsort of a chain. All I can say to those overseas-based borrowers is if you get arrested at the border under this legislation our website address is nzfirst.org.nz. Give us a call. Give us a call because we are one of the only parties that will actually come down there and will give you a hand.I guarantee you that when a New Zealand citizen is arrested at the border on their way out for at least one in five there will be an error from the Inland Revenue Department. I will guarantee you that they will be disadvantaged by this Government because it cannot see sense. I mean we do not expect any common sense from the life raft for this Government that is the ACT Party but we certainly tried. We tried to talk sense with the National Government. We tried to come up with a win-win situation but it would not have a bar of it. Now Ms Wilkinson has told us exactly why. It was not about a win-win situation. It was not about clearing debt. It was about sending a message. Well thank you Ms Wilkinson. Thank you very much. What about the message that is being sent?In the House earlier today we had the Minister of Women’s Affairs—I see she is still here—sweating at question time because the Opposition asked her to list the things that her department had done that her Government had done to assist women to minimise that pay equity gap. What this Government has done under recent legislation is take away the ability of 40-year-olds to access higher education. And that goes directly to women. It goes directly to the majority of women who go back in and take a second chance at their education. This sort of policy goes directly to minimising that ability for those women. So no wonder the poor Minister of Women’s Affairs was so inarticulate at question time today because we have not been able to find a common-sense answer for that either apart from sending another message to New Zealand women which is: “Don’t go into higher education. Don’t try to upskill yourself. Don’t try to minimise that gender pay gap because the National Government doesn’t like it.” So those are the two messages we have had today from the National Government.What about the ageism? What about the ageism on those aged 55 plus—the ageism that says: “We’re not going to allow you to borrow for student allowances if you’re 55 because we actually don’t believe in lifelong learning. It is a little bit of a message we put in our brochures but we’re not really keen on it. It’s not a message we want to send.”? Again we have tried to have a conversation with the National Party. What is the purpose of that? What is the purpose of that? We are going to have to make an assumption because we cannot get a sensible answer out of the National Party. All we can assume is that it is actually about the debt not being repaid. That is the message it wants to send. We hate to think that the Government might put in some legislation to arrest 55-year-olds or older if they do not pay back their student allowance.It seems to us again nonsensical when we have laws in this country where let us say the purpose is that if you are 55 or older and you have a student allowance debt the Government does not want you to actually be able to access that just in case you die with a debt. OK. Let us just say that that is its reasoning because we cannot figure it out and it will not tell us. We all know that in this country if you die with a debt your estate goes into probate. So any debt must be paid before any of the estate is then handed out to anybody else. The Government has got a backup plan. We already have it in legislation. If that person had a cent on them the Government would get it because under probate there is a debt there.Again these are things that New Zealand First has tried again and again and again to talk sense with this Government on. But this Government is ideologically directed along this path of—there is a word I was going to use that would not be allowed in this House. The Government is ideologically set on a path to do over its own citizens if it can save abuck. New Zealand First will strongly oppose this and we strongly recommend that if anybody gets arrested at the border they call us. We will help you out.JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa): I have to say that I was at the Finance and Expenditure Committee where all these discussions were held and that lady from New Zealand First who has just left the House now did not attend any of the discussions about this legislation the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) and made no contribution. The New Zealand First representative at the select committee slept through it—slept through it. They made no contribution at all.I have listened with great interest to discussions this afternoon. Our interest-free student loan scheme is one of the most generous in the world and we want to keep it that way. The student loan scheme represents a major financial commitment by taxpayers including from my electorate in the Wairarapa to support people in tertiary education. The Government wants to support students in tertiary education but it is important for students to take personal responsibility for repaying their loans. I agree with Holly Walker that all of New Zealand has a stake in good tertiary education but loan borrowers need to keep their end of the deal and repay their loans promptly particularly people who take the money and skip overseas.I do not agree with David Clark or Grant Robertson who have spoken earlier today and who want to give taxes from hard-working people in my electorate in the Wairarapa to people who will not pay their bills or meet their obligations. This country I believe would be better governed by the first 60 people in theEketāhuna phone book than by any of the people in the Opposition who want to be elected later in this year to govern this country. We will be far better governed by the first 60 names in theEketāhuna phone book than by any of the people in this Opposition. Thank you.Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is a pleasure to take a call after that sanctimonious lecture from someone about student loan schemes—someone who would not have paid for his own tertiary education. As someone who did pay and borrow for her tertiary education it is something that I find quite offensive. What we have had is the ongoing dribble from the opposite benches about how this is about personal responsibility and if you borrow money of course you have to pay it back—no argument over here. We have said: “Yes if people borrow money they should pay it back.” Our objection to the piece of legislation that we have in front of us the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) is not only grounded in terms of equity and fairness but about the fact that it is not going to work. I will come back to that a little bit later.We have been told that this is legislation that is going to send a message and then we get some kind of character from some kind of pantomime sitting in the corner of the Government benches who just yells out “Communists!” from time to time whenever an Opposition member is speaking. Well we do not think it is communist to expect that we have some kind of equality of access to tertiary education in this country. We think there is a public good in that. We would not think it was too radical. But really what that comedy character sitting in the corner over there is demonstrating is this Government’s antipathy to people getting an education and to the fact that there should be tertiary education that is accessible to a wide variety of New Zealanders regardless of their parents’ income.This is entirely fitting with moves that the National Government has made right throughout the time this bill has been before the House to restrict the number of New Zealanders who can receive access to enter tertiary education. If you are aged over 40 this Government has told you that you are too old and not worth investing in. It has no idea of any kind of belief in lifelong learning or the fact that people can retrain and they will have some kind of value to New Zealand. No this Government has deemed thatyou are no longer worth investing in. That is it. If you have had your 3 years of student allowance you are over and out; you are not going to receive any more support from the Government.Over here on the Opposition benches we think this bill is short-sighted and again points to this Government’s rhetoric about its belief in transforming New Zealand. It shows how arrogant and out of touch the Government is that it thinks that New Zealand can get ahead by restricting education and training for New Zealanders. Over here on the Labour benches we know that New Zealand will be a better place if more people can get into education and training. Our desire is not to dampen the demand for tertiary education as is the self-declared aim of the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment—to keep people out of tertiary education. This is the same Minister who talks a big game about science and innovation leading our economy. Well he has also cut postgraduates from having a student allowance. Way to go for an innovation-led economy to stop people doing wasteful things like postgraduate research! Who knows we may turn into an economy like one of those Scandinavian nations that values things like research and that understands what that is worth to them as a country.What I would like to see through the course of this debate is one—just one—speaker from the Government benches get up. We are now at the third reading of this piece of legislation. I have sat in this House and listened to tired old drivel from the Government benches about how this is about personal responsibility about how this is sending a message. Well I would like to know how this piece of legislation is going to work. When we believe they will work Labour has supported the Government on measures to make the repayment of student loans easier and to collect more of the student loan debt. We have supported the Government on measures around making changes to the Inland Revenue Department website—the fact that it would not be so difficult that essentially international bank transfers would have to occur in order for those living overseas to meet their student loan obligations. We have supported them because we think they are positive moves and they actually will make it easier for New Zealanders living overseas to repay their student loans. But we will not support a gimmick that is not going to work that is unfair and that criminalises what is a civil matter.My colleague Grant Robertson read some bits from the regulatory impact statement—the regulatory impact statement that comes before this House—that have not been redacted because the Government does not actually want us to know what the options were. When it comes to options—other things that we consider—there is a blank page. This is how much consideration this Government has given to what the real options that might work are and perhaps why we can only hear the speech notes being regurgitated time and time again from the members opposite because they have nothing of substance to say. This is just more arrogant out-of-touch legislation that is about trying to look tough when it is not going to achieve anything.I would like to do a little bit of a reading—David Bennett: Oh don’t bother. Just don’t bother.Dr MEGAN WOODS:—from the regulatory impact statement from where it comes to how this is actually going to work in practice. Actually the comedy character in the corner is yelling out something other than “Communist!”. I wonder what it was.This is how the legislation is going to work: “…Inland Revenue would request information from airlines under section 17 of the Tax Administration Act to determine which flight a borrower is booked on. This information would be provided to Police stationed at the airport who would have to locate the defaulter before they boarded their flight.”—a good use of police resource—“Police have advised that as this would have to be achieved without photos often in large crowded areas this could be difficult and time consuming.” This is from the very organisation that is supposed to be the body thatimplements these crazy lunatic gimmicks that the Government is proposing. The police are telling them it is not going to work. But yet again Government members will stand up and they will dutifully read from their arrogant and out-of-touch speech notes that this is about sending a message and about us getting tough on defaulters when all the time they are narrowing the number of New Zealanders who will receive the benefit of a tertiary education in this country.This is a Government that will consider it a success if it can deny more and more New Zealanders access to a university a polytech or any form of training. This is not something that we think is in any way beneficial to New Zealand. We think that regardless of your ability to pay to go and learn a trade or go to university or your family’s ability to pay for you if you have the talent you should be able to do that. I have not heard one piece of evidence from the members opposite. I challenge the next Government speaker to depart from their speech notes with the tired old lines and to actually tell us how it is going to work because the police have told us that it is not. I would like to know how it is that this legislation is going to work.The original intent of the student loan scheme was to make access to education available to more New Zealanders. That is what we in Labour will cling dearly to. We will not in any way support the Government’s move to narrow access to education. If it really did want to get real about reducing the debt that defaulting student loan borrowers owe to New Zealand and to the New Zealand taxpayer then it would have looked at some things that could have worked. It would have looked at measures about entering into repayment arrangements with people. When Labour was in Government and we put in place such a scheme there was a huge surge in the number of people who went on repayment plans started paying their loans and were no longer defaulters on their loans. The Government has the evidence—a good field trial—of what actually did work but instead it is resorting to fanciful gimmicks that sounded good on Budget day to try to appeal to its base rather than something that will actually tackle this problem.This is not the way that we are going to build a better New Zealand. This is not the way that we are going to have an economy that is fit for the 21st century and based on us having a highly skilled highly educated workforce and not excluding large numbers of New Zealanders from that. Not only do the individuals suffer but we as a country will suffer from this Government’s close-minded views on tertiary education.DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): That was a shocking speech on the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) from the Opposition by Dr Megan Woods but it just goes to reflect the nature of its argument here today. There are more people in tertiary education under this Government than under the previous Government. That is because we have opened access up. Opposition members are not telling the truth in this House tonight by saying that there has been a restriction on education. It is far from the truth. The real truth is that the Labour Party does not want people to pay their debts. What gives the Labour Party the Green Party and New Zealand First Party the mandate to go out there and say that you can go to a New Zealand educational institution you can get New Zealand training and then you can go overseas and get a free ride whereas if you stay in New Zealand and you make this country stronger you have to repay your debt? Under the policy of the Labour Party the Green Party and the New Zealand First Party why do we give an exemption from paying their debt back to those people who leave this country? Why do they want to do that?Hon Member: We don’t.DAVID BENNETT: They do. That is what they are saying because they do not want those people to repay their debts—that is the simple truth of it. Do you know why? It is the socialist elite over there who believe that they have a right to some higherposition in New Zealand’s social hierarchy and who believe that they should get a free education and not have to pay it back. That socialist elite that is the Labour Party has never represented the people whom they try to stand for. The people out there working in factories who pay for those educational institutions—what do they get? They get to see some other young person—who is in the socialist elite—go overseas and not repay their debt. What about those people who actually go and get training in New Zealand and then work in New Zealand? They have to pay it back. But under the Labour Party if you go overseas you get an exemption. This is disgusting to see from Labour the Greens and New Zealand First: that New Zealanders are treated differently if they leave. That is what they are saying and that is not good policy. We want New Zealanders to pay off their loans and pay their debt back.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Andrew Little—five minutes.ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to talk about student loans once again. It is the first time in about 20 years I might add and I had a lot to say then usually at the end of a megaphone in the front of this great building or on the streets of Wellington.The point is that this bill the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) is about enacting the same powers for our Inland Revenue Department as the Russian tax department has for its tax defaulters. We know how it treats its tax defaulters. Its equivalent of our Inland Revenue Department turn up in full camouflage gear fully blacked out armed with AK-47stommy knockers and all the rest of it and they go smashing down and smashing people up when they do not pay their taxes.This is a bill that is completely over the top when it comes to enforcing the obligations of student loan defaulters. The student loan scheme was introduced and has been in place in various forms to enable people to get access to education. It is unfortunate that over the last 20 or 30 years the state of the economy for whatever reason has been such that the State cannot afford access to education for those who need it and who are capable of taking it up. We have moved to more of a user-pays system and so the student loan scheme has come in to facilitate that. But we need to make sure that we do not introduce a mechanism and a scheme that becomes so punitive and ugly in its implementation that it puts people off.There are a number of reasons as previous speakers in this House have alluded to why those who have taken out student loans and gone out into the great wide world once they have completed their studies—which is something that we encourage young New Zealanders to do—can find it difficult to commence or recommence their student loan repayments. The last thing we need is to have in place a scheme that intimidates bullies and conjures up fear for New Zealanders when they are overseas encouraging them not to return.You know what we most want in this country? We want educated young people. For those who undertake a form of tertiary education and are required to take out a loan in order to get access to it—whether it is education in our tertiary institutions in the trades or in any other form of training—we do not want to create a disincentive for them to use those skills and deploy themselves in a way that is for the benefit of New Zealand. That is what this bill will do. That is why we are so fiercely opposed to it—it is just not good for the long-term interests of young New Zealanders who take up the opportunity of tertiary education or for New Zealand itself when it comes to harnessing the skills the learning and the talents that they have developed. That is why this bill is so wrong.All the National Party members opposite have left to fall back on is the tired old rhetoric about irresponsible young people—SimonOConnor: This is ironic as well.ANDREW LITTLE: And here is the irresponsible young Mr O’Connor—the youngest oldfogey of them all—who sits there bleating out the tired old rhetoric of the tired old fogies of the National Party saying: “We don’t want irresponsible youth.” Well it is not about that. It is actually about our brightest and best who because of everything else the National Government has done race off overseas because that is the best they can do for themselves. We want to make sure that the conditions are right for them to come back. They know that when the next Labour-led Government comes inin a few months’ time they will be flooding back because that is when they will see opportunity.We do not want a law on the books that tells them that when it is time for them to come back if they have not been able to repay their loans for reasons beyond their control they are going to be harassed and harangued at the border clapped in handcuffs and frogmarched off to the nearest prison before they can enjoy their freedom. We do not want that. That is not what a responsible education system does that is not what a responsible inland revenue system does and that is not what a responsible piece of legislation does when it comes to enforcing student loans but this bill is the opposite of that.This bill is irresponsible it is nasty and it is petty—everything that the National Party is characterised by and stands for. Nastiness and pettiness are reflected in this bill and that is why we are opposed to it. We are in favour of education we are in favour of responsible students and we are in favour of responsible lending. That is why we will oppose this bill.DAVID CLENDON (Green): This has been sort of quite a big week for tertiary education. There have been a number of key announcements and here at the end of the sitting week at least we are debating this dreadful bill the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) which is being foisted on our young people and indeed on anyone who participates in tertiary education. We have seen this week of course the launch of a very deeply flawed tertiary education strategy which seems to have emerged from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment rather than the Ministry of Education focused as it is on economic outcomes. The references to education are almost incidental which is a very sad reflection on the priorities and the sheer lack of understanding of the value of education that we have seen emanating from this Government over the past several years.We have seen the changes to the Performance-based Research Fund. There are again one or two good shifts but primarily they are a great big leap backwards to the extent that the objective that sought to ensure a fair distribution of the funding across institutions and across disciplines has been removed. In future that funding will advantage those who already have ready access to external forms of funding which is perverse when you think it through. Research that is readily commercialised for example and that therefore has ready access to external funding sources will be privileged over social research and other forms of research where there is no obvious external donor or beneficiary. It is a very backwards-looking change that has emerged.Now of course we come to this bill which is probably at least as backwards as any of the other events of this week. This legislation undoubtedly does provide yet another layer of disincentives to people participating in tertiary education in New Zealand. We have heard the phrase “dampen down demand”. Clearly this Government is very interested in rationing. The Greens and I believe our Labour colleagues believe that tertiary education based on merit is a right embedded in international and national covenants. Those who are able and who aspire to such things should have the opportunity to achieve at tertiary-level education. This Government would see it as aprivilege something that is limited and rationed to the lucky few who have the wherewithal to pay their way as they go.The disincentives are clear. We will criminalise people who for whatever reason are unable to keep up with their student loans. Our colleague from New Zealand First Tracey Martin made the very good point that we can confidently expect that there will be people whose travel plans are seriously compromised in error. I will not bore you again with the stories but I am sure others have similar ones. I have mentioned them in previous speeches on this topic like my own experience of getting two different statements two different letters on the same day about the state of my student loan with entirely different numbers on them. Those mistakes will continue. Nothing is surer. Although I do not know where my colleague from New Zealand First got the statistic of one in five it sounds about right intuitively. We will penalise people who have maintained their payments simply through errors in the bureaucracy of what is a very complex system.We are criminalising people. Absolutely if people borrow money they ought to pay it back. That is a given. We probably are too thoughtless in terms of allowing young people to get themselves heavily indebted but again for many of them there is no other option. The fact that the repayment model will not be income related is blindingly stupid. Assuming that all of our young graduates who go overseas immediately walk into highly paid jobs is a nonsense. That is not the reality for most of them.As Holly Walker said before the Greens see the public good element as well as the private benefit. We heard bellowing from the National benches earlier asking who pays. Well yes tertiary education has to be paid for. For a long time we had a very robust system where we paid for it primarily through the taxation system rather than through loading debt on young people at the point in their lives when they have got the least capacity to generate income. Let us do this through our progressive taxation system where we claw it back once people get into well-paid positions. Yes I am perfectly happy then for people through their taxes to be paying for the education system—primary tertiary secondary across the board. It is immoral almost to load debt on to young people at the point in their lives when they are least likely to be able to pay it back and then criminalise them for that failure. Thank you.TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Contrary to the assertion of Mr Clendon the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) is not dreadful but the quality of the contributions to this debate from members opposite certainly has been. This is not an immoral measure; this is a responsible and fair one. We have been far from relying on rhetoric and ideology on this side as members opposite have suggested. That has entirely characterised the contributions from those members and it is clear that they are burying their heads in the sand. This bill is fair to all parties. This bill is in the interests of the country definitely in the interests of the New Zealand taxpayer and ultimately in the interests of the students themselves. I support this bill.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the Student Loan Scheme Amendment Bill (No 3) be read a third time.Ayes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes59New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7;Māori Party 2; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Bill read a third time.Victims of Crime Reform BillSecond ReadingDebate resumed from 5 March.JAN LOGIE (Green): The Green Party is supporting the Victims of Crime Reform Bill because we support victims. On the eve of International Women’s Day I need to challenge the Government’s grand claims to be taking crime and victims’ rights seriously. When more than one-quarter of New Zealand women are likely to experience domestic violence and sexual violence in their lifetime we know we have a serious problem. This is what drives crime in this country. We know that only one in 100 victims of sexual violence is likely to see a conviction in our courts. We know that police are likely to be called out to an incident of domestic violence more than once every 10 minutes. This is the shame of our country.So what has this Government done to support these victims that it claims to champion? Well it has finally brought back this bill after 4 years of languishing on the Order Paper and it has paid for a resource around culture not being an excuse for abuse which we think is fabulous even though it has refused to increase funding to the much-needed culturally appropriate services for victims. It is thinking about putting cameras on police officers GPS on some offenders and locks on some victims’ homes—never mind when those victims have to put out the rubbish or their washing.It has introduced sexual violence court advisers though not in a way that met the Law Commission’s recommendations. That is the kind of package of what it has done. Then it has reversed three Cabinet decisions that were aimed at helping child witnesses. It has reduced access to legal aid and now many women are paying thousands of dollars for protection orders. The Government has failed to ensure that these very protection orders that women are paying so much for are actually enforced by the courts.It has made changes to the Family Court to save money rather than fixing the really well-documented problems of victims of domestic violence. It has introduced Family Court fees of almost $900. It has removed the Bristol clause which was meant to protect children from domestic violence. It has allowed police to change reporting so we cannot monitor the statistics. It has stopped work on improving the court system for victims of sexual violence even though there was so much support for a lot of the provisions in that. It has cut funding to prevent sexual violence though we hope to turn that round through the inquiry but some organisations have fallen over in the meantime. It has failed to seriously fund rape prevention education. It has allowed the numbers of perpetrators being referred for treatment to decline. It has effectively cut funding to refuges and has not recognised or supported the need for increased support in Christchurch. It has let the Taskforce for Action on Violence within Families basically stagnate. And Housing New Zealand evicted victims of domestic violence for damages done by their abusers. The Green Party believes that all women and children have the right to be safe in this country and that requires a comprehensive approach not this piecemeal token pathetic attempt to cover up inaction.MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): Well that was a very good speech by Jan Logie about everything that the Victims of Crime Reform Bill is not actually about. Every member of this House—in fact every person in New Zealand I am sure—would agree that everyone deserves to be able to live safely in the community. The reality is that some people commit crime perpetuate crime against innocent members of society and this bill is very much about ensuring that the State rightfully acknowledges the fact that through no fault of their own innocent New Zealand citizens have become victimsof crime. We often talk about putting victims at the heart of the justice system. I prefer to think of it as the State acknowledging that those citizens need support because they have been offended against through no fault of their own by members of society who—for some reason often lost to themselves and others—believe that the rules do not apply to them.I just want to finish the contribution because this has already been spoken to at length but one thing that is very important about this particular bill is the way in which it deals with victim impact statements and the ability for a victim of crime to express what that crime has meant to them and the way that crime has impacted on their life. This gives them the opportunity in an unedited and forthright manner to be able to demonstrate that to whom they see fit as part of that process. If we are talking about the State supporting people to move through that very very difficult passage in their life then this part of the bill goes absolutely to the heart of supporting victims of crime.Crime is at a 33-year low in this country. If we want to talk about how best to support victims it is to ensure that they are not victims in the first place and that is something that this Government takes great pride in. If the Green Party members who stand here and protest so avidly about what this Government is doing or not doing actually took time to support the bills that this Government is passing to prevent crime then maybe crime would be lower than 33 percent. But we know that they will not support anything like that because we know that they are actually pro-criminal while trying to talk about the fact that they are actually supporting victims. They cannot have it both ways.Bill read a second time.Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders BillSecond ReadingHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration) on behalf of theMinister of Justice: I moveThat the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill be now read a second time. This bill demonstrates the Government’s commitment to supporting victims of serious violent and sexual offences. I thank the Law and Order Committee for its consideration of the bill. The committee received 10 submissions and has recommended that it proceed with some amendments. Nine submissions expressed clear support for the intent of the bill. The committee has recommended several changes to the bill. Many of these changes reflect a shift from the non-contact order being modelled on restraining orders under the Harassment Act to protection orders under the Domestic Violence Act. The Government agrees with the committee that many of the provisions around protection orders provide a better fit to non-contact orders than restraining orders. The changes made by the committee will ensure that the bill achieves its intended purpose.That purpose is to create a new civil order called a non-contact order to reduce the likelihood of a victim of a serious violent or sexual offence coming into contact with the offender once they are released from prison. Research shows that the impact and effect of serious violent and sexual offences can last for a significant period of time after an offence has been committed. The healing and recovery process for victims can be hindered by ongoing fear and anxiety about contact with the offender. Victims can suffer significant setbacks in their recovery if they come into contact with the victim who offended against them. The Government is determined to support these victims.There is a range of mechanisms in place to manage offenders after their release from prison. These include release conditions imposed by the court or Parole Board as well as protection orders and restraining orders. However these mechanisms do not cover allsituations. Release conditions may apply only for a relatively short time or the victim may not qualify for a protection order or a restraining order. The non-contact order will fill this gap in the law. The Government wants to ensure that the victims of serious violent offences are not left feeling unsafe in their homes and unprotected by the law. The new order is flexible enough to ensure the conditions are practical and workable in the circumstances of each case. This flexibility should ensure that the order can be effective for victims no matter what their circumstances. For example it should be able to prevent or limit contact with the offender whether the person who offended against them has moved next door two blocks away or 5 kilometres away.An important change from the original bill is that eligibility for non-contact orders has been extended. The orders will now be available against offenders who are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of more than 2 years rather than 5 years or more for a violence offence against the victim. The bill is aimed at serious offenders and the newer threshold reflects the definition of a long-term sentence under the Parole Act.Another important change relates to the timing of an application for a non-contact order. In the original bill an application could be made only after the offender had been released from prison. The committee recommended that victims should be able to apply for an order at any time after sentencing. The Government has accepted this change. A victim will also be able to apply for a non-contact order without notice if the court is satisfied that delay would or might cause undue hardship for the victim. Where an order is made on application without notice it will be a temporary order. The temporary order will become final after 3 months unless the court having considered any issues raised by the offender orders otherwise. Victims will also be able to apply to have the order extended to associates of the offender. This will ensure that offenders cannot encourage others to do things that cause distress to the victim that they themselves are prohibited from doing.Providing an appropriate punishment for breaches of orders is important to ensure that they are properly enforced. The original bill provided for graduated penalties for breaches based on the approach for restraining orders under the Harassment Act. The revised bill provides for a maximum penalty of 2 years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to $5000 for any breach of the order. This will allow the court to respond to any breach of an order based on the seriousness of the breach whether or not it is the first time a breach has occurred.In summary the non-contact order will help fill a gap in the justice system where victims are not able to access existing legal protection mechanisms to avoid contact by the offender. It demonstrates this Government’s commitment to supporting victims of serious offences and it will help those victims feel safer while they continue on their journey of recovery. I commend this bill to the House.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): Labour supported this legislation the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill at the first reading. The reason we did that was that we are prepared to support any reasonable piece of legislation that actually promotes the rights of victims. I am very proud to stand here as a member of the Labour Party as Labour brought in the first Victims’ Rights Act back at the time of the fourth Labour Government which I extended as a Minister under the fifth Labour Government.We do have to remember that the justice system is not simply the State against the offender. The victim has a right to be at the centre of the justice system to be respected and to have their rights upheld. That has not traditionally been the case under our system of justice. This bill was brought into Parliament because there was a gap in the protection that was accorded to victims. We had the Domestic Violence Act of 1995 and that enabled the granting of protection orders for those who were the subject ofdomestic violence. But not all acts of violence of course are domestic. For those who are being actively harassed by the people who had offended against them there is the Harassment Act of 1997 and that also can provide restraining orders. But there was a clear gap in that system in cases where the offender was not related to or known to the victim and was not actively harassing them but was causing trauma to the victim.The actual case that led to this Mr Deputy Speaker will be of interest to you because it comes from Invercargill. It was the case of a woman who was the victim of rape. The offender was sentenced to 4 years’ imprisonment. He was then released and he went from prison and moved immediately next door to the victim whom he had raped. Anyone in this House or any member of the public can imagine the trauma of being the victim of rape and finding that after being released from prison the rapist is living immediately next door to you. That was unacceptable. It was not tolerable but there was no mechanism under law to deal with that situation and say that the victim has rights in that situation and that those rights are stronger than the rights of the offender even after the offender has been released.When I read about that case I agreed that there was a gap. And then I looked at the bill that Judith Collins had introduced and to my absolute amazement I found that her bill—full of rhetoric—had no substance that would have provided one iota of protection to the very victim who led to this bill being introduced. That is because the Minister put in a threshold level of 5 years. You had to be imprisoned for more than 5 years or convicted and sentenced to more than 5 years before the victim of your offending could get any protection under this bill. Imagine how your constituent Mr Deputy Speaker that victim felt when she saw the bill and realised that not only would this bill not help her but it would not help countless dozens of other women who had been through the same experience as she had. That was utterly unacceptable.When I read the regulatory impact statement I found that this piece of legislation introduced with great flourish would protect 10 cases a year—10 cases. We are talking about offending that is running into hundreds and hundreds of cases and it is not good enough. I said in the first reading of this bill that it is not acceptable in the form that it is in. It needs to be strengthened. That threshold has to come down.There was a very fortunate act of God. Well actually it was an act of Air New Zealand that helped me promote my case because just a month or two ago I found that I was sitting next to the Minister of Justice. She was thrilled to see me of course and we had a very good conversation where I raised this issue with her. I made the point to her quite strongly. I said that 5 years is stupid. Officials and members of Parliament on the Law and Order Committee are coming back and saying that it should maybe be 3 years. These are arbitrary figures. They are plucked out of nowhere. They have no rationale. I said that the figure should be 2 years. It should be 2 years because under the Parole Act 2002 which I put through 2 years was the definition of a serious criminal offence where people were entitled to go on to victim notification registers and so on. To be fair to the Minister she acknowledged the inadequacy of the bill and she agreed that that change should be made.So I am very happy to report back to the House today that the threshold level is 2 years and I believe that that is an appropriate level of protection. It will involve a whole lot more people and provide a lot more real protection to victims who genuinely need that protection when placed in the same situation as your constituent Mr Deputy Speaker.There are a couple of other changes that I wanted to see and that I am very pleased that we have had put into this bill at this stage. The second thing that I thought was inadequate in the bill as introduced was that you could apply for a non-contact order—Jacqui Dean: All your own work Phil.Hon PHIL GOFF: Well Jacqui Dean knows that because she knows who moved the amendments in the committee and how the discussion went. So I hope that she will get up and affirm the accuracy of everything I am telling the House today which she will do because there were seven different witnesses on that committee as members of Parliament.The second thing was—and again it was a concern for me with the bill as introduced—that you could not apply for a non-contact order against the offender until the offender was released. Well we heard at the select committee of cases where against even all of the rules of the Department of Corrections the offender in prison was putting pressure on the victim while he was still in prison. Of course there is no such thing as a non-contact order under this bill to cover that situation because you can apply for it only after the person has been released. Well first of all the Department of Corrections should have stopped that and stopped it dead in its tracks. It was totally inappropriate. But secondly this provides another protection because from the moment of sentencing the victim can now apply for a non-contact order.There is a second thing that makes sense about that. In a situation where the offender is released there can be a gap between the offender being out in the community and the victim having to make an application and a decision being made. So there is a gap there still where the offender can quite lawfully approach the victim—a victim of his serious offending. With the non-contact order now able to be applied for any time after sentencing we can remove the situation where a gap exists. Protection will occur from the moment the person steps out of prison as well of course as the additional protection while the individual is still in prison.So we got changes on the threshold that are good and I think that the whole of the committee actually welcomed that change. We got changes so that you could apply for the non-contact order at any time after sentencing.The third thing which I think was important was dealing with a situation where the offender used an associate to make contact with the victim. So the offender was using one of his mates as a surrogate for him to contact the victim and the effect on the victim was just the same. She was under pressure because the offender was using a third party to approach her and contact her quite inappropriately. So we now have in this legislation a situation where an associate of the offender can have a non-contact order made out against them. There are three prerequisites to that. First of all the offender needs to have engaged in the behaviour of actively encouraging the associate to do it the associate needs to have engaged in the behaviour of doing it and there needs to be a demonstration that that affects the well-being and the recovery of the victim. So that is the third change which is quite important.One other issue that I raised and I know that my colleague Andrew Little also raised this was the question of whether under the non-contact order this is putting all the pressure on the victim to take all the action to protect—usually—herself against the offender. Well I raised that in the committee and the officials were adamant that there would be a very straightforward and relatively cost-free way in which the victim can achieve a non-contact order. But I would very much like to hear from Government members—because Minister Woodhouse did not include this in his speech—that we have the assurance that a person will be able to get these non-contact orders without the need for legal assistance and that there will not be costs imposed on the victim. The victim for example should not have to pay a filing fee for a non-contact order. I am not sure whether we covered that in the select committee but I would like an assurance from the next National speaker or from the Minister that those sorts of costs will not be imposed.With that I say that I think we made considerable improvements to this bill. It is now a worthwhile piece of legislation and we will be supporting it through the remainder of its passage into law.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I can tell Phil Goff the member who has just resumed his seat that the Hon Judith Collins was more than delighted to spend an hour with the member on the aeroplane and it is lovely that he has chosen to take credit for every change that the Law and Order Committee has made.It is interesting that he said that the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill was not good enough. He said: “The bill as introduced is not good enough and it took me to make all the changes.” It is interesting. Well that member needs to answer this. That member needs to tell the House how come it was good enough when he was the Minister of Justice? So please feel free to take a call to explain how come it was good enough when he was the Minister of Justice which he has made an awful lot of during his time on the select committee when discussing these bills. How come it is not good enough when the National Government comes in and gets to and fixes things but it was good enough when he was the Minister? So just answer that one Phil Goff.Anyway coming back to the bill we did have a very good select committee process—Hon Phil Goff: We could have done this 100 years ago.JACQUI DEAN: A hundred years ago—the member has just said that it was 100 years ago when he was the Minister of Justice. We know that that member has been in this House for over 30 years and shows no signs of leaving because he loves it so much but—oh I do not know—under the new regime there might be some changes over on that side of the House so maybe that member should keep his head down below the parapet.We did have a very good select committee process in fact and it is true that the bill as introduced related only to offenders who had been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for 5 years or over. I do have to give credit to Phil Goff—just a tiny bit; not much—Hon Phil Goff: Oh come on. Do the decent thing for once.JACQUI DEAN: —but I will do the decent thing and say that OK all right Phil Goff did bring this matter to the attention of the committee. We do work collegially believe it or not—believe it or not—and we did have a good discussion around the difference between 5 years’ imprisonment and 2 years’ imprisonment.The reason that we did recommend to officials 3 years’ imprisonment and then 2 years’ imprisonment which was even better is that if you have a look at it from the victim’s point of view—and we had a victim in front of our committee yesterday who had been in receipt of domestic violence. We saw the photos of the gashes in her skull and her broken nose and we heard about the trauma that she is still living through now. Even though the assaults were some time ago—a year ago or more—she is still living through that experience very badly and that is what drove this committee.So I can tell you that it was not necessarily a desire to clobber offenders by bringing more into the net from 5 years’ imprisonment—OK we brought only a few into that—down to 2 years’ imprisonment. A whole lot more prisoners are captured but what that means is that a whole lot more victims are able to take advantage of these victims’ orders and that is what drove the work of this committee. In fact it is the many many victims who we were privileged to have made submissions to our committee. So that is one very good change that the select committee made.We made another change within the select committee to these victims’ orders which are unlimited depending on what the shape of the final order looked like so that the offender was not to reside nearby the victim and was to have no contact with them andnot intimidate them in any way. Well we had a look at the scenario of say a gang member who had subjected a woman and family to say domestic violence and who was put into prison and then it was easy enough for him to direct his gang associates. We do see in the news regrettably these young gang prospects who will do anything to get their patch so there is a danger always of these convicted men in prison directing their associates—the more gullible members of our society—to further harass the victim. What we have done is extended the non-contact order to apply to associates of the offender. Under certain circumstances we were always very careful to balance the rights of individuals in this. Of course the victim is first in our thoughts but we must take heed of the human rights of the offenders as well. That was another good change that the select committee made.Under the bill as introduced the victim was able to apply to a District Court for a non-contact order at any time after the offender had been released from prison. Once again we had a look at the implications of that. So what does that mean? Regrettably it is nearly always a woman who has been the victim of some violent offence—sometimes domestic; normally domestic—who goes through the trauma of the offence the trauma of the trial sees the offender go into prison then has the trauma of that offender being released. If it was a domestic incident they had the ability to have a protection order. If it was a violent offence a restraining order was an option available.But there was a bit of a hole there in the legislation which meant that the offender would be released from prison and then there would be a gap or nothing to protect the victim. It caused an awful lot of fear amongst women children and victims that the offender was able to get out of prison and then who knew what they could do? They might have parole conditions yes. They would have if it had been a sentence of longer than 2 years. But even so those conditions would expire after 6 months. Therefore the committee decided to change the clause relating to applications for a non-contact order so that they could take place any time after sentencing. That I hope will give a lot of comfort to victims and that is what this bill is all about. Thank you.ANDREW LITTLE (Labour):The Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill has come back to this House in very good shape and that is a great credit to the members of the Law and Order Committee and indeed to the Labour members on it. My colleague Phil Goff has told the House about some of the thorny issues that had to be dealt with and I have no doubt at all that Phil Goff a former Minister of Justice himself and one of the best Ministers of Justice we have had in a long time did put up a good case for the sorts of changes that he talked about. That is the nature of Phil Goff. He is absolutely passionate about this issue about the rights of people and about an effective justice system and an effective criminal justice system. What a pity the current Minister of Justice who really is the laziest Minister of Justice we have had in 40 years does not bring the same alacrity and assiduity to the task that Phil Goff did when he was Minister of Justice.This bill is in good shape and it reflects the fact that the practicality of victims’ rights which have really been developed over the last 20 years is now starting to take shape. There is no point in having fine words on a page of a piece of legislation; actually it has to have real meaning in real people’s lives. The ability for victims particularly those of serious violent offending to be able to take practical steps to protect themselves is a good thing. This bill gives important protection to some of the most vulnerable victims of crime that we have in this country—those who have been the victims of serious and violent crime. It is good that the threshold in terms of the sentence that the offender has received from the court is lower. That is to say as Phil Goff pointed out it is not having been sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment but to 2 years because that is when the parole system mechanisms kick in. There ought to be scope.It is not explicit in this bill but perhaps a further development would be that the parole system can be used to effect some of these orders. Of course allowing an application to be made before a convicted offender has been released from a custodial sentence makes sense particularly when the threats of harassment or the threats of a presence in the vicinity of the victim have been manifest before the offender has been released. It makes sense to be able to make an application before the offender is released. That is all good stuff and none of that can be criticised. It is good to see as I said before that the committee has been able to effect sensible change for the benefit of the bill and ultimately for the benefit of future victims—and let us hope there are not many of them.There is one important issue left and Phil Goff alluded to this as well. It is an issue that I think is important. I noted it at the time of the bill’s introduction and I notice it now. It is the cost to the victim. These are civil proceedings. The application for an order under this bill is a civil proceeding and therefore the civil rules of the District Court will apply. That means that in the absence of anything else there will be a filing fee. If there is a hearing— and the bill explicitly notes that in some circumstances there may be the need for a hearing—then there will be a hearing fee as well. In some courts—and I am particularly familiar with the Employment Court—there is a specific basis on which a registrar of that court can waive fees. That is not as clear in the District Court and perhaps something that we ought to be looking at—perhaps it could be the subject of a Supplementary Order Paper when this bill comes to its Committee stage—is some explicit provision for a registrar of the District Court who has received an application to be able to waive those fees.If these orders are to be processed as it appears on the face of the bill in some cases on the papers as opposed to having to convene a hearing then we need to be able to keep the cost as minimal as possible. Likewise if there is to be a hearing particularly in relation to a final order as provided for in the bill since the orders have now been broken up into interim orders and final orders or at least temporary orders and final orders if there is to be a hearing for a final order then let us keep the cost of that as low as possible. Let us have some provision for a waiver of those costs and fees. That really is the issue that remains. If we want these orders to be effective and if we do not want victims to feel put upon yet again by an offender who has completed their sentence or is about to complete their sentence and if we therefore want this remedy to be practical and effective then we need to make sure that the orders are accessible and that any barriers or impediments to making an application for an order are stripped away. The cost factor is an important one. Anything that we can do to strip away that cost is a good thing. If it means that we have to give registrars of the District Court specific and express powers to waive fees then we ought to do that. There is a cost of course for making an application or even for varying it once an order is granted. If a victim seeks to vary an order there is potentially a cost associated with that as well. Indeed there is potentially a cost associated with discharging an order if it is not discharged by effluxion of time or through other means. So let us make this as accessible as we can for victims to take advantage of.I just want to conclude really by repeating remarks that I have made in this House before. Although we have been developing victims’ rights in different pieces of legislation over time and notwithstanding the good work that has gone on in previous parliaments and in previous Governments—usually Labour-led Governments—Simon O’Connor: Ha ha!ANDREW LITTLE: —the reality is that it is long overdue and Mr O’Connor knows it for us to have a comprehensive overarching piece of legislation to deal with victims’ rights so that there is one place where victims or their advocates or those who are assisting them or advising them can go to find out how a victim can respond to a particular set of circumstances and what a victim is entitled to. The first thingmust be an understanding of the criminal justice system. The second thing must be access to an advocate or someone to assist them to negotiate the fraught path of the criminal justice system.Let us face it: victims do not choose to be in that position. Victims do not choose to be part of the criminal justice system. They are put there because of the actions of another or of others. It is incumbent on us and I think that we have a moral obligation as a Parliament and as successive Governments to ensure that they are afforded proper assistance to work their way through the criminal justice system. So let us have an overarching charter of victims’ rights. Let us have an overarching piece of legislation that spells out what victims are entitled to what they can expect what assistance they can get and what assistance they will get. I think that is very important and I think it is long overdue. Labour’s commitment is that we will have that. We will have a comprehensive set of victims’ rights rather than them appearing in different pieces of legislation.The final final point I want to make just about this bill is that the practical success of this bill will be in the enforcement of the orders and therefore in a police force equipped to understand the orders enforce them and be on hand if and when they are breached. Protection orders issued by the Family Court are breached every day and we have seen a recent very tragic case where there has been a catastrophic breach of them. We cannot allow that to continue. We need to know that successive Governments will resource our police force to ensure that these sorts of orders will have the backing of the State through the police that they will be afforded priority and that people can rest assured that they will be meaningful once ordered by the court.DAVID CLENDON (Green):Could I begin my comments just by endorsing MrLittle’s remarks about the need for a comprehensive review of all of the legislation and all of our practice around protecting and restoring victims’ rights. That is something that the Greens look forward to working with Labour on next year when we have a new Government. In the meantime to address the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill—the Greens are supporting this bill albeit with some reservation. I was on the Law and Order Committee. I voted for the bill and I sort of stand alongside it. We did not do a minority report or any of those things but we still have some concerns about the bill some of which we might seek to address at the Committee of the whole House stage.We are supporting the bill primarily because there clearly is a gap. It is perverse in a sense that a person who has been the victim of violence from a family member—I was going to say a “friend” but that is the wrong word—or an associate somebody close to them can get the mechanism of a protection order but somebody who has been seriously assaulted or abused in some way by a stranger does not have access to that. That is the gap that this bill seeks to fill and we think it is appropriate. Clearly there are cases—the historical cases—that have demonstrated the need for some sort of mechanism in order to add a layer of protection and indeed to add a layer of comfort to the victims of what are always going to be serious crimes in this sense.I think some of the issues with the bill that I want to talk about may become apparent over time. I would love to be proven wrong. This bill might be seamless and without flaw—and that would be a good thing—but I do think that maybe there are a few things that we have still got wrong. Primarily I would say that part of what this bill does isactually already covered by law. Some of the conditions that would be imposed on a person who is subject to one of these orders already exist. If I was an offender who had assaulted somebody and after my release I was found to be loitering around their house watching them obstructing them leaving objectionable material where they may find it or encouraging somebody else to do some form of harm to this person I am quite surethat there is existing law and in fact that the police would very quickly be on the case and be responding in some appropriate way to that sort of behaviour. So some of what we are doing with this bill is already covered by existing law and I do wonder at the necessity for replicating that.Having said that I do think that the third-party provisions if you like—the fact that if I as an offender in jail or as a recently released one get one of my dodgy buddies to go around and cause harm or grief or fear or whatever then it is entirely appropriate that the legislation should cover that sort of third-party aspect of it. I think that is one of the strengths of the bill that it does recognise that it does not have to be the primary offender causing harm to a victim; it can be some other person—not least of all in gang situations but even in situations where there is no gang activity or influence.Mr Goff talked about the shift from the 5-year threshold to a 2-year threshold and he makes a compelling argument that the 2-year threshold does align the bill with the Parole Act and that is not insignificant. But I still have some unease—not least of all following the initial briefing we had and the talk about the numbers of people potentially affected by this. Five years was arguably too high a bar and there was the one case already referenced where a 4-year sentence was imposed and that offender would have escaped the consequences or the provisions of this bill. My concerns about the 2-year sentence are partly that there is an issue of cost but that is a secondary concern. It will inevitably mean significantly more cost associated with this. The more compelling concern I have is that we were told that currently or over the past 5 years there would have been something like fewer than 1000 offenders released who would potentially be subject to one of these orders—something like fewer than 1000. Let us say 800 or 900. Take out a few of those who would already be subject to protection orders perhaps and you are still talking about quite a few hundred people per year who potentially might be subject to one of these orders.I have a fear that if they proliferate if suddenly we are seeing literally hundreds and hundreds of these things in place at any given time it almost devalues the importance of them and it certainly puts increased load on the police in terms of enforcement. We have a lot of protection orders out there at the moment and we know already that we have seen some tragic consequences. Police have reported to them breaches of protection orders. They need to make a call as to the urgency or significance of them. Generally I am quite sure they get it right and I am quite sure they work very hard to get it right every time but on occasion things will fall through the cracks. They will be sort of downplayed in terms of priority. I do fear that the proliferation of these orders will devalue them in terms of enforcement and that there will be situations where there is not a sufficiently fast response because after all it is only another victims’ order when you have hundreds and hundreds of these things in force as almost inevitably we will. So I think that is something that we may need to give a little bit more thought to.As I said the financial cost is certainly a secondary concern but it is not a trivial one either. In terms of the issue of the point at which somebody can apply for one of these orders and in terms of applications generally I think I entirely agree with the intention of the bill that the application costs should be minimal should be very very low; that it should not necessarily mean engaging a lawyer; and that the application process should be swift and straightforward. Obviously there needs to be an opportunity for the person the defendant if you like to defend themselves to oppose the notion. But I do think we must make very sure that neither process nor cost is a barrier to the application of these and I think the language of the bill and indeed of the explanatory note does seek to ensure that.But I do still wonder about the notion that these things can be applied for immediately post sentencing. Again I think it will result in many more of these orders being appliedfor and issued. After all on what basis would a court deny or reject an application for an order immediately post sentencing? If a person had recently assaulted someone with sufficient severity that they are subject to at least a more than 2-year sentence it is most unlikely that a court would have many grounds on which to say no. Allowing the order to be applied for and imposed very soon after sentencing assumes that the prison is actually going to fail in its job of rehabilitation. Yes we know that there are often recidivist offenders people who continually offend and they are very likely to offend again but even serious assaults can sometimes be the outcome of a very unique and specific set of circumstances and be highly unlikely ever to be replicated. I do wonder about the assumption built into this provision that there is no likelihood of rehabilitation coming through sentences of 2-plus years and I do think that that is again something we need to give some thought to. The argument made was that yes while still in prison people can threaten or cause grief to a victim. Well that is right—they can but that is only because they are breaking the rules. Obviously the Department of Corrections works very hard to ensure that prisoners cannot have inappropriate communications outside of prison. As I said earlier I do believe that the third-party issue where an inmate might persuade one of his friends or associates to go and cause grief to a victim is readily covered by existing legislation. So I think we need to get something a little bit more nuanced in terms of immediately post sentencing.The likelihood of a victim wanting one of these orders a short time after the offence has been committed and thinking: “The person has gone down. Right. I’ve got an opportunity to impose some more burden on them.” is clearly going to be something that a lot of people will want to do. I fear that it could almost become a default position where anybody who is subject to more than a 2-year sentence will find themselves with one of these orders imposed on them. And I return to that notion of these orders being devalued in terms of the likelihood of the orders having a status if you like or not having the sense of this being a very serious matter with the orders issued only for the most vile and objectionable cases of assault on people and the need to give protection to these people these victims to allow them to get on with their lives. There is a balance in that if somebody does come out of prison perhaps the best place for them in many regards would be to return to the community within which they have offended albeit with some protections and comfort for the victim.As I said we are supporting this bill and we will continue to support it because there is a gap but we have some concerns and we will address those in the Committee stage. Kia ora.MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): I am very pleased to take a call on this bill the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill. I would like to acknowledge the chair of the Law and Order Committee Jacqui Dean. The work that was done in the select committee was very much a team exercise but after hearing Mr Goff you would think it was an individual sport. I want to acknowledge my colleagues from the National Party the Labour Party the Greens and New Zealand First all of whom worked very hard on this bill.Jacqui Dean referred to a young woman who appeared in front of our select committee on Wednesday in relation to another matter. She had been subjected to a very serious assault in a domestic violence situation.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come for the House to rise.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 6 p.m.