Volume 693 Week 55 - Wednesday 25 September 2013Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 693 Week 55 - Wednesday 25 September 2013[Sitting date: 25 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13681. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Wednesday 25 September 2013Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.Points of OrderCanadian First Nations Delegation Acknowledgment—Leave to Move Motion Without NoticeMEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek leave to move a non-debatable motion without notice to welcome a delegation of First Nations people from Canada who are in the gallery today.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is objection.Questions to MinistersEconomic Programme—Support for New Zealand FamiliesJAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): Thank you Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I had a significant number of complaints yesterday about the level of noise through question time. We cannot allow it to be at the same level as it was yesterday.1.JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) to theMinister of Finance: How is the Government supporting New Zealand families through the economic recovery?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Despite large deficits the Government is committed to supporting families through uncertain times. For instance households earning less than $60000 per annum which is around 50 percent of all households pay no net tax; that is they get more in income and accommodation support paid parental leave Working for Families and welfare support than they pay in tax. We have also focused assistance on those most in need with $190 million for the next stage of welfare reforms to get people off benefits and into work; $100 million insulating 215000 homes; $41 million extra for early childhood education for the most vulnerable; $24 million for rheumatic fever prevention which is again focused on the most vulnerable families; and theKickStart Breakfast in schools programme which is again focused on the most vulnerable families.Jami-Lee Ross: What changes has the Government made to income tax rates and other taxes to help families get ahead?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The 2010 tax switch reduced taxes on work and savings and increased taxes on consumption and property speculation across all income levels. That 2010 Budget also provided for better targeting of Working for Families. Two-thirds of the value of the income tax cuts in 2010 went to reducing the bottom two tax rates. Someone on the average wage of around $50000 was immediately $15 a week better off as a result of the tax changes. Three-quarters of taxpayers now face a top personal rate of 17.5 percent.Jami-Lee Ross: What effect is the Government’s approach having on inequality and how is the Government working to ensure households get a fair deal?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Ministry of Social Development tracks household incomes and reports that income inequality is falling slightly after peaking in the mid-2000s so we are starting to undo some of the damage done by the previous Labour Government to New Zealand’s equality. There are a variety of reasons for this. The tax and redistribution system favours the bottom 50 percent of households. Our investments in welfare health and education have been focused on the most disadvantaged.Whereas the previous Government focused on subsidies to people on middle incomes we are focusing on solving long-running problems of welfare dependency poor educational achievement ill health and family violence.Jami-Lee Ross: What progress is the Government making in supporting more people into work improving health care and education outcomes?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member does not really need to ask this question because you can track progress by going to the Government website and looking at the Better Public Services results. As at 30 June this year the number of people continuously receiving a working-age benefit for over 12 months has fallen by almost 3000. In March this year 89 percent of 8-month-olds had been immunised and Māori immunisation rates are for the first time ever as high as mainstream immunisation rates and in fact in some parts of the country are higher than amongPākehā children. The proportion of 18-year-olds with National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 has increased to 77 percent from 74 percent the previous year.Hawke’s Bay Water Management—Departmental Submissions on Plan Change Proposal2.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Leader of the Opposition) to thePrime Minister: Has he or his Office sought an assurance from the Minister of Conservation that he did not know about the existence of the draft submission prepared by the Department of Conservation in early July relating to theRuataniwha Dam before 17 September 2013; if not why not?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister): No; an assurance was not required because the Minister had advised this House in his answers to a number of questions that he had not seen the leaked draft submission until Tuesday 17 September and I take the Minister at his word. The Minister was aware that the Department of Conservation was working on a submission. He was not aware of the content of the leaked draft submission until Tuesday 17 September. My office was advised by the Minister’s office on Tuesday 17 September that the leaked draft submission was never sent to the Minister.Hon David Cunliffe: Why does he take at his word the Minister of Conservation’s statement from Tuesday last week: “I did not know that this draft document even existed until this morning.”; if that were just proven to be incorrect what action will he as Prime Minister take?Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I said I take the member at his word. It would not be unusual for a Minister to ask to see a departmental submission.Hon David Cunliffe: Is the Prime Minister concerned about reports that an official working on the Department of Conservation’sRuataniwha Dam submissions has resigned as a result of his Minister’s involvement?Hon BILL ENGLISH: There is no evidence that that claim is true.Hon David Cunliffe: Exactly why does the Prime Minister think that the Director-General of the Department of Conservation or senior managers would email senior staff that the Minister is “concerned” with the submission given that his Minister said in answer to whether he had raised concerns: “Did I give an indication? No I did not.”?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Minister receives weekly departmental reports. This is not unusual. In that departmental report I am advised there were two sentences in it regarding lodging a submission in the name of the director-general. The Minister asked to see a final submission before it was made. On Wednesday 31 July the Minister received a full briefing on the final submission. The leaked draft report appeared on Tuesday 17 September which was the first time the Minister had seen the leaked draft.Hon David Cunliffe: Does he stand by his statement “I expect high standards from my Ministers … if they don’t meet the standards I set then obviously I will take action ifnecessary”; if so will he ask the Minister of Conservation Nick Smith to resign if it is proven that he indicated to the Department of Conservation that it should change its submission or if it is shown that his statements to this House or to the media are incorrect?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Whatever the details the member thinks he is going to release or divulge I would hope that at the same time he will divulge the final version of his CV.Hon David Cunliffe: Is it true that a draft submission from the Ministry for Primary Industries expressed concerns over the economics of theRuataniwha Dam but that the final submission reversed this finding; if so why was this 180-degree turn made and which Ministers and/or their staff were involved in any way?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have no advice on that matter. I think the member can be reassured though that all issues around theRuataniwha Dam will be dealt with by the statutory processes that apply to a large project that has environmental and economic impact.Dr Russel Norman: Can the Acting Prime Minister explain to the House how it was possible for Nick Smith to say that he did not know the submission even existed until 17 September yet the briefing note from 29 July includes a discussion of the very same submission?Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I understand it as Dr Smith has answered in the House the note on 29 July said that the department was making a submission. He then asked to see the final submission which is a legitimate perfectly normal activity by any Minister of any department.Dr Russel Norman: Can the Prime Minister explain how it is possible to have a discussion about a submission—and the evidence shows that there was a discussion on 29 July—yet the Minister says that he did not know that the submission even existed until 17 September? How is it possible to have a discussion about a submission you do not know exists?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Again as I understand it the departmental weekly report said that the department was making a submission. The Minister had not seen that submission. When the department showed him a submission a couple of days later as the final submission he saw that submission. The draft the member is referring to appeared some time later on 17 September which was the leaked draft submission not the final submission. It does not matter how hard the member digs there is no conspiracy here. It is pretty straightforward. The Minister asked to see a submission and he saw it.Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know that it may seem a fine point and so you may not agree with my point of order but there is a difference between whether you have seen a copy of it or whether you know—Mr SPEAKER: Order! No I have heard quite enough. The member can use further supplementary questions if he wants further detail from the Acting Prime Minister. The question was whether the Prime Minister can explain and the Acting Prime Minister attempted to explain.Better Public Services Targets—Justice Sector3.ALFRED NGARO (National) to theMinister of Justice: What recent Better Public Services results for the Justice Sector has she announced?Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice): The latest results to June 2013 show the justice sector is well on track to meet all of its Better Public Services targets by 2017. Total crime is down by 12 percent violent crime is down by 8 percent and reoffending is down by 11 percent. Youth crime has reduced by a huge 19 percent. As aresult the Better Public Services target for reduction in youth crime has been reset to 25 percent by 2017. I am delighted that the justice sector is working so well together and I thank the Ministry of Justice the New Zealand Police and the Department of Corrections for their achievements and commitment to reducing crime making New Zealand a safer place than it ever was under a previous Government.Alfred Ngaro: How will the revised youth crime Better Public Services target assist in further reducing youth crime?Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Targeting youth crime is a major focus for this Government. We know that the earlier young people begin offending the greater the chances are that they will reoffend and the harder it is to turn them away from a life of crime. The Government has a range of initiatives aimed at ensuring young people get the best possible opportunity to lead positive fulfilled lives. This includes improving health and education responses for at-risk youth improving school attendance and engagement and improving youth mental health pathways. The youth crime target was an interim target of 5 percent and measures the number of youth appearing in the Youth Court. These are the most difficult young reoffenders for whom family group conferences and other programmes have not worked.Alfred Ngaro: What other initiatives will help the justice sector reduce crime?Hon JUDITH COLLINS: The justice sector board made up of chief executives of justice police and corrections are continually monitoring progress against our justice sector targets of reducing crime reducing violent crime reducing youth crime and reducing reoffending. Across the justice sector supporting work is under way including: Addressing the Drivers of Crime Prevention First Policing Excellence improved corrections rehabilitation and reintegration programmes alcohol and other drug treatment courts the Hutt Valley Innovation Project and expandingsafe@home to name just a few.District Health Boards—Resourcing and Service Delivery4.Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) to theMinister of Health: Has the increase in health funding for 2013/14 been sufficient to stop cuts in health services and staffing?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health): The increase in available health funding for this year and for the next 4 years averaging around $400 million a year has actually been sufficient to improve not reduce front-line services and staffing like the 2700 more nurses and 1300 more doctors employed in our public hospitals. The Government is however very aware that there are always pressures on providers such as on some general practices offering low-cost doctors visits to some in our most vulnerable communities. Consequently although we have already increased the very low-cost access scheme subsidy to these practices by $11 million over the last 5 years—that is by 33 percent—it is clear that some are finding it difficult to remain viable and later on this afternoon the Government will be announcing an increase of a further $16 million over 4 years or an 8 percent increase to help these practices out.Hon Annette King: If district health boards have sufficient funding why hasWaitematā District Health Board now confirmed it is cutting mental health charge nurses in mental health units by 50 percent why has it told staff that it intends to slash the numbers of mental health administrators by 14 and why is it removing cars from public health and community nurses because of “continuing cost pressures coupled with lower funding growth” ?Hon TONY RYALL: My understanding is that theWaitematā District Health Board is continuing to invest more money in its mental health services and that wouldcertainly meet with the fact that we put an extra $31 million into theWaitematā District Health Board in this year’s Budget.Hon Annette King: If the funding is sufficient why is theWaitematā District Health Board proposing to cut 10 doctors from the emergency department not for clinical or quality reasons but to save money; and does this not make a mockery of his letter of expectation to district health boards where he said they need to “improve clinical staff retention”?Hon TONY RYALL: This is sort of what we have come to expect from this member because—Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was a straight question. There is no need to have the beginning of his answer.Mr SPEAKER: And I agree. Would the Minister just answer the question.Hon TONY RYALL: My understanding is there is a consultation that will see that staffing mix at theWaitematā emergency department change to reflect the staffing mix at Auckland - Counties Manukau. But I cannot believe that the Opposition would ask a question about the North Shore’sWaitematā District Health Board emergency department when under its watch old people waited for 3 days on hospital trolleys under bright florescent lights and they do not do that any more.Mr SPEAKER: Order! That answer is quite sufficient.Chris Auchinvole: What progress is being made to improve health services on the West Coast?Hon TONY RYALL: I am pleased to advise the member that later this afternoon the Government will announce that it has given the green light for a brand new West Coast hospital to be built at Greymouth at an estimated cost of around $60 million. This new development will replace Grey Base Hospital with new wards an emergency department and new operating theatres. It will also include an integrated family health centre that will co-locate general practice on the Grey Base Hospital site. The Grey Base Hospital’s facilities have significant seismic issues so this announcement is important for the 32000 people who live on the West Coast and it gives them confidence in the future of their health services. Site work is expected to begin late next year with the new hospital and facilities to be completed by the end of 2016. Even in the most difficult of economic times this Government has found $60 million for that member’s electorate’s hospital.Hon Annette King: In light of that answer can he guarantee that with the building of the new Greymouth base hospital Reefton Hospital will not be closed and patients shifted to Greymouth?Hon TONY RYALL: What I can tell that member is—Hon Annette King: Answer the question.Hon TONY RYALL: Well I give this assurance to the people of Greymouth. We are putting $60 million in and once more I can say that there will be a further announcement this afternoon on a further investment on the West Coast and I say to the member “Wait for that”.Hon Annette King: Is he aware that the—Hon Christopher Finlayson: Give up old girl.Hon Annette King: I beg your pardon Attorney-General? Did you hear that Mr Speaker?Mr SPEAKER: That type of interjection is totally unhelpful to the order of this House. Would the honourable member start—[Interruption] Order! Would the honourable member start her question again. [Interruption]Hon Annette King: He just did it again Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I did not catch where that interjection came from but—[Interruption] Order! We are getting to the stage now where unfortunately I am going to be asking members who constantly interject to leave. That is a warning I am giving to all members on both sides of this House. I ask the Hon Annette King to continue with her line of questioning.Hon Annette King: Is he aware that the emergency department at Waitakere Hospital is being discussed at a closed board session today; if so will he guarantee that the emergency services at this hospital will not be compromised by a lack of funding and staffing?Hon TONY RYALL: TheWaitematā District Health Board’s budget has increased by $30 million this year. There are 268 more nurses and 114 more doctors. What I can say regarding this Government’s record with the Waitakere emergency department is that we have improved that service beyond whatever existed under the previous Labour Government which is opposite. We now have 24-hour emergency department services at Waitakere Hospital far more than that party opposite ever delivered to those people.Hon Annette King: Did he raise the amount of fundingWaitemata District Health Board received when he phoned the chair and the chief executive officer to pressure them after being questioned about proposed cuts in Parliament 2 weeks ago and did they tell him that under his watch the additional funding this board has received in 2013-2014 is half what it received in 2007-2008 which might account for its current financial situation? He might like to have a look at this graph which shows that the level of increased funding he is crowing about is now halved.Hon TONY RYALL: I just have to say that I am glad the member has admitted finally that this Government increases health funding because she constantly paints the picture that we have reduced health funding. We have increased it year on year by an average of $500 million. I can tell this to the people ofWaitematā: because of our investment in a 24-hour emergency department at Waitakere and tens of millions of dollars in a new emergency department at North Shore they are getting faster and better emergency department care than was ever offered when that member was the Minister of Health.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table a copy of the Minister of Health’s letter of expectation which is not readily available saying that he wants district health boards to improve their staff retention.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table an expectation letter from the Minister. Is there any objection? There is objection.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table a copy of the consultation document fromWaitemata District Health Board on mental health services of 26 August this year which states that cost pressures and lower funding growth are the reason for cuts.Mr SPEAKER: Is that document freely available?Hon Annette King: No it is not available Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table the consultation document. Is there any objection? There is objection.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table a graph of additional funding per year atWaitemata District Health Board—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Is that the graph the member was using?Hon Annette King: It is. Here is the—Mr SPEAKER: I am not prepared to put that leave. [Interruption] Order!Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can I please know why you would not let me table a graph that comes from district annual plans?Mr SPEAKER: I am happy to catch up with the member and deal with her later. It is a Speaker’s ruling. If the member is seeking leave to table a graph that has been prepared for a political point it is not—[Interruption]Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The graph in question comes from theWaitemata District Health Board planning department and from its annual planning process so it has not been prepared for any purpose other than for theWaitemata District Health Board and I think you should put the leave.Mr SPEAKER: I have already ruled that I am not putting the leave.Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: A fresh point of order?Hon Annette King: No I want to table another document. I seek leave to table an email sent to John KeyCampbell Live and myself from a constituent from North Shore about the lack of proper care at North Shore Hospital because doctors and nurses have said—Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular email. Is there objection? There is objection.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I do think we need some clarity from you around what the basis of the ruling is. I accept that there may be a Speaker’s ruling that we are not aware of but it would be good to know because there will be other occasions we want to table documents like this.Mr SPEAKER: There will be and I suggest the member look at a page full of Speaker’s rulings 148.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. A page full of rulings will have about half a dozen different reasons. I think what my colleague was asking was for the reason—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member now is disputing my ruling which will lead to disorder. There are a number of rulings there. I am suggesting he read them all which would help him.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am on my feet. Is this a fresh point of order? Because any attempt to dispute a ruling that has been made—Chris Hipkins: It is seeking clarity from you.Mr SPEAKER: Is it is any way disputing a ruling I have made?Chris Hipkins: No it is not disputing; it is seeking some clarity.Mr SPEAKER: I will hear from Chris Hipkins.Chris Hipkins: Thank you. I am relatively familiar with the issue of the tabling of documents because you will be aware that it was raised by the Standing Orders Committee of the last Parliament and significant changes were made to reduce the scope for the tabling of documents. But the critical issue there was that the Standing Orders Committee did not want to in any way curtail a member’s right to seek leave; it wanted to provided further clarity as to what was legitimately to be tabled. Information that is not publicly available is a legitimate thing for a member to seek to table and the Standing Orders Committee was very careful not to overly restrict what sort of format that might be in. So I just want to get some clarity. Annette King indicated that the document she sought to table was not publicly available or may not be available to members. The principle behind the tabling of documents is that it is in order to provide members with information that they might not have readily available to them and it seems to me that without hearing a proper description of the document and without actually putting it to the House we cannot judge whether the House would like to have that information.Mr SPEAKER: I thank the member for his point. The issue I think that may be of confusion to me is the authenticity of the document. If it has been prepared by the member for the point of making a political point then I will not be prepared to put the leave. If the member rises and says that it has not been prepared by the member and is of an authentic source the easiest way forward—[Interruption] Order! The easiest way forward once I am convinced of that is that I will put the leave. I am asking the Hon Annette King for clarification.Hon Annette King: The data is sourced from theWaitematā District Health Board’s annual plans for 2008 2009—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I did not ask where the data came from; I asked for the authenticity of the graph. Is it a graph that the member has prepared herself?Hon Annette King: Yes but—Mr SPEAKER: That is all I need to know thank—Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is a point of clarification. Could you please explain to the House—[Interruption] Well I am entitled to ask for a point of order—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon Annette King: —in silence.Mr SPEAKER: Would the member please continue with her point of order.Hon Annette King: Could you please explain to the House when sources of information that come from an independent source are a political item?Mr SPEAKER: Order! What we are talking about here is the tabling of a document that the member herself has prepared. I invited the shadow Leader of the House to have a look at Speakers’ Rulings and he should do so. If it has been prepared simply for the point of making a political point by the member regardless of where the data has come from I am not prepared to put that leave and that is the end of the matter. If any member wants to question it further I will have no choice but to ask that member to leave the Chamber. I call question No. 5 Dr Russel Norman. [Interruption] Order! I have called Dr Russel Norman. [Interruption] Would Chris Hipkins stand withdraw and apologise for that remark.Chris Hipkins: I withdraw and apologise.Hawke’s Bay Water Management—Minister’s Involvement and Meeting with Officials5.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) to theMinister of Conservation: What did he say in his meeting with officials on 29 July that led Department of Conservation Deputy Director-General Doris Johnston to write in an email later that day that he is “… likely to query whether we leave it all to the EPA to consider”?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health) on behalf of theMinister of Conservation: Nothing. The Minister did express concern that he did not have enough information about the submission which was due to be lodged on Friday 2 August and asked to see a copy of the submission before it was lodged.Dr Russel Norman: So are we to understand that Deputy Director-General Doris Johnston wrote in an email to other senior Department—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Will the member carry on.Dr Russel Norman: So are we to understand that Deputy Director-General Doris Johnston wrote an email to other senior managers within the Department of Conservation saying that the Hon Dr Nick Smith is “likely to query whether we leave it all to the EPA to consider.”? Did she write that email in response to Mr Smith’s saying nothing?Hon TONY RYALL: Yes. As Doris Johnston has said herself: “The concern was that he did not have enough information. We didn’t have a long discussion on the insand outs that might be in it. We just talked about him wanting some more information and he gave no direction.”Dr Russel Norman: So when Deputy Director-General Doris Johnston wrote this email to all these other senior managers within the Department of Conservation saying that Nick Smith was “likely to query whether we leave it all to the EPA to consider.”—that is that they drop their submission—did she write that email for random reasons no reason at all or just because she felt like writing the email?Hon TONY RYALL: You would have to ask Mrs Johnston to explain her motivations for those emails other than the fact that I could say that what she has said is “the Minister did not play any role in my decision-making”. And in respect of matters in that note she has made it clear that “the concern was that the Minister did not have enough information. We did not have a long discussion on the ins and outs that might be in it. We just talked about him wanting some more information and he gave no direction.”Dr Russel Norman: Is it standard practice for senior officials within the Department of Conservation to write emails talking about the Minister of Conservation and saying that the Minister of Conservation is likely to query whether the department should just leave it all up to the Environmental Protection Authority and not make a submission—is it standard practice in the Department of Conservation for senior officials to write such emails in response to the Minister saying nothing?Hon TONY RYALL: Look I would not be in a position to be able to answer that question particularly as a Minister in Nick Smith’s stead today. But what I would point to are the comments that Doris Johnston herself has made publicly where she refers to that line in the email as saying that “the concern was that he did not have enough information. We did not have a long discussion on the ins and outs that might be in it. We just talked about him wanting some more information and he gave no direction.” But more important is the comment that she made: “The Minister did not play any role in my decision-making.”Dr Russel Norman: Did Nick Smith find it difficult to have the conversation with Doris Johnston about the draft submission that the department was about to submit when Mr Smith says that he did not even know that this submission existed until 6 weeks later? How do you have a conversation about a submission without knowing that the submission exists?Hon TONY RYALL: Because the note that he got with his weekly report is quite clear that the department was evaluating the proposed plan change and resource consents and that a submission should be lodged.Dr Russel Norman: Is the Minister aware that in the document he has just been reading from it actually says it is the department’s preliminary view that a submission should be lodged on the plan change; if so how is it possible for the Minister to claim he did not know that this draft submission existed when it is both in the briefing note and as he has just said it was mentioned in the conversation that he had with his officials?Hon TONY RYALL: It is clear that the Minister got a copy of the final submission on 31 July. He has made it publicly clear that he was unaware that there was an earlier draft which he became aware of after a Radio New Zealand National report this month.Dr Russel Norman: Is he aware that departmental officials met about a week before 29 July or thereabouts and had a significant discussion as to whether they should lodge the submission because they knew that it would be controversial and they made a decision to continue to go ahead with the submission in spite of the fact that it would be controversial and that the submission was withdrawn only after Nick Smith intervened in the process on 29 July?Hon TONY RYALL: I am disappointed that that member thinks that Doris Johnston is a liar. She has been a loyal public servant—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! That does not help answer the question. As a way forward I am going to ask Dr Russel Norman to repeat that question.Dr Russel Norman: Is the Minister aware that senior Department of Conservation officials met about a week before the 29 July meeting with the Minister and decided to proceed with the submission even though they knew it would be controversial? Is he aware of that fact and that the submission was withdrawn only after the meeting with the Minister on 29 July?Hon TONY RYALL: As the Minister in his stead today I am not able to answer specifically whether the Minister knew of that meeting. But what I do know is that the premise of that member’s question is that what Mrs Johnston has been saying is not true because that member is saying that Nick Smith influenced the decision making. Mrs Johnston says: “The Minister did not play any role in my decision making.” My understanding as Minister answering this question today is that Doris Johnston has been a thoroughly professional and loyal public servant to both sides of this House. I am disappointed that her word is being denounced by that member.Economy Rebalancing—Productivity6.Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) to theMinister of Finance: Does he agree with the Productivity Commission that the “growing gap in labour productivity has been the main driver of an increasing disparity in GDP per capita between the two trans-Tasman economies” and given double-digit house price inflation in Auckland doesn’t this show the Government’s efforts to rebalance the economy towards productive exports and jobs has failed?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): In answer to the second part of the question no. The commission’s full comment refers to New Zealand’s relative decline since the mid-1970s. The Government understands those issues and has a programme in place of tax reform upgrading educational achievement and skills training building more infrastructure rolling out ultra-fast broadband—perhaps some 10 years ahead of when it would have turned up in the market—and getting the Government back to surplus. We believe that this programme and hundreds of other initiatives will contribute to closing the productivity gap with Australia.Hon Shane Jones: Why does he believe the Government’s current economic settings are correct when the Productivity Commission says that New Zealand’s productivity performance shows no evidence of catching up to other countries?Hon BILL ENGLISH: We have looked at that evidence pretty hard and we believe that the programme the Government has outlined will make a difference. I must say that in trying to turn round productivity decline dating back to the 1970s it will take persistence over time with sensible policies and public support. That is the recipe that this Government is following. We welcome suggestions from the retread economic spokespersons on the Opposition front bench that will assist in that project.David Bennett: When did the New Zealand economy first show signs of imbalance in the current economic cycle?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well between 2001 and 2007 house prices doubled. By 2007 first mortgage interest rates were at 10 percent. They are currently half of that. In the 5 years to 2008 public spending increased by 50 percent. The result of that was that in 2005 the export sector in New Zealand went into recession when the rest of the globe was enjoying an economic boom. It was a pretty amazing achievement.David Bennett: What is the outlook for the New Zealand economy and how does that compare to the situation in 2008?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The current economic outlook is for 2 to 3 percent growth over the next 3 years with export growth of 2 to 3 percent once the effects of the drought are over. The Government is expected to be in surplus in 2014-15. This compares favourably to the situation in 2006 to 2008 when the housing market was booming first mortgage interest rates were at 10 percent but the export sector had already been in recession for a couple of years. In the next 2 or 3 years New Zealand will be one of the fastest-growing developed economies and one of a handful in surplus but there is a lot of work to do yet particularly on productivity.Darien Fenton: Given that the Productivity Commission’s report shows that the long hours New Zealanders work have not helped improve wages or productivity will he support an amendment to the Employment Relations Act that would require employment agreements to have a clear indication of the hours that employees must work rather than the completely deregulated system we have now where some workers are working dangerously long hours?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No workers should be put in the position where the hours of work they have are dangerous. If that is the situation then their employers are breaching their statutory responsibilities. I know the member has for instance been supporting a campaign around the forestry industry which I think has had some impact on that industry that is positive for workers in reducing the dangers posed by long hours.David Bennett: What alternative economic proposals has he seen and what effect would those proposals have on productivity and the tradable sector?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have seen a number of proposals over recent weeks which I think come from somewhere in the 1960s and 1970s around how to try to legislate for a stronger economy with higher taxes more spending and bigger Government. I have also seen a number of proposals to shut down the dairy industry close down the smelter prevent all mining and stop any new irrigation at the same time as people are proposing more jobs and regional development. It clearly does not make sense.Hon Shane Jones: Does he agree that the 2.5 percent decline in productivity recorded by Statistics New Zealand in the fishing and forestry industries since 2008—the first productivity decline in those crucial regional sectors since records began—is directly linked to his Government’s cuts to regional training; if not why not?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No I certainly do not agree with that although the reasons for that decline are not well understood. My colleague Minister Joyce and the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment are doing a lot of sectoral work to understand changes in productivity. In respect of training schemes we are still cleaning up the mess left by the last Government of billions of dollars of wasted spending—misleading young New Zealanders that they were getting tradable skills when they were not. But the clean-up is almost over and help is on its way for those young New Zealanders who do want better skills.Hon Shane Jones: How will he achieve his promise to close the wage gap with Australia when the Productivity Commission says that under his current economic settings New Zealand’s productivity performance shows no evidence of catching up?Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I said before the Government has outlined its plan. It is all set out in detail in the Business Growth Agenda which has been thoroughly discussed with business with iwi with tertiary institutions and with industry groups. And if the member has another suggestion or two to add to the 300 policy initiatives they are most welcome.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Question No. 7.Mr SPEAKER: Supplementary question? Oh question No. 7. Very eager today.Whānau Ora—Minister’s StatementsRt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): This—[Interruption] Well he is clearly finished.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have now called the Rt Hon Winston Peters.7.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to theMinister forWhānau Ora: Does she stand by her answers to Oral Question No. 4 yesterday?Hon TARIANA TURIA (Minister forWhānau Ora):Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Yes.Rt Hon Winston Peters: When she was asked yesterday and I repeat “Has she ever offered resources and staff such as report writers to prepareWhānau Ora commissioning agency bid documentation;” why did she answer “No.”?Hon TARIANA TURIA: Because that is the truth.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How could that possibly be the truth when she knew of funds being given to the National Hauora Coalition and when an Official Information Act document from TePuniKōkiri supports that showing that this money was “to enable the National Hauora Coalition to test the broader applicability of its key framework consistent with the Government’sWhānau Ora approach and further that this takes inWhānau Ora outcomesWhānau Ora assessments andWhānau Ora case management.”? How can her denial possibly be credible?Hon TARIANA TURIA: The Rt Hon Winston Peters was very specific in his question yesterday. He asked whether I gave $500000 plus expert help to the National Hauora Coalition to prepare its bid forWhānau Ora money—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I apologise to the Minister. I have a point of order.Rt Hon Winston Peters: You will recall that my first supplementary question recited the question of yesterday which was the first supplementary question yesterday as well and which went this way—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am trying to hear the point of order and it would be helpful if there was no objection or interjection during that point of order.Rt Hon Winston Peters: My supplementary questions are based on the first supplementary question today as it was yesterday which was whether she has ever offered resources and staff such as report writers to prepare etc. etc. That is what I want answered today.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member raised a supplementary question and it began with “How can that possibly be the truth?”. The Minister was answering that with a full explanation as to how that could possibly be the truth. If the member does not like that answer do not raise a point of order; ask a further supplementary question. It is not for me to justify the answers given by Ministers in this House if the question has been addressed. Does the Hon Tariana Turia want to complete the answer or has she done so?Hon TARIANA TURIA: In response to the questions that the Rt Hon Winston Peters asked yesterday I answered those questions exactly as they were and I repeat those answers today.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well if that is possibly true why yesterday immediately following question time did she approach me and state her awareness that TePuniKōkiri had paid $500000 to the National Hauora Coalition—Hon Judith Collins: She’s not the Minister.Rt Hon Winston Peters: —which was what she denied in answer to my second supplementary question yesterday which was whether she has ever offered resources and staff? Everyone knows that TePuniKōkiri is the funder ofWhānau Ora and that isthe problem. [Interruption] I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You have got a Minister over here—Mr SPEAKER: Order! What is the point of order?Rt Hon Winston Peters: My point of order is that TePuniKōkiri is the funder ofWhānau Ora.Mr SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. [Interruption] Order! If the members want to stay for the balance of question time—[Interruption] Would the member please resume his seat. What the member is raising there is not a point of order; it is a matter of debate or a matter for clarification. It is not a point of order to raise with the Speaker of the House.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Is this a fresh point of order?Rt Hon Winston Peters: This was my question—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I know full well what the question was.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Which was what?Mr SPEAKER: You have asked the Minister to explain the answer yesterday compared with the information you are laying before the House now. That is the question. It is then for the Minister to answer. If the Minister addresses the question and the member then wants further clarification the member does that with a further supplementary question not by point of order.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why is the Minister indulging in attempted semantics in respect ofWhānau Ora funding when she knows it is administered by TePuniKōkiri but that does not admonish her from responsibility and when under the Official Information Act release just the other day we have this circumstance of a contract for $500000 as alleged by me and then a further contract of $1500 excluding GST on a private contract as alleged by me? How can she possibly deny that she had knowledge as she told me outside and as these documents—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Now the question is getting excessively long.Hon TARIANA TURIA: Mr Peters asked me yesterday whether I gave $500000 plus expert help to the National Hauora Coalition to prepare its bid forWhānau Ora money. I did not give it $500000 to prepare its bid forWhānau Ora money.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why is the Minister denying knowledge of her involvement when the whole sets of contracts that I have referred to in my supplementary question about offering resources and staff such as report writers—two contracts referred to the total connectedness with theWhānau Ora programme? Why is she trying to defy gravity here?Hon TARIANA TURIA: Yesterday the member said that I offered that not to the National Hauora Coalition but to the Iwi Leaders Forum which was disputed—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise again to the Minister. I have a point of order from the Rt Hon Winston Peters.Rt Hon Winston Peters: This is the second attempt for me to get a Minister to refer to the question being asked. I did not refer to other supplementary questions from yesterday. I am referring to the specific one about resources and staff—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! This is now one of the numerous attempts when the member is obviously not satisfied with the answer and he attempts to raise it as a point of order. He must use his supplementary questions. If he has got none left today then he will have another go tomorrow. Provided the question is addressed then I am no longer responsible for the answer that is given. The member must solve his problem by asking a supplementary question.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is not a question of whether I am satisfied with the answer. My point of order is that the Minister has made no attempt to answer the specific question which is what you should be ruling on.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have ruled on it. I said that the Minister has made a genuine attempt to address the question. Question No. 8 Phil Twyford.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise to the member. Is this a fresh point of order?Rt Hon Winston Peters: Of course it is a fresh point of order. That is why I am raising it.Mr SPEAKER: OK. We will have a fresh point of order from the Rt Hon Winston Peters.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek leave to table the Official Information Act report from TePuniKōkiri dated 3 September which shows the two contracts administered underWhānau Ora funding.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular report. Is there any objection to that course of action? There appears to be none. It can be so tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Housing Affordable—First-home Buyers and Mortgages8.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—TeAtatū) to theMinister of Housing: What does he say to the almost 80 percent of people looking to buy their first homes who say they cannot afford the 20 percent deposit or will need family help because of LVR lending limits?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of theMinister of Housing: First it is easy to understand the frustration of first-home buyers. It has always been difficult to get into a first home. We would say to those first-home buyers that we will do everything we can to give them a fair shot at the dream of homeownership. In particular they will have a better chance for an affordable home if we get a more flexible and faster growing supply of new houses on the ground and if we follow policies that prevent interest rates going to 10 percent as they were under the previous Labour Government.Phil Twyford: Why did he fail to advise the Minister of Finance that loan-to-value ratio lending limits would have negative consequences for first-home buyers before that Minister signed off the memorandum of understanding with the Reserve Bank that triggered the loan-to-value ratios?Hon BILL ENGLISH: First the member is wrong. The loan-to-value ratio rules were triggered by the Reserve Bank Governor using the tool kit that has actually always been available to him. The member continues to misrepresent that which I take as the Labour Party being keen to remove the independence of the Reserve Bank. I invite those members to explain to the public of New Zealand that they will now run interest rate policy banking supervision and financial stability. I cannot remember what the rest of the question was.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I was listening to the Minister’s answer and for the vast bulk of the Minister’s answer he was outlining what he thought the Labour Party’s policy was and inviting the Labour Party to explain its policy. Since when has that been an acceptable form of an answer?Mr SPEAKER: Order! There was a portion where he certainly did that. [Interruption] Order! I took the answer to be an explanation around the continued independence of the Reserve Bank. In my opinion that question had two parts to it. Hecertainly addressed one part of it. The member has further supplementary questions if he wants to use them.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I want to seek some clarification from you. Is it your view that when the Minister does what he did there when he went into a long part of his answer on matters for which he is not responsible you want us to take points of order? Is that your position?Mr SPEAKER: No. If the Minister is attempting to address the second part of the question that seems to me to be perfectly satisfactory. The Minister said at the end that he had forgotten the first part of the question—Hon BILL ENGLISH: I can answer it now.Mr SPEAKER: —and if the member wants that raised in the normal course of events I would have expected the member to say that he wanted the first part answered. The difficulty the member gets into is when he raises a supplementary question with two parts. In the meantime I have heard an interjection from the Hon Bill English that he now does recall the first part so I think the best way forward on this occasion—Grant Robertson: We’ll do it again.Mr SPEAKER: —no—is to allow the Minister to stand and answer the first part of the question.Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Minister of Housing did advise the Minister of Finance of that fact.Phil Twyford: Did he advise the Minister of Finance that not seeking advice from Treasury on the impact on first-home buyers of theloan-to-value ratio lending limits until a month after that Minister signed off the agreement with the Reserve Bank would seriously undermine the Government’s housing policy and shatter the dreams of thousands of first-home buyers?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No he did not advise the Minister of Finance of that because it is simply not the case. But the Minister of Housing has advised the Minister of Finance that first-home buyers will benefit from a more rapid supply of houses to the market and that the legislative and planning regime is now in place to achieve that. First-home buyers would be brutally punished by policies that pushed first mortgage interest rates up to 10 percent which is where they were in 2008 after the previous Labour Government spent 9 years not solving the housing problem.Phil Twyford: When he became aware that the Minister of Finance intended to speak to the banks to ask them to prioritise or protect first-home buyers beforeloan-to-value ratio lending limits came into force why did he remain silent and refuse to go in to bat for first-home buyers?Hon BILL ENGLISH: You could actually ask the Minister of Finance whether he went in to bat for first-home buyers and I can assure that member that he did.Phil Twyford: How would he interpret the banks’ response to the finance Minister’s panicked request given that none of them has prioritised first-home buyers and that the ASB Bank yesterday put up a third-tier manager to respond to the finance Minister’s attack on that bank demonstrating that the Government has no credibility with any of the trading banks on this issue?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think the trading banks’ problem is that they did not accord any credibility to the Governor of the Reserve Bank. And ASB has found out that when the Governor of the Reserve Bank says that he is considering bringing in limits then it ought to listen and stop promising young New Zealanders a loan that it knows that it probably cannot deliver on.Better Public Services Targets—Rheumatic Fever9.Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) to theMinister of Health: What progress is the Government making on its rheumatic fever programme?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health): By early next year more than 50000 children in 200 schools will be participating in the Government’s schools-based throat-swabbing campaign which is timely progress given that this Sunday is World Heart Day where the theme is all about adopting heart-healthy behaviours from a young age. Following representations from the MP for Papakura a further eight Papakura schools are scheduled to become part of the throat-swabbing campaign by October 2013. The campaign which aims to reduce the incidence of rheumatic fever by two-thirds by June 2017 received an additional $21.6 million over 4 years in Budget 2013 bringing the total Government investment to $45 million.Dr Paul Hutchison: What community work is currently being done to help reduce rheumatic fever?Hon TONY RYALL: Local communities and health providers are working together in at-risk communities that experience the highest rates of disease such as Auckland and Porirua. Soon the Associate Minister of Health the Hon Tariana Turia will announce details of the free sore throat rapid response clinics that will target families whose children do not attend schools with throat-swabbing services and an Auckland-wide healthy homes initiative will address poor-quality housing and overcrowding which are contributors to this disease particularly in Auckland. Other initiatives like research into a rheumatic fever vaccine and a targeted awareness campaign will also help families understand how to protect their children from this very serious Third World disease.Hawke’s Bay Water Management—Department of Conservation Submission on Plan Change Proposal10.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) to theMinister of Conservation: Did he receive the draft submission on theRuataniwha Dam proposal which was requested by Doris Johnston Deputy Director-General at the Department of Conservation to be delivered on Tuesday 30 July 2013; if so on what date?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health) on behalf of theMinister of Conservation: I am advised as he has previously advised that he did not receive the draft referred to until Tuesday last week after hearing about it on Radio New Zealand National’sMorning Report. He did receive the final submission on Wednesday 31 July.Hon Ruth Dyson: Were the contents of the submission he received consistent with the briefing on the draft submission he received on Monday 29 July; if not did he question the inconsistency?Hon TONY RYALL: I am unable to give an answer specifically on that other than to say that as Doris Johnston has said previously the Minister never saw the draft submission that is being talked about. It was never provided to his office. It was an internal working draft that managers accessed. They then decided that they would not make that submission.Hon Ruth Dyson: Why did he say to reporters on Thursday 19 September: “There was no mention to me of a draft submission. I did not know of the existence of a draft submission.” when he was briefed on the content of that draft submission on Monday 29 July expressed concern about it and asked for a copy of it before it was submitted?Hon TONY RYALL: The Minister has been quite clear. If you look at the note that he has received he has been advised that the Department of Conservation was evaluating the proposed plan and a preliminary view is that a submission should be lodged on the plan. As Doris Johnston made very clear: “The Minister did not play any role in my decision making.”Hon Anne Tolley: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt my colleague but three times the Hon Ruth Dyson accused the Minister of lying. That is not parliamentary language and I ask her to withdraw that.Mr SPEAKER: If the Hon Ruth Dyson did so that is unparliamentary. Would she stand and withdraw.Hon Ruth Dyson: I withdraw and apologise. When and how was he informed that a senior staff member resigned—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am going to ask the member to start that again. I could not hear above the interjection.Hon Ruth Dyson: When and how was he informed that a senior staff member resigned because the original submission on theRuataniwha Water Storage proposal was withdrawn?Hon TONY RYALL: The Minister has made it clear that he had not been informed of those circumstances when he last answered that question in the House which I think was yesterday.Hon Ruth Dyson: Is he ruling out any link between the withdrawal of the original submission and the staff member’s resignation?Hon TONY RYALL: I am not in a position as the Minister answering in his stead to be able to comment on that because that would actually be up to the employee to talk about. The real issue though here is the suggestion that the Minister—Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Minister made it clear that he was unable to answer that question. There is nothing more that he can add to the situation apart from getting the Minister down here.Mr SPEAKER: And on this occasion I finally agree with Grant Robertson.Drugs Illegal—Customs Operations11.Hon TAU HENARE (National) to theMinister of Customs: What is Customs doing to stem the tide of illegal psychoactive substances?Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister of Customs): The New Zealand Customs Service is dedicating a lot of time and resource to stopping illegal psychoactive substances from crossing our border. Just yesterday I announced that tens of millions of dollars of psychoactive substances had been intercepted at our border in a 7-month operation called Operation Static. The harm prevented to our communities is substantial. For example seizing 80 kilograms of class C analogues worth $21 million prevents $32 million of harm in our community.Hon Tau Henare: What message does this latest customs operation send?Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: This latest operation sends a very clear message to criminals that we will stop their vile drugs and we will go after them. Eleven people have been arrested so far and more arrests are pending. If people want to take a chance on their liberty by importing illegal psychoactive substances they can expect to get caught.Skycity Convention Centre—Television New Zealand Dividend Relief and Other Costs12.DENISE ROCHE (Green) to theMinister of Finance: What is the expected value of the dividends from TVNZ that the Crown will forego as a result of the dividend relief agreement related to theSkyCity deal?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): The Government has agreed to dividend relief for Television New Zealand (TVNZ) to help it cover the cost of a significant investment in the major refurbishment of the central Auckland building that it currently occupies. Some of the refurbishment costs will be met by $10.6 million that the company will receive from the sale of a package of land toSkycity. The rest will bemet through foregone dividends. TVNZ is currently in discussions with contractors regarding refurbishment and I would prefer not to release an estimate of the dividend relief while they are undertaking commercial negotiations but I am happy to do so when those negotiations are finished.Denise Roche: Why was the cost to the Crown in lost TVNZ dividends not included in the assessment of the value of theSkycity deal which is looking better forSkycity and worse for New Zealand by the day?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Because it was not part of any consideration of the arrangements aroundSkycity. In fact I think the catalyst for it was the idea that Telecom had emptied a building and there would be an opportunity for TVNZ to use that building in transition while the main TVNZ building was being refurbished. Those issues have only ever been considered in the last 3 months or 4 months.Denise Roche: I seek leave to table a letter from Minister Foss saying that TVNZ could reduce the dividends to facilitate the sale of land toSkycity.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table—it is a letter from Minister Foss?Denise Roche: Minister Foss.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that letter. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Denise Roche: What is the value of the social and economic harm that will arise from increased gambling and gambling harm in New Zealand resulting from this deal?Hon BILL ENGLISH: This deal has not been part of the considerations aroundSkycity although I know the Greens do not count jobs as having any social benefit. This deal like theSkycity deal will create more jobs certainly in the transition but it is an investment that TVNZ is making for its own future. It happens that selling those buildings toSkycity enablesSkycity to have a better convention centre. In that sense it is a win-win.Denise Roche: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question was about the value of the social and economic costs and the Minister—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member did not use that question. She used “What is the value of the social and economic harm?”. In that she put an opinion. She may well be able to justify that opinion but the Minister then addressed the question.Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was a very direct question—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I just clarify—is the member disputing a ruling I have just given? Because if so I am—Dr Russel Norman: No.Mr SPEAKER: Well if it is a fresh point of order I will happily hear it. But it had better be.Dr Russel Norman: The Minister used the occasion of his answer to make derogatory comments about the Green Party. It has nothing—Mr SPEAKER: Order! If the member finds those comments derogatory to the Green Party then I suggest he is just too sensitive. [Interruption] Order! I have a point of order here. Points of order will be heard in silence.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Previously—and there are several Speakers’ rulings regarding this—members have been told that we can expect a like style of answer to a like question. So straight questions—Mr SPEAKER: Could I just ask the member to refer me to which Speakers’ rulings he is referring to?Chris Hipkins: I have not actually got the exact numbers but I am sure the Clerk will be able to tell you which ones. But anyway the principle behind them is that a like question gets a like answer. So if it is a straight question you get a straight answer. If it is a political question you get a political answer. Repeatedly what we have seen here is the member asking what I think are relatively straight questions and the Minister has used that to attack the position or the supposed position of the person—Mr SPEAKER: The member obviously did not listen to my answer to the point of order. The question had a level of politics in it when it talked about the social and economic harm being done by the casino deal. The Minister took the opportunity to respond by saying “What about the jobs?”. Listen this is a political debating chamber. The question was with an element of politics. The answer given had an element of politics. If the Greens find that derogatory I do not believe that it was so.Denise Roche: How can the Government be sure—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can the member now start her question again.Denise Roche: How can the Government be sure that the economic case for theSkycity deal stacks up when it does not know what the cost will be and is relying onSkycity’s numbers for estimates of the benefits?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well in respect of this deal it would not have been included in calculations about costs or benefits because it is really an opportunity that arose out of the fact that theSkycity deal was eventually completed andSkycity on completion of that deal has been looking to make sure that the convention centre is as economic as possible. The Government has been looking at whether TVNZ ought to consolidate its buildings from I think three or four buildings into one. That one building needs refurbishment. That will come at some cost. The Government as an owner has been willing to invest in that alongside the proceeds of the sale of land toSkycity. That is how it has worked so that is why this deal has not been included in any calculation of costs or benefits aroundSkycity.Denise Roche: I seek leave to table an email from an independent adviser to the Ministry of Economic Development saying that all the Government’s numbers come fromSkycity and are not independently verified.Mr SPEAKER: We need to know who the author of that document is.Denise Roche: It is from an independent adviser and it is to RogerWigglesworth. It was given to us in confidence.Mr SPEAKER: The easiest way is to put the leave. Is there any objection to that anonymous email being presented? There is objection.Questions to MembersNew Zealand International Convention Centre Bill—Oral Submissions1.DENISE ROCHE (Green) to theChairperson of the Commerce Committee: DidSkyCity present an oral submission to the Committee regarding the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill?JONATHAN YOUNG (Chairperson of the Commerce Committee): No.Denise Roche: Can the chair confirm thatSkycity the main beneficiary of this legislation did not appear before the committee to answer Parliament’s questions?Mr SPEAKER: Well I would have thought—let us allow the member to answer the question. [Interruption] I thought it had actually been answered in the preliminary question but let us have it again.Denise Roche: Can the chair confirm thatSkycity the main beneficiary of this legislation did not appear before the committee to answer Parliament’s questions?JONATHAN YOUNG: No it did not appear before the committee.New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill—Requests for Submissions2.DENISE ROCHE (Green) to theChairperson of the Commerce Committee: Did he inviteSkyCity to present an oral submission to the Committee regarding the New Zealand International Convention Centre Bill; if not why not?JONATHAN YOUNG (Chairperson of the Commerce Committee): No; because I left this matter for the committee to decide.Denise Roche: For clarity is it correct that despite the fact that the legislation extendsSkycity Casino’s licence the chair did not ask the prime beneficiary of this legislation to appear—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member has just answered that question.General DebateHon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Leader of the Opposition): I moveThat the House take note of miscellaneous business. In the life of any Government there approaches a tipping point. It is a point where the temperature in the House rises as the public makes up its mind and where the Government of the day starts to look tired ragged and desperate. According to the Government I was not born in New Zealand. I am a militant Islamic terrorist and I was actually born in Kenya! We will get more from it on that.We are not fooled. The real issue going on is that the Government is covering up for a Minister of Conservation who is such an endangered species that he could not even crawl his way into the Chamber. This is a—Hon Member: Point of order—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I think I can anticipate—the member must not refer to the fact that a Minister is not in the Chamber.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: This Government is showing all the signs of a third-term Government in its second term. This is a Government on its way out and this is an Opposition on its way in. The endangered Minister is guilty of three capital crimes: self-contradiction excess intervention and repeat offending.In a self-contradiction on 29 July he said: “The first I knew of there being an issue overDOC’s submission [forRuataniwha] to the board was at my weekly meeting with officials on Monday 29 July.” On the 31st he said he received a full briefing and a final submission from his department. Roll the clock forward to 19 September. He told the media and the House: “I have consistently said I never saw this draft until Tuesday of this week.” That was months later. On 19 July he said: “I did not know that this draft document even existed.”—he did not know that a draft existed. When the deputy director-general of the Department of Conservation expressed the Minister’s concern what was so nuclear in the draft? It was the department doing its duty: warning that the poor littlefishies in the Tukituki River might be harmed by the nitrates in the dam.This caused the second capital crime: excess intervention. It was not nitrates in the water that was the problem; it was whatever was in the Minister’s waters because the Minister stomped all over proper departmental process. In so doing he thwarted the Department of Conservation fulfilling its statutory mandate: saving the littlefishies of the Tukituki River.The third capital crime is repeat offending because this Minister has a history of scandals rather reminiscent of theRuataniwha troubles. He sacked the Environment Canterbury board because it got in the way of big irrigator interests. I wonder which big irrigating interests are leaning on this particular project. He has a habit of going off half-cocked. He wrote letters of support to ACC for National Party campaigner BronwynPullar when he was Minister for ACC. He has a history of defamation cases—defamation cases. It rather reminds me of a certain MatthewHooton—but we will not go there—the timber companyOsmose the Exclusive Brethren Dave Henderson Bruce Stuart-Menteath and then of course the little matter of being found in contempt of court.Look at them on the other side. One almost feels sorry for them. There comes a point past the tipping point where you just want to put them out of their misery. That time is now ladies and gentlemen. Let us get a new Labour-led Government and give New Zealanders back their country.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): I seek leave to table an article from today’sNelson Mail. It is on the eradication programme for the giant white butterfly and it has the—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Leader of the Opposition): I seek leave to table the draft Department of Conservation submission on theRuataniwha dam and its implications for the Tukituki catchment and estuary—Mr SPEAKER: Can I clarify—was this not tabled yesterday?Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I have a copy here which is—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not the point. Was it tabled yesterday?Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I may have missed that Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: If I am assured that it was not tabled yesterday I will put the leave. Leave is sought to table the draft Department of Conservation submission. [Interruption] Order! I understood it was tabled yesterday. I sought clarification from the Labour front benches.Hon Members: We don’t know.Mr SPEAKER: Well I would be staggered if the members cannot remember what was tabled yesterday when they called for it. [Interruption] Sorry the Hon Shane Jones is interjecting. What is the point?Hon SHANE JONES (Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is a very lucid point of order. We can expect the Speaker of this House to keep an accurate record of what documents are tabled.Mr SPEAKER: That is the point I am making. The document was tabled yesterday so the Hon David Cunliffe is wasting his time by seeking to table it again.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Oh this is getting to the ridiculous stage. I will hear from the Hon Clayton Cosgrove if it is a fresh point of order. If it is not then I will be asking the Hon Clayton Cosgrove to leave the Chamber.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): It is a serious procedural question not challenging you. It is the case I assume that documents and other things get tabled all the time and I assume your office—Mr SPEAKER: Order! We are now getting to the stage when the member is exactly questioning that—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Can I finish?Mr SPEAKER: No the member cannot finish. The member will resume his seat. We have clarified that the document was tabled yesterday. It is a privilege to seek leave to table a document. It must be something that is done to inform members. I have been assured that the document was tabled yesterday. I will not put leave for it to be tabled again today. That is the end of the matter.Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Is this a fresh point of order or is it seeking to clarify?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Seeking to clarify.Mr SPEAKER: I will hear from the—[Interruption] Order! It was on the basis of AnneTolley’s confirmation to me that it was tabled yesterday that I am seeking the clarification.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I am sorry. I was asserting that the document was tabled. I do not think it was tabled yesterday; I believe it was tabled last week by the Greens.Hon Annette King: Are we sure?Mr SPEAKER: Well no. The easiest way forward—[Interruption] Order! Now that it has been clarified that it possibly was not tabled yesterday I am going to ask the member to seek leave—would the member seek leave?Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Leader of the Opposition): Yes. I seek leave to table this document which was not tabled yesterday.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table the particular Department of Conservation draft submission. Is there any objection? There is.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Leader of the Opposition): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: A fresh point of order?Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: A fresh point of order. I seek leave to table briefing notes to plan change 6 to the Hawke’s Bay Regional Resource Management Plan Tukituki Catchment andRuataniwha Water Storage—Mr SPEAKER: Sorry the source of these documents?Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: The Ministry for Primary Industries I understand.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table a Ministry for Primary Industries draft statement. Is there any objection? There is objection.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Leader of the Opposition): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: A fresh point of order?Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: A fresh point of order. I seek leave to table Ministry for Primary Industries document 103298 starting at page 356 which is its final submission to theRuataniwha—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Leave is sought to table a Ministry for Primary Industries submission. Can I just check. Are there any further documents that the member wants to table?Hon David Cunliffe: Many.Mr SPEAKER: Today?Hon David Cunliffe: No.Mr SPEAKER: Thank you. Leave is sought to table the Ministry for Primary Industries documents. There is objection.Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister): It must be a good Government when the biggest issue of the day of the second week of the new leader’s career is whether the Minister of Conservation saw a draft report before he knew it existed. That is the biggest issue and I think it does show how out of touch the pale male stale Labour Party is.One of the bigger issues is actually housing and I just want to outline the Government’s programme of work towards resolving New Zealand’s housing affordability issues. In the last economic cycle up to 2007-08 housing in New Zealand became less affordable than it had ever been driven mainly actually by the policies of the current Leader of the Opposition where we ended up with first mortgage rates at 10 percent at a time when house prices had doubled in less than a decade.Back in early 2011 when house prices had actually been falling and were flat this Government decided that it was an issue that needed to be dealt with. At that time we announced the first inquiry of the new Productivity Commission. The first inquiry of thenew Productivity Commission was into housing affordability. That commission did a very good job because what it did was show that in fact the supply of housing was a critical determinant of the price of housing. I have to say that before then when this Government had advanced that proposition it was roundly criticised particularly by local government and also by the Opposition and by pretty much any commentator who thought they knew much about it.The Productivity Commission did its inquiry and released its report in April 2012. In October 2012 the Government released its response to that report and then we proceeded to take action because housing affordability is an issue that affects every New Zealander. We started intensive discussions particularly with Auckland Council because this is about the interaction of local decision-making and regulation along with its impact on macroeconomic settings and particularly in New Zealand on our export sector.Of course the Opposition should have understood the real risks of a runaway housing market because the runaway housing market under Labour was so bad that in 2008 it and then we had to back a sovereign guarantee of the New Zealand banking system with a contingent liability of over $100 billion. So we should all be aware of the risks of having a runaway housing market alongside any kind of financial disruption.It had never happened before that a New Zealand Government had had to underwrite our banking system which is driven primarily by housing loans. So of course we set out to take action to ensure that those circumstances could not arise again. As a result of our intensive negotiations with Auckland Council we have come to an agreement—I might say a historic agreement—that the Government and Auckland will work together on increasing the supply of housing going into that market where prices have been growing by 12 to 15 percent.That agreement is backed up by an innovative legislative solution which I have to say took an enormous amount of work from the previous and the current Minister of Housing and was put through the House in pretty quick time. It still took 6 or 8 months to get it through because that is the time it takes.The housing cycle of course has taken off—there is no doubt about that—and it is fortunate that this Government 3 years ago set off down the path of dealing with housing affordability. Now we are ready alongside the Auckland Council to consent thousands—thousands—of new houses including affordable houses.Phil Twyford: How many affordable?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The biggest indictment on that member’s party is that under Labour’s watch no affordable housing was built in Auckland—none. None was built in a decade—almost none in a decade. By the end of Labour’s time in office you had to pay $600000 or $700000 on the periphery of the city at mortgage rates—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green): There are two agendas that are competing in New Zealand at the moment. There is the agenda for a smarter greener more compassionate New Zealand and there is the Government’s agenda of daft dirty and heartless and nothing could illustrate that more than the debate around theRuataniwha irrigation scheme. It looks like a debate as to whether Nick Smith misled Parliament or not but what sits behind it is that the Government is absolutely determined to pursue its irrigation agenda regardless of the environmental effects.What we know from theRuataniwha scheme is that it is massively subsidised by the taxpayer—both the ratepayers in the Hawke’s Bay as well as central government which will be kicking in a lot of money—we know it will have a huge downstream environmental effect of massive nitrogen contamination as a result of this dam project if it is to go ahead; and we know that the only Government department with thestatutory responsibility to stand up for the environment to speak out for it and to make a submission into this process is the Department of Conservation and that is why the Minister of Conservation had to censor his department and prevent it from putting in a submission that was critical of this dam project.The Department of Conservation’s original submission simply stated the science. The science around this is very clear. When you have a massive irrigation project—hundreds of millions of dollars this project will cost—and then you have tens of thousands of hectares of intensified agriculture as a result you get massive downstream nitrogen pollution with all the problems that causes not only to the native fish in that river system but of course to the recreational trout fishery as well. It is the fundamental destruction of the New Zealand environment.The Department of Conservation was simply going to put in a submission pointing to these basic scientific facts but it was unacceptable to the Government that the department should tell the truth about the freshwater science so it had to be suppressed. It was just the same as when the Government got rid of the democratically elected councillors in Canterbury. Prior to the earthquake it got rid of the elected councillors in Canterbury. They were standing up to the irrigation agenda of this Government so they had to go. That is why the Department of Conservation had to be suppressed and its submission had to be suppressed. It was not allowed to go into this process.The Ministry for Primary Industries of course was allowed to put in a very large submission in favour of the dam project but the Department of Conservation was blocked. What this means is that we are heading down an economic path where we kill the goose that lays the golden egg. New Zealand’s clean green and safe reputation the foundation of our primary sector is being destroyed by the Government while it seeks short-term profits and simply an increase in more and more milk solids. The last drop of milk from the last blade of grass could describe this Government’s economic strategy.Instead of having investment in research and development and innovation making us an innovative economy that makes money from our brains we are simply becoming an economy that digs stuff up and grows milk and sells it to the rest of the world and in the process completely destroying the natural environment that underpins our primary food export sector. As theRiddet Institute—that is theagrifood institute that is an expert in this—pointed out the Government is determined to destroy the clean green and safe brand that underpins our primary sector rather than saying that what we need to do is build on that brand get value out of that brand control more of the value chain from that brand get to know our customers do the research and development so we make more money out of it and at the same time invest in research and development in more innovative industries that can complement the primary sector so we do not build an economy entirely dependent on cows and mining as this Government thinks we should do.That is the fundamental economic strategy issue that is at stake in this argument around theRuataniwha dam. It is a fundamental divergence of views between the National Party which wants to keep heading down this strategy of daft dirty and heartless and the Green Party which says that we need a smarter greener more compassionate strategy and a smarter greener economic strategy that actually adds value and makes us more prosperous and richer rather than simply degrading the natural environment on which our economy depends. That is the fundamental contradiction.When Nick Smith had the motive to get in the way of the department’s report he had the opportunity and the evidence is that he interrupted the report. The reason why he is doing that is not just some accidental reason; he is doing it in order to support theGovernment’s irrigation agenda which is fundamentally undermining the New Zealand economy.Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Commerce): I am sure the House is very grateful for that lesson in business resting on the vast experience in the real world of that member Russel Norman. I am sure we have enjoyed that. I do challenge such members to check some of their facts around the job creation side of what he has just been talking about.Anyway every time the far-left socialist coalition members over there speak and welcome socialism with open arms as does the new leader of the Labour Party—and congratulations to the new leader—every time they open their mouths New Zealand mortgages suffer. After that speech right then and the Leader of the Opposition’s speech New Zealand mortgages will suffer if in fact those members are ever to get near the Treasury benches. The programme of multibillion-dollar borrowing from overseas that the three contestants in the Labour Party leadership contest have committed their party to if Labour becomes the Government will mean that New Zealand mortgages will be so much higher than they are now. The Opposition cannot wait to get its sticky fingers on the Reserve Bank. Its members cannot wait to get the independence of monetary policy out of the clutches of the world-renowned Reserve Bank here in New Zealand. The moment they talk about that as with the moment they went there the last time they were in Government in 2008 with an inquiry—actually New Zealand mortgages will go higher if in fact those members ever get anywhere near implementing that policy.The results of the Better Public Services prudent management of our economy are starting to be enjoyed by more and more New Zealanders all the time. There are lower mortgage rates—half of what they were under Labour in 2008 in spite of the global financial crisis and in spite of the efforts we are having to do around the Christchurch and Canterbury earthquake tragedies. I must note that we should contrast where we are now with 2008 the source of data being the 2008 pre-election fiscal update—the document that introduced the decade of deficits to our country. I do note that one of the Associate Ministers of Finance was one Mr David Cunliffe in 2008 when the decade of deficits arrived in New Zealand.In 2008 under a Labour Government New Zealand had been in a recession for over 1 year. Under National right now there is some of the highest growth in the OECD. Under Labour when one Associate Minister of Finance was one David Cunliffe we had 10 percent floating mortgages. Under National right now we have 5 percent floating mortgages. Under Labour when Mr Cunliffe was an Associate Minister of Finance we had only 4 percent real wage growth over 9 years. Here under the National Government over just 5 years we have had 22 percent growth in after-tax wages. Inflation when Mr Cunliffe was an Associate Minister of Finance was nudging 5 percent destroying the financial assets of New Zealand and pumping up an ongoing housing boom. Under National it is 0.5 to 1.5 percent—under control. In 2008 under Labour exports had been in recession for many many years. Under National manufacturing and all export sectors are growing and having a brighter future. Under Labour when David Cunliffe was one of the associate finance spokesmen the tax take went up 50 percent. Taxes went up 50 percent. National in 2013 is rebalancing the tax system to target those who speculate on property. Under Labour in 2008 there was an explosion of loss attributing qualifying companies—nobody really hears about them any more—a product of the distorted tax system of the Labour Government backed by the Greens when Mr Cunliffe was one of the associate finance spokesmen.After 5 years of National in Government New Zealanders are better off. There is no better proof than the mortgage rates that New Zealanders are paying which are half of what they were under the Labour Government.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): Over the years New Zealand First has raised a number of issues in this Parliament and over the years we have had our credibility attacked by certain people in the press gallery and around the country who do not seem to have much of an understanding of how facts are assembled. The reality is that over the years we talked about things as wide as the wine-box inquiry New Zealand Rail the leaking of secret documents the Bank of New Zealand scandal the Māori loans affair and time after time we have had the effrontery to be faced by journalists and people in the Opposition who say that what we are arguing is not true.I want to say aboutWhānau Ora that the allegations being made here in the last 2 days are true and that what the Minister forWhānau Ora has been telling the House is not true. That is demonstrably obvious to everybody here in respect of those questions. Yesterday she was asked a question on whether or not she had ever offered resources and staff such as report writers to prepareWhānau Ora commissioning agency bid documentation. All the evidence for that has been placed before this House. Instead the Minister gets up here and seeks to vacillate and argue and by being deliberately obtuse get away from what used to be a House where things were transparent and members of Parliament were accountable. This is a disgrace and all over this country there are people writing in—I am sure even to you Mr Speaker—to say what a disgrace they think it is.The fact is that John Key said thatWhānau Ora contracts would be focused on results meaning that the providers would be held accountable for what they achieved with Government funding. When did that happen in the last 2 days? She was asked a simple question: did this or did this not happen and 2 days later you have got officials in this Parliament and members of Parliament and certain people in the media who would not know a Māori if they fell over one having the effrontery to challenge someone whose information is based on documentation and Māori information as well.This is the “bro-rocracy” of the “Browntable”—to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars from worthy social causes to the elite mates and supporters of the Māori Party. They have been caught out yet again with their pork andpūhā politics. It is a blatant and barefaced use of public money to fund a completely separate system—a blatant attempt to sideline pan-Māori and urban Māori authorities for their own preferred ancient mediaeval mechanism. It is a giant leap back to the worst excesses of ancient tribalism and it does not fit in with the modern democratic society.Whānau Ora medieval in purpose does not empower Māori. The Māori Party most certainly does not empower Māori. Democracy does empower Māori and all the great progress and achievements came with the democratic system to this country and every time we let that system down in this Parliament we sell our nation and democracy short. It is a giant leap backwards. They started with $30 million then $43 million then $50 million and now it is $53 million a year since 2010-11. It is a gold-plated gravy train and the latest twist is that now there are three non-governmental agencies in the mix—the so-called commissioning agencies.Remember when we said that they were giving money to Māori gangs and selling drugs? Remember when we said that they were giving money to a rape crisis centre with not one client? Remember when we said they gave $65000 for a weekend hui at a rugby club as some sort of attempt to get connection amongstMāoridom? She opposed that—[Interruption] What does that mean Mr Speaker?Mr SPEAKER: One minute.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh I thought you were saying it was wonderful. Sorry Mr Speaker. Tariana Turia in this House and outside it denied it in the face of the media. I want to tell the New Zealand media that it doesMāoridom no good—or this nation any good—if it thinks it can take sides and that somehow this issue will go away. It will not. The fact is that the Minister has been caught out. I have lodged a breach of privilege. If we have got justice in this country it will find favour. The Minister said—not once but twice over 2 specific days—on the question as to whether she was involved in any sort of resourcing of these agencies “No.” over and over and over again. That is a breach of privilege and that Minister should go.Hon JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata): As I rise for this general debate today I do so knowing that the feedback I am getting from the people of my Rangitata electorate is that they are so grateful to have a Government that has its eye on the ball; that has its eye on the things that really matter to New Zealanders. So it is not what is the matter with New Zealanders; it is what matters to New Zealanders.One of the most important things to them is that the Government has assisted their households and their families through the global financial crisis and through the tough times and they have come to understand that it has their interests at heart. So it is about responsibly managing the Government’s finances. As I often say to people I understand as does this National Government that when we talk about Government spending it is actually their spending. It is their taxpayer money that we are spending. It is not Government money. It came out of the pockets of hard-working New Zealanders.It is actually about a more competitive and productive economy because that is about jobs that is about raising incomes that is about raising the standard of living for the households of New Zealand. That is the sort of stuff where in fact the average household understands that it is spending so much less on its mortgage under this National Government than it ever did under the previous Government. They can certainly get their heads round how that has helped them through this time.It is about the confidence that the people of Canterbury understand. They know that this Government is backing them and is backing getting the rebuild done. Canterbury is firing on all cylinders. I can tell you that unemployment is low there. I can tell you that in my part of Canterbury we are now suffering from unease about skills shortages. So I would say to people in the rest of New Zealand to come on down—we have got a job for you. We will look after you down our end of the country.The thing I want to concentrate on today is the Better Public Services targets. You see this Government does not shy away from setting itself tough targets—targets that will not be easy to achieve and that are not simply window dressing. Our Government and New Zealanders understand that it is not about spend spend spend—spend for the sake of spending. It is actually about getting some value for the money we spend. It really is. We are certainly delivering. We are reducing crime. We do have measurable improvements in the health of New Zealanders. We are reducing educational underachievement and long-term welfare dependence. But long-term welfare dependence is something that the members on the other side of the House depend upon. They actually depend upon it to stay there and support them.In fact the targets we have actually set are quite hard to achieve. We have actually had to take some risks. On this side of the House we have had to take some—Andrew Williams: We’re over here.Hon JO GOODHEW: Welfare dependence is over there is it? Welfare dependence is over there since that is what I am actually talking about at the moment and the member calls out “We’re over here.” So the number of long-term beneficiaries has fallen by almost 3000 to 75300. That is 3000 in the past year.As for the Social Workers in Schools scheme they are now implemented in decile 1 to 3 schools—72 percent of low-decile schools. That is making a real difference in those schools. Not only have we got social workers in schools but we have got social workers in every single district health board hospital. That makes a real difference. That makes a real difference.So if we want to look at some statistics that are truly truly scary 3044 children experienced substantial physical abuse in the year to March 2013. But actually the good news is that that is a reduction of 3.5 percent. So we are seeing—Andrew Williams: That’s margin of error.Hon JO GOODHEW: Oh the member is dreaming. The Vulnerable Children Bill received universal unanimous support across the House so that is something that we can actually all agree on. But what we did not see under the previous Government is any jolly improvement on that or on any tough things. So when we went out around the country with a green paper we said that we wanted to hear the tough things that people thought we should do to protect vulnerable children. We are having fantastic success when it comes to immunisation elective surgery cancer treatment—results results results under this Government—Mr SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): It is always extraordinary to follow Jo Goodhew the only Minister of Women’s Affairs ever to vote in this House against paid parental leave. That is an unbelievable record that she will leave behind in this House.It is movie time for Nick Smith. We are up to the sequel in the series. The first movie as most people will know was entitled “Fatal Attraction: The BronwynPullar Affair”. That is how things began. For those who do not recall the details of that case it concerned Nick Smith writing a letter on a ministerial letterhead as Minister for ACC and intervening in that case. I might say that there was a guest star in that movie—Judith Collins. While we are discussing that we still do not know who leaked the email out of Judith Collins’ office. We still do not know that today. There are some suspicions around but she was certainly a guest star in that movie.Now we have reached the sequel. The sequel is a remake of a well-known filmThe Dam Busters—or in this case “The Accidental Dam Buster” with Nick Smith. What is not well-known about theDam Busters movie is that it is actually based on an operation in World War II called Operation Chastise. It would be fair to say that there has been a great deal of chastising going on on the other side of the House. Nick Smith is very grateful for the fact that Gerry Brownlee and Steven Joyce are not here because Operation Chastise was taking place in the Beehive earlier this week.Nick Smith just cannot stick to one story about what has happened. What Nick Smith told us on 17 September is: “I did not give the department an indication of what that submission would be.”Hon Annette King: “I did not have sex with that woman.”GRANT ROBERTSON: He also said: “I did not know that this draft document even existed until this morning.” As my colleague Annette King says there are echoes here of “I did not have sex with that woman Ms Lewinsky.” Nick Smith cannot keep his story straight in this matter.What we are seeing here from Nick Smith is a continuation of his form his complete lack of respect for any kind of due process and a continuation of the crony capitalism that is now the mark of this Government. Nick Smith has the ACC case. He also has the Canterbury Regional Council case. It is important to remember that when Nick Smith was asked why he cancelled the Canterbury Regional Council elections in 2010 he said: “Because I’m worried about the outcome.” That is what he told New Zealanders.His lack of respect for democracy is so great that he cancelled those elections. So he has form in this. He also has form in the funding of the Mackenzie Basin consultative process on behalf of Jacqui Dean where he overrode the Ministry for the Environment’s funding processes to put in funding for his pet project.This National Government does not believe in the old “one rule for all” saying that we used to hear from Don Brash—no it does not. There is one rule for National Party Ministers. They can intervene. They can meddle. They can show up on behalf of their cronies because that is the kind of Government we have now. It is a Government that works in the interests of its mates and not in the interests of ordinary New Zealanders and the people who work every day to earn a living in this country.There should be a third film in this series and that isGone with the Wind—or “Gone with the River” because that is what Nick Smith should be. If John Key has any standards for ministerial behaviour Nick Smith should be gone. He has misled this Parliament. He has misled New Zealanders. He has intervened in a process that the Department of Conservation legitimately wanted to be involved in. We stand here today with a staff member having resigned from the Department of Conservation because of this Minister’s interference.John Key needs to say to Nick Smith that his time has gone—there has been one too many breaches of what New Zealanders would see as the standards of ministerial behaviour. John Key is letting it go because his Government is on the ropes. Nick Smith’s behaviour has fallen well short of the expectations of New Zealanders. This is a continuation of the cronyism of the meddling of a Government on its way out.TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): I am wearing a gerbera which is the symbol for Arthritis New Zealand to acknowledge and celebrate the organisation’s wonderful work with the many New Zealanders who are living with that debilitating and often painful condition. I also want to acknowledge those who are out collecting in their annual appeal this week—in pretty inclement conditions in many parts of the country. I am always so proud of the generosity of New Zealanders in responding to such good causes.I am also very proud to be a member of a Government that is doing such a good job focusing on the challenges and the issues that matter to New Zealanders and is succeeding. One of the four key planks of our current term of office as was mentioned by the Hon Jo Goodhew is delivering better public services. That is because New Zealanders want their Government to spend their hard-earned tax dollars wisely and they deserve to see positive results for that expenditure. We have been through very challenging times since the recession hit at the end of 2007 and our Government has had to make many tough decisions to get public spending under control and the Government’s books back into surplus. We are succeeding and that is a remarkable achievement which has earned admiration from Standard and Poor’s the IMF and many Governments that look on New Zealand with great envy.The members opposite love to talk of cuts. Frequently they make them up because the facts do not support the story they are trying to tell. In fact their constant misrepresentation of the Government’s fiscal strategy and significant progress is a major reason for their failure to connect with the electorate at large or to persuade the public to accept their attempts to rewrite history.My constituents in Hamilton West know we have had to get Government spending under control after the reckless approach that we inherited at the end of 2008 and they understand that we are following a programme to attract investment in our economy and job creation. They are unimpressed by the constant opposition of Labour MPs and Green MPs to the many options that we are suggesting to create new job opportunities and investment in this country. The facts demonstrate that our plan is getting resultsbecause the economy is growing wages are increasing and interest rates are at record lows.More than 65000 jobs have been created in the past 2 years and our unemployment rate is lower than that of most developed countries. Business confidence is the highest it has been this century and our manufacturing sector has grown 9.2 percent since 2009—an amazing turn-round from just a year before when Labour was in office and it plummeted. Our fiscal outlook has improved markedly our management of the economy is sound we are on track to surplus in 2014-15 and we will be one of the few countries in the world that will not be increasing public debt at that point.At the start of this term of Government the Prime Minister set some very ambitious targets for those who are delivering better public services in our country. That is because we are an ambitious Government and because New Zealanders want to see better outcomes across health education social welfare our criminal justice system and elsewhere and in every one of those areas we are delivering. The recent results are very good.Let us consider some of the results. We have committed to reducing child abuse and neglect in New Zealand because it is a tragic blight on our society. In the year to March 2013 we have seen a 3.5 percent reduction in the number of New Zealand children who are experiencing substantiated physical abuse. It is still a major challenge and I am absolutely committed to the Children’s Action Plan which Paula Bennett has rolled out because it will deliver further gains and further safety for our children in this country. Our crime rate is the lowest it has been for 30 years and our police are doing a superb job—Chris Auchinvole: How long?TIM MACINDOE: Thirty years. The police do a superb job on the front line. Most encouragingly youth crime has fallen by 19 percent in just 2 years. We have already exceeded the Better Public Services target.As a political candidate and latterly as an MP I hammered the need for a much greater focus on rehabilitating those who are already in our criminal justice system because there is no point in incarcerating offenders at great expense to taxpayers if we do nothing to reduce the likelihood of their reoffending on release. That is why I warmly welcome a raft of initiatives that we have seen in recent months from the Hon Anne Tolley. We have seen a new nationwide reintegration programme called Out of Gate which will deliver fantastic services to those who are on the point of being released. It is a fantastic initiative. I really commend it. It will ensure they have much greater options to get a job at that crucial time just before their release when they could be at risk of reoffending.We have seen that there are fewer victims of crime and there are further reductions in reoffending rates as a result of the new education strategy that is being rolled out for prisoners. The majority of prisoners cannot read or write properly. This is a serious driver of crime. That is why we are tackling the problem. It is working.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I recognise the Hon Ruth Dyson.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I would be very disappointed if you did not Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a real pleasure to talk in this general debate this afternoon but I am really disappointed in my subject. I have not seen very often in this Parliament the kind of inconsistencies and misleading that the Hon Nick Smith has indulged inin the last 2 weeks and I say that it does a disservice to the whole of this House. The reputation of this Parliament should be important to all of us. If a Minister ends up doing something that is not right then I think it is incumbent on that Minister to front up and say so.But what we have seen is that the Minister of Conservation was briefed clearly on a draft submission from the Department of Conservation that it wanted to make—and actually it is its statutory obligation to make—to the board of inquiry looking at the proposal for plan changes to do with theRuataniwha dam. It was concerned about it and it wanted to make a submission expressing its concerns particularly about the water quality and the impact on native fish. That is its responsibility. It briefed the Minister. He has consistently denied knowing of the existence of that submission. How could a Minister be briefed on a submission raise concerns about it ask for a copy of the full submission before it is submitted and then deny its very existence? That is not credible.Today I was very disappointed that the Minister was not able to join us in the House to answer questions and I think that my disappointment was matched only by the disappointment of Nick Smith’s colleague Tony Ryall who was clearly disappointed that he was passed the parcel—an absolute hospital pass—in trying to justify the inconsistency that I just referred to. Minister Nick Smith has said that he did not give the Department of Conservation an indication of what its submission should be. Yet the deputy director-general—not a junior staff member; a competent well-regarded professional—sent an email out to her senior colleagues saying: “The Minister has expressed concern about our submission. He wants to see a final copy of it. You should send it over tomorrow because I am out of town.” I am quoting from the email Mr Assistant Speaker rather than referring to you. Then she said: “He has expressed concern and might want us to let the determination about the water quality be made by the EPA.” It was a clear indication from the Minister about what should be in the submission and what should not and again we have had the Minister denying that.The denial of knowing about the submission is clearly not credible. The Minister had a briefing he expressed concern he asked for a full copy and then he said that he did not know of the existence of the draft submission. That is just totally unbelievable. It just cannot be true. He then said that he did not have any influence on that submission at all. As I have just said if you line that statement up against the statement of the deputy director-general from the email that was sent which is now on the department’s website that statement clearly is not credible either. And this afternoon we have had further revelations of Ministers riding roughshod over their departments in relation to this very same proposal theRuataniwha dam. Had David Cunliffe been allowed to table the documents that he sought leave to table which was denied by the Hon John Banks then that would be out in the public domain. I certainly hope he is able to table those in the future.The Ministry for Primary Industries another Government department expressed concern in its draft about theRuataniwha dam proposal about the phosphorus management about the lack of industry best practice about the economics of the proposal and about the nutrient management system—very similar concerns to those expressed by the Department of Conservation. The ministry no doubt reported that to its Minister. What did its final submission say? Its final submission omitted everything about the water quality and went from the draft submission saying that the economics of this proposal are very dodgy very risky to saying that this is a very solid proposal on economic grounds—a miraculous U-turn.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): I would just like to say—and I am sure the Hon Annette King will join me in saying—to the Hon Tony Ryall 60 million thankyous on behalf of the people of the West Coast for the Grey Base Hospital. That is one of the most wonderful pieces of news that we have had in recent times. But one of the most important things to National is—as members opposite know; you can see it in their eyes that they know—supporting families and households. We are doing it in spades. We are doing it in spades. We are doing it with our clear plan to take New Zealand forward. Weare doing it where it matters when it matters and for whom it matters. How are we able to do this in times of earthquakes global recession and continuing economic risk? We do it through having the Prime Minister we have got. We do it from having the Cabinet Ministers that we have got and in my view they work extraordinarily hard. And we do it through having the whole of the National caucus working with our coalition partners—Hon Chester Borrows: As a team.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: —as a team; as a team quite right.Hon Anne Tolley: United.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: A united team.One of the biggest differences between centre-right and centre-left just to be serious for a moment is the size of the Public Service. This is a major divide in my observation in New Zealand politics and always has been. Each side is equally determined that their way is best. Labour and the Greens combined believe in big Government with big Government departments and lots of civil servants. Ask the real estate agents in Wellington how much property the Labour Government had leased before we saw it off the Treasury benches. There were heaps—heaps of places were under lease. National-led Governments work on the basis of judging the use and effect of Government services—not on the basis of size not on the basis of the number of staff but on having better public services. Targets have been set. Strategies have been introduced implemented reviewed and assessed. There are many indications of success. We have heard of so many examples today from this side of the House. It has been a pleasure listening to the speeches from my colleagues. It really gives one confidence that the country is in good condition in good heart. Mortgages rates are half of what they used to be under Labour—half of what they used to be under Labour the “Shylock Party”.Andrew Williams: What about Christchurch?CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Christchurch is getting rebuilt. The economy is growing. Jobs are being created weekly wages are increasing and interest rates generally are at an all-time low. More than 65000 jobs—no wonder there is silence—were created in the last 2 years. I understand—a point of celebration—that there are more people employed in New Zealand now in paid work than ever before more than at any other time. New Zealand has a proud history. Other countries look at our managed success with understandable envy—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Sorry to interrupt the honourable member but there were two members who do not have the floor who are interjecting on each other and that is not permitted.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Thank you so much for introducing an element of control on the side benches—a constant risk to the—[Interruption] I am not going to repeat that but they are a constant risk to the integrity of good government. However I had not actually noticed them. I had not actually heard them. But it really is interesting to see how our economic success is met with understandable envy in overseas countries. Our Prime Minister has been doing a great job overseas putting our credentials before other developed countries. New Zealand can be very proud.But one of the achievements of this Government that I am particularly proud of is in the health portfolio—in the health portfolio. I remember when we were in Opposition when Pete Hodgson was Minister of Health. Do you remember “Screeching Pete”? I remember when the Hon Tony Ryall picked up the portfolio and shook it like a doormat. He did. He did. He refused to accept the appallingly low levels of service—people stuck in corridors and all that sort of thing. I know that Annette King was very disturbed as well. When we became the Government the Hon Tony Ryall transformedthe health services and the National-led Government committed to growth in health services—committed to growth in health services. I have been stopped by doctors and medical practitioners at service stations in the street in a number of towns throughout New Zealand where people say “Please tell Tony he is doing a wonderful job.” and he is.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The member must use the Minister’s full name or title.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I will say it again—Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): Climate scientists and officials are assembled in Stockholm this week to go through the first part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fifth assessment report. The focus is on the scientific findings of climate change. We know from the media that the report is confirming the scientific forecasts of climate change that were put forward generally in 2007. The difference is that the scientists are now affirming this with greater confidence. Although this is reassuring it does not alter the terrain for policy makers in terms of the need for prescribed policy. In fact we have known for two decades now of the need for an economic transformation. The first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report of 1990 concluded that scientists were virtually certain that emissions resulting from human activities are substantially increasing the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. Based on then current emissions global warming would be about 3 degrees by 2100. That was in 1990. The panel’s four subsequent reports have simply reaffirmed what we largely knew 23 years ago.This scientific insight you might hope would be matched with rational discussion and insightful policy. Given the stakes involved—the bio-integrity of the planet the health of the global economy the quality of life of our children—you might think we would act on the basis of the precautionary principle we proclaimed at the Earth Summit back in 1992. But rationality and insight have been attacked by vested interest and a weird form of scepticism. That has delayed action to a point where we now face catastrophe if urgent action is not undertaken.The World Bank president attending Stockholm said yesterday: “Decades of progress are now in danger of being rolled back because of climate change … This is a ‘make-or-break’ decade for action on global warming. The time to address the interlinked challenges of climate change and ending extreme poverty is now.”There is a difference between the scientific method and political gaming. Science requires by its nature contestation of hypotheses advanced and conclusions reached. Political gaming allows the undermining of that process through tactics of defamation and selectivity of fact. Let us listen to the scientists in the past 24 hours. They are saying a few things about the confidence thing. They are saying that they are about as certain that global warming is a man-made threat as they are that cigarettes kill. They are saying that they are as sure about climate change as they are about the age of the universe. They are more certain about climate change than about vitamins making you healthy.George Gray used to be the chief scientist in the Bush administration. He said: “There’s a group of people who seem to think that when scientists say they are uncertain we shouldn’t do anything … That’s crazy.” A new group of international leaders headed by former Irish president Mary Robinson has just issued an appeal. She said: “The time for radical leadership on climate change is now … for the sake of generations to come”.So the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fifth assessment view according to the media is that atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased 40 percent since 1750 half of that in the last half century. Temperature rises are pretty much asprojected back in 2007 most likely around 2 degrees plus perhaps almost 5 degrees. The fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on climate science will be another wake-up call for humanity. It will inform us on the related issues that must follow—an assessment of impact and mitigation measures.And what will New Zealand have to say? What might we ask of the Minister? He is attending trade talks in Asia right now largely indifferent to the real global issues of the day in the Swedish capital. What emission reductions have been achieved as a result of his Government’s radical leadership in the emissions trading scheme? What is our projected emissions level for 2020 the end of the make or break decade for action on global warming? Is he satisfied that the 5 percent unconditional target set by New Zealand for 2020 is enough is a fair share in global radical leadership for this critical decade? Why do he and the John Key Government not show greater concern for what is happening around them?SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It is always interesting to follow a Green member in a debate such as the general debate—one where we have doom and green gloom ad nauseam.Chris Auchinvole: What?SCOTT SIMPSON: Doom and green gloom. The Green vision for New Zealand is like the Amish without the Bibles. It is back to the horses and the carts. It is back to doom and gloom and frankly we on this side of the House have a far more optimistic a far more positive a far more aspirational view of the world. Ours is a Government—led so ably by the Rt Hon John Key—that has a vision and a view of New Zealand that is going to create the brighter future that we have already set in place for all folk in our country. Our plan is about responsibly managing the Government’s finances so that taxes are spent wisely and services are provided well.Over the last 48 hours my electorate of Coromandel has been buffeted by high winds by heavy seas and by heavy rain. That is no doubt all due to the climate change Dr Graham?Dr Kennedy Graham: Yes.SCOTT SIMPSON: The member says it is no doubt due to all the climate change. It is probably more to do with the annual spring equinox actually. It has been going on since time immemorial. It has probably got to do with nothing more than just the spring equinox. Trees are down roads have been closed by slips and there have been high tides all around the electorate. Roads have been closed and electricity I am told is still off in some parts of the electorate. So my good wishes and concerns go to the hard-working stoic diligent people of the Coromandel who are putting things to right getting on with the job and cleaning up after the storm. I want to particularly mention and thank our emergency services on the peninsula most of which are volunteer emergency services. They have done a great job.Better public services are what this Government is about. Yesterday during question time I had the opportunity to ask our very capable Minister of Justice the Hon Judith Collins about the conviction and sentencing statistics for the 2012-13 financial year. I am delighted to say that she was able to confirm to the House that the figures just released show that the number of adults charged in our courts has decreased a further 7 percent in the last 12 months—Chris Auchinvole: 7 percent.SCOTT SIMPSON: It is a further 7 percent. Since the 2008-09 financial year the total number of people charged with criminal offences has been reduced by a massive 23 percent. That is 23 percent. The number of people charged with criminal offences in our justice system has reduced by this massive 23 percent.Clearly the justice sector is working well and in my capacity as chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee I am very pleased to be able to work with National’s justice team. That involves the Minister of Justice Judith Collins the Minister for Courts the very capable Chester Borrows the Minister of Police and the Minister of Corrections Anne Tolley and of course the Attorney-General Chris Finlayson. Together they are doing a great job. Altogether it means that there are fewer people in our criminal justice system because this is a Government that is committed to making New Zealand a safer place for all so that we have fewer victims in our community. It is absolutely important that we do have that.These statistics show that our initiatives across the sector are having very positive results. The crime rate is down to its lowest in more than 30 years—the lowest crime rate in more than 30 years. And it gets better because under National youth crime in particular has fallen 19 percent in just 2 years—19 percent down in 2 years. This means that we have already exceeded the Better Public Services target to reduce youth offending by 5 percent by 2017. So what have we done? We have upped the challenge. We have upped the challenge and we have increased the target so that it is now set at a 25 percent reduction by 2017. The number of young people appearing in court is dropping as well. Child and youth prosecution statistics show that the number of children and young people being charged in court is at its lowest in 20 years.So collectively this National Government is bringing better public services to New Zealand and in the justice sector we are really excelling. That means there are fewer victims and fewer New Zealanders who are feeling unsafe in their homes and in their workplaces. Together this is a good Government doing an exceptionally good job which is making the justice sector a hallmark of success in terms of our better public services. This is a good Government doing a great job and I am privileged and delighted to be working with such capable colleagues on this side of the House.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering BillFirst ReadingTE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): I moveThat the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill be now read a first time.Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Ka nui te mihi ki a koeitēneirā.[Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I appreciate you hugely today.]I nominate the Māori Affairs Committee to consider the bill. Ka nuitaku mihi ki a koutou ewhakarongo maināi roto o Tauranga Moanaitēneiwā. Ko tetūmanako iakua aro mai koutou ki te ia otēnei ongākōrero. Te tikanga ia kawhakahokiatēneiwāhanga whenua kiētahi ō koutou hoianōkoinei te mihi o tengākau ki a koutou katoa.Tēnā koutou.[My huge appreciation to you collectively listening in from Tauranga at this point in time. The hope is that you have taken aboard the tenor of this of the speeches. It means essentially that this parcel of land will be returned to some of you and so an acknowledgment from the heart to you all. Well done.]As I stand to open the discussion on this bill the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill I want to first acknowledge AlbertPuhirakeĪhaka the chair of theŌtamataha Trust and promoter of the bill. I think his leadership and perseverance in bringing this bill to fruition should be commended. In achieving this significant moment in the statute recognition must also go to Mr Alan Tate the trust administrator who has managed the preparatory work to get here today. He has liaisedwith the Department of Internal Affairs Land Information New Zealand Trinity Wharf TePīhopa o Aotearoa the registrar-general the Solicitor-General and Crown Law—all agencies that have a direct interest in this bill.I want to also acknowledge all of the trustees:MōrehuNgātokoRahipere DesmondMatakōkiriTata JoanneNgāpeeti GearPeriRāwetiKohu SylviaHemoataWillison RenaUruhina Bennett RaewynNgakumāmā Keith and William CharlesRetiretiMcGuigan. I first met the trustees in September 2009 to discuss their proposal to introduce a private bill to vary the terms of a trust affecting land at Dive Crescent in Tauranga Moana. Of course 4 years later it is a great day today to see this bill finally come before the House.But if I thought that 4 years appears to be a significant time to wait it pales into insignificance with the 117 years that these people have had to wait. This bill in acknowledging and recognising the mana ofNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho also appreciates their status over land that has been held by the New Zealand Mission Trust since 1896. The bill transfers land in Tauranga and other property from the New Zealand Mission Trust to theŌtamataha Trust so that it can be used for the beneficiaries of theŌtamataha Trust rather than of the 1896 trust. At the heart of the bill then we are talking about two trusts. TheŌtamataha Trust was established by thehapū ofNgati Tapu andNgaiTamarāwaho to own and manage land and other property acquired through those historical common interests of thosehapū in Tauranga Moana.The New Zealand Mission Trust Board is a body incorporated under the Religious Charitable and Educational Trust Boards Incorporation Act 1884. The purpose of that Act was to hold the assets of the board in trust for the spiritual benefit and spiritual instruction of Māori people in the North Island or failing that the evangelisation of heathen races in any part of the world. We have to remember that we are talking here about 1884 and that the Mission Trust Board itself was a by-product of the Church Missionary Society. The Church Missionary Society was formed out of the global goal to send the missionaries to “Africa and the rest of the heathen world” to “propagate the knowledge of the Gospel among the Heathen.”It would be a little bit remiss of me as the co-leader of the Māori Party to avoid the obvious which is to comment on the use of the word “heathen” to marginalise oppress and discriminate against Māori as the other. It fits within the context of political social economic and cultural discrimination of the day—a time in which tangata whenua were described in other comparable terms such as “the noble savage” and other terms denoting an immoral status.It was anticipated that the introduction of the Gospel to indigenous people would transform them from this supposedly heathen state to a world of civilisation. The process of converting indigenous populations to the doctrine of Western Christianity was meant to achieve beneficial return for the native congregation. It is outside the scope of this bill to pass any judgment on the Church Missionary Society other than to note its role in the land in question.The Church Missionary Society was established in Tauranga in 1835. In 1838 and 1839 the society purchased two blocks of land at Te Papa—the Te Papa Peninsula being the site of central Tauranga today. The 1838 purchase was carried out by deed by Rev. Alfred Nesbit Brown on behalf of the Church Missionary Society. He was charged with purchasing land at Tauranga includingŌtamataha from tangata whenua. The 1838 transaction however has never been accepted by tangata whenua as a sale of the land to the Church Missionary Society and therein lies the genesis of this bill.The core issue at the heart of this bill is to recognise that the awarding of the Crown grant in 1852 was in itself contrary to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. In 2004 the Waitangi Tribunal inTe Raupatu o Tauranga Moana: Report on the TaurangaConfiscation Claims after considering the manner in which the Crown grant for the land was awarded to the Church Missionary Society concluded “we find that Godfrey failed to ascertain and acknowledge the conditional nature of the transactions under Maori customary law and that he wrongly concluded that the [Church Missionary Society] had fully and fairly purchased the whole of the area. The Crown in accepting Godfrey’s recommendation and finally awarding the [Church Missionary Society] a Crown grant for the whole area was therefore in breach of the Treaty principle of active protection.”Fifteen years after the awarding of the Crown grant in 1867 the Church Missionary Society gifted the Crown four-fifths of the land and military settlers were settled on it. On 28 September 1896 the residue of that land includingŌtamataha was transferred by the Church Missionary Society to the New Zealand Mission Trust.Fast forward a century and in 1996 the New Zealand Mission Trust Board handed back control of the land to the new trustees appointed byNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho. That all appears to be very positive but there was a catch. Although the new trustees had control of the land they are still obliged to use the land with the newSebel Hotel built on it. The trust would collect the ground rent from that hotel. It has always been the intention of the two trusts that it be changed so that the twohapū can benefit from it directly.So 2 years after the control of the land was passed over in a deed dated 20 September 1998 the then trustees of the New Zealand Mission Trust Board in recognition of the manner and the process by which the land was acquired from tangata whenua resigned as trustees. They were immediately replaced by the trustees representing thehapū ofNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho. This bill then puts right a wrong that occurred over a century ago.In the letter that AlbertĪhaka wrote to the Clerk of the House of Representatives in submitting this bill he summed up the purposes in one clear statement. He said: “The reason for this bill is to enable property to be used for the benefit of people andhapū from whosetūpuna that property was originally derived.” That property will be transferred from the charitable trust that currently holds that property to a new common law trust. The beneficiaries of this new trust and indeed this bill will rightfully be the descendants of thetūpuna from which the property was originally taken.So ultimately the history and the context of this bill rest with the mana ofNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho. We look forward to hearing more from thesehapū about their historical common interests in Tauranga Moana and at Te Papa. That common interest extends from Tauranga Harbour to theWaikareao Estuary and includes all of the land north of that line including reclaimed land at Sulphur Point and the adjacent harbour bed. At the select committee we will also learn more about the significance of their whakapapa toTapukino in the case ofNgāti Tapu andTahuriwakanui in the case ofNgāiTamarāwaho.My fervent wish is that these people who have waited well over a hundred years for justice to be done will now be able to see this injustice righted in as quick a time frame as can be realistically achieved. I commend this bill to the House today.Hon TAU HENARE (National):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. My colleague Te Ururoa Flavell from the Māori Party sums up the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill in the nicest language possible. But to think that in the year 2013 we are in the House before you fixing up a rather messy and dirty episode—one small dirty episode—that happened in the Tauranga Moana area some 100 years ago. Two hundred years ago Samuel Marsden got on a boat and came out to New Zealand and that is where his deed—I was going to say “dirty deed” but it might not be correct of me because I suppose that in his day his adventure was to go to all corners ofthe earth and Anglicise everybody he saw whether it was right or wrong. That was his mahi; that was his job. I must say that when he first came here he had only a couple of supporters from the indigenous people. It took him a while to get them all signed up to this new and funny religion at that time Christianity. He did a good job because by the time he was sort of moving on in his life most ofMāoridom had signed up for Christianity.But as we have seen over our history especially members of this House in dealing with Treaty settlements on occasion—more than one occasion—there have been some suspicious deals done over landholdings and none more so than by the Church. It is pleasing to note that in this enlightened time the Church itself has realised that there were mistakes and bad deeds done in the name of the Lord and it is willing today to help fix those problems that caused so much damage. ToNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho I say well done. Well done for waiting for the return of land that is highly significant to you both. If I can be so bold as to say that bothhapū say it re-establishes their connection to the water of Tauranga Moana it provides an income to thehapū to finance other activities including allowinghapū to participate in the downtown economy of Tauranga and it comes just before the 150-year anniversary of GatePā which is next year. I am pretty sure that we will get the bill back into the House and done and dusted before that anniversary.TheŌtamataha Trust has been established by thehapū of like I saidNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho to own and manage land and other property just like any other normal person in this country. That is a great thing. The bill declares the new trustees to be a leasing authority for the purposes of the Public Bodies Leases Act 1969. The land being transferred will be subject to a lease granted under that Act. This enables the transfer to happen without affecting the lease and lessee’s rights. The Church Missionary Society the CMS was established in Tauranga in 1835 and in 1838 the society bought two blocks from tangata whenua on the site that is where the city of Tauranga is today. When I say “bought” I mean “bought” in inverted commas; bought in the language of the day. The transaction has never been accepted by tangata whenua as a sale of the land to the Church Missionary Society. In 1867 the Crown acquired by gift of the Church Missionary Society four-fifths of the land which had been vested in the Church Missionary Society by Crown grant in 1852 and military settlers were settled on it. This land was surrounded by confiscated Māori land that was also settled. In 1896 the remaining land includingŌtamataha was transferred from the Church Missionary Society to the New Zealand Mission Trust Board which held the assets of the board on trust for the spiritual benefit and spiritual instruction of Māori people in the North Island of New Zealand—and here is the bit that I really really like—or failing that the evangelisation of heathen races in any part of the world. So—Andrew Williams: There’s still hope for you Tau.Hon TAU HENARE: There is still hope for me. The interesting thing is that through the so-called purchase of this little block of land it was not only for the Anglicisation or the evangelisation of iwi Māori but for the rest of the world as well. So way back then we were having an effect on the world’s Christian population. Those people in the deepest darkest parts of Africa Australia America and England even should be thankful toNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho for their contribution to their evangelisation. In 1996 the New Zealand Mission Trust Board handed back control of the land to the new trustees appointed byNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho. This was done in recognition of the manner and process by which the land was originally acquired from tangata whenua.I want to mention the Treaty of Waitangi and what the Waitangi Tribunal said in itsTe Raupatu o Tauranga Moana: Report on the Tauranga Confiscation Claims in 2004and echo what my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell said “… after considering the manner in which a Crown grant for the land includingOtamataha was awarded to the Church Mission Society in 1852 [it] concluded … : ‘we find that Godfrey failed to ascertain and acknowledge the conditional nature of the transactions under Maori customary law and that he wrongly concluded that the CMS had fully and fairly purchased the whole of the area. The Crown in accepting Godfrey’s recommendation and finally awarding the CMS a Crown grant for the whole area was therefore in breach of the Treaty principle of active protection.’ ” The sad thing about that is that these people had to go to the tribunal only to find the tribunal rule in their favour but that it could not do anything about it because the land was not in Crown hands; it was in private ownership. And through the good deeds of various people from then on to this day—and I want to congratulate my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell on being the member who sees this bill through the House. Despite this conclusion section 6(4A)(a) of the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 prevented the Waitangi Tribunal from making any recommendation affecting the future ownership ofŌtamataha because the land as I said was not owned or controlled by the Crown.It is a good day. I am pleased as the chairperson of the Māori Affairs Committee to have this before our committee and can guarantee that we will not only enjoy our work listening to submissions but make a bit of a pilgrimage to coin a phrase to the area to listen to those submitters and actually get a feel for what is being handed over. I also commend this bill to the House.Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to be able to take a call on the first reading of the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill. I also want to endorse the sentiments of the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee to congratulate Te Ururoa Flavell on bringing the bill to the House. It is a good example of where issues sit outside the context of Treaty settlements but where they are included within the context of Waitangi Tribunal claims. You can find a solution albeit it takes a long time getting there. So thank you Te Ururoa for the extensive history that you have given regardingNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho’s interests in Tauranga Moana.I had the privilege to be able to sit alongside a member ofNgāiTamarāwaho and listen to some of their history and connection to raupatu that occurred over there. Much of the interests of that particularhapū as I understand it actually extend into the central business district of Tauranga Moana of Tauranga City Council. So there is a level of concern that within the context of their broader Treaty settlement claims the nature of their interests may not wholly be satisfied by the claims settlement process. We can only wait and see because the Government is continuing its negotiations with the Tauranga Moana claimants. But for the purposes of this discussion and in the interests ofNgāiTamarāwaho it is a significant interest within the Tauranga central business district and I hope that they are able to achieve some greater settlement recognition come that time.Te Ururoa made mention of theŌtamataha Trust in particular the contribution of AlbertPuhirakeĪhaka. I too want to recognise the hard work and effort that have gone into preparing the bill and in getting it to a point where the interests of the trust and the New Zealand Mission Trust Board have been able to converge and present something that this House can have a level of confidence in. When the bill gets to the Māori Affairs Committee I am sure that members around our table will be hearing for the first time some of the extensive interactions of the missionaries during the 1800s in Tauranga Moana and the impact that they had on thehapū in that region. There will probably be a smattering of familiarity throughout their story that will be common to other stories in other regions as well. But the point of all that is to ensure that anenduring opportunity to recognise the connection ofNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho to this area can be achieved that there is a management structure in place and that there will be an ongoing opportunity for the management of the interests and purposes of what happens on that land that can take place.When I was reading through the notes on this particular bill I thought it was of some interest that the Waitangi Tribunal report was quite clear. Without repeating contributions of previous members I thought this particular statement was germane to how this bill came about. It is taken from the Waitangi Tribunal report on the Tauranga Moana confiscation claims. It said: “The Crown acquired the Te Papa lands without accounting for the implied trust which it was aware of. According to the Crown’s own records the land was held in trust for the benefit of Maori. In ignoring the trustee role the CMS”—the Church Missionary Society—“had in holding the land the Crown further breached the principle of active protection.” What we understand throughout the whole process of Treaty settlements and in the nature of interests that Māori have in instances like this is that where the Crown has failed its obligation in the active protection of interests there will always be an issue to remedy.So I am very pleased—very very pleased—that we have this bill which will go to the select committee. It will get a robust hearing that will inform the committee members of the history of the area and that will lead to what I predict hopefully will be a larger claims settlement bill that will hopefully come to the House before the end of the year for Tauranga Moana. I am sure that is the sincere hope of the member for Waiariki because the outstanding interests of the iwi in Tauranga Moana still need to be addressed.Nō reira ki a koe te memamō Waiarikitēnei te mihi atu ki a koeitau maitēneipireimuai tearoaro o te Wharenei.Tēnā koetēnātātou.[And so to you the member for Waiariki I commend you for bringing this bill before this House. Congratulations to you and to us collectively.]NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central): I am very pleased to be able to stand and support the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill at its first reading. As we have heard it is a private bill that has been brought to the House by Te Ururoa Flavell. I think it is important to thank him for the work he has done to bring this bill here because these bills are difficult they are convoluted and they have a long history.The purpose of this bill is to effect the transfer of assets from the New Zealand Mission Trust to theŌtamataha Trust so that those assets can be used in future for the benefit of thehapū ofNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho. This bill is an attempt to unravel the long complex and convoluted history of the land near the Tauranga area.The story started back in London in 1799 when the Society for Missions in Africa and the East was founded by evangelical Christians. Their goal was firstly to convert people in Africa and then in the East but this organisation became part of New Zealand’s history when its missionaries met Samuel Marsden in Sydney. They agreed to give Africa a miss and come to New Zealand. They joined him and they travelled and arrived here in 1814.Their early years in New Zealand were tumultuous but by the time they had the arrival of Henry Williams in 1823 they were the dominant group of Anglican missionaries amongst Māori right throughout the North Island. They were very active and they worked hard but by 1830 there had been only two conversions. However during the 1830s the tide turned and there was a mass conversion of Māori. By 1845 an estimated 43000 Māori were attending Church Missionary Society services.With this expansion they established mission stations throughout the North Island. In 1838 the Rev. Alfred Nesbit Brown acting on behalf of the Church Missionary Society purchased two blocks of land at Te Papa—Te Papa of course is now centralTauranga—and that includedŌtamataha from tangata whenua. In 1867 four-fifths of this land was gifted to the Crown and the Crown used that to settle military settlers. The area where this land was had adjacent land that had been confiscated from Māori and that was used as a settlement as well. The key point here is that this 1838 purchase by the Church Missionary Society was never accepted by tangata whenua.In 1896 the last remaining remnants of the land includingŌtamataha were transferred to the New Zealand Mission Trust Board which had held the assets of the board on trust—and this is the wonderful quote the Hon Tau Henare likes—“for the spiritual benefit and spiritual instruction of Māori people in the North Island of New Zealand or failing that the evangelisation of the heathen races in any part of the world.” It is a fascinating story and we look forward to unravelling it in the Māori Affairs Committee hearing the full story and making sure that we do the right thing by tangata whenua.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. He mihi ki te Whare. He mihi nui ki teNgāti Tapu meNgāiTamarāwaho o Tauranga Moana.Tēnā koutou. I would also like to acknowledge the member Te Ururoa Flavell who brought the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill to the House.This is an important day and it is great to have a process whereby this issue can be progressed given the way that it has struggled in other forums and how important it is to the people of Tauranga Moana. It is a beautiful area of the country full of natural resources but regrettably not shared with the original tangata whenua who are still struggling for basic justice today.All of my colleagues in the House today have clearly outlined some of the fascinating history around this very good example of what I would call the three “m”s of colonisation: the military the mass and the missionaries. Those three “m”s have had an important role in the colonisation process and are intertwined deeply in our history.The purpose of the missionaries as described in this bill was the evangelisation of the heathens. They managed to get to Aotearoa to carry this out in the 1830s and they were sincere in their belief that what they were doing was going to be beneficial. At the heart of the missionaries—and I have read a number of the diaries of the Williams families and other missionaries—was a deep-seated belief that they were superior and a deep-seated belief that they were bringing something that people who had not heard this message should hear but also that they were superior. That superiority created a lot of problems for them. It goes right back to Henry Williams and the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi where Henry Williams who was a fluent Māori scholar took an interesting approach to articles 1 and 2.However this bill is more specific than that. It is not just about Te Tiriti; it is about what happened in Tauranga Moana at Te Papa and the Tauranga mission station. I read last night some of the life of Alfred Brown who was the missionary who came in 1838 3 years after the mission was established after he had converted a very famous rangatiraWīremuTamihanaTarapīpipi of Waharoa. Alfred had an interesting life and was very sincere but he also purported to have purchased this land from thehapū and as others have said his understanding of “purchase” was deeply framed by the Western individual property rights view rather than the understanding of what customary rights reciprocity and land is actually about for the people of that place. So Alfred’s role in the Tauranga mission station is fraught with contradictions as are those of many missionaries around Aotearoa at the time.Alfred was involved in attempting to minister to the wounded and the dead at the battles of GatePā and TeRanga and he did attempt to be impartial it is said but it is also suggested that he lost the trust of the local Māori people not only because of thisŌtamataha land issue but because he was deemed to be associating with the enemies. So he was as many missionaries were in an invidious position where he had a particular set of goals that he failed to carry out. His aims he said were to protect Māori from European influence and convert them into perfect Christians which is deeply contradictory given that he was a European trying to convert them to a European view of the world. Such is the complex world of the missionaries.The missionaries in Aotearoa—not necessarily Alfred who was quite moderate in his acquisitions compared with some; for example the Williams family—acquired vast quantities of land and along the East Coast they still own that land. They certainly benefited alongside the military and alongside the mass who migrated in obtaining wealth power and privilege. It is only right now that this bill begins to redress some of that.The Green Party is very pleased to support this bill. We think it is high time after this very long battle that these people thesehapū should actually get complete authority and control. But as our first speaker said already the land has been unutterably altered. There is a hotel on it. They will get the financial redress which is a great thing. However they will never get what they lost and it will never be returned in the state it was when they lost it. Money is always helpful but mana is also important which is why although the Waitangi Tribunal was very clear they then had to go through a long process to get to this point that we are at today.It is really important and I am quite sorry I am not on the Māori Affairs Committee. I think it is a privilege to hear these stories. It is a privilege to be presented with this information by tangata whenua coming to this Parliament. I know that they will get a good hearing at the select committee. I have faith that this bill will actually take these people to a better place. I look forward to the wider issues that the Hon Nanaia Mahuta referred to in terms of the settlement of Tauranga Moana. We fully support this bill so that the mass the military and the missionaries can no longer dominate anyone’s land in Aotearoa.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill brought to the House by the member Te Ururoa Flavell. I congratulate him on doing this. There is a huge amount of history going back hundreds of years as we have heard from the member. This bill is now putting right aspects of that in terms of the New Zealand Mission Trust and the handover to the new trust which is theŌtamataha Trust on behalf of thehapū ofNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho.It is wonderful when you go to Tauranga and you look around this particular area of the headland and the central business district because it has a huge amount of history. To go into the mission house grounds there with the beautiful historic home that is there the library the other buildings and also the trees and garden that surround it—this is an important part of New Zealand’s history very similar to the mission house at Waitangi and other mission houses around the country. It is very fitting therefore that in this Parliament we are able to transfer this over to the new trust which is part of the local community the localhapū so that they will administer it and take what was very old legislation and update it to a modern situation.This bill is good for the people of Tauranga. It is good for the localhapū and local iwi. It brings the legislation into a modern context and it allows the trustees to now move forward with a lot more certainty. New Zealand First certainly supports this going to the Māori Affairs Committee. We will be supporting this through. This is a good sensible piece of legislation which the member can be proud to have brought to this House and we support it.Hon SHANE JONES (Labour): Ā kia oraanōtātou. Mekōreroi tetuatahiitōtātou Reo Māorimōtēneipire epāana ki tehāhiiwhakatipungiaaiahau me te whenua o ōtātouhuanga Māorii roto o Tauranga Moana. Memaharatātou ā teTīhema tewā o teKirihimete kapau te 200taumō teekenga mai o tewhakapono ki Aotearoa. Ko tekaimau mai koHāmueraMātenga. Ko tewāhiitau maiai ia koŌihi. Ko tekaumātua nana iaiwhakatau koRuatara.Nākīhairawarātoui noho kitēnāpito kiRangihouamō tehiaroakātahirātou kawhakatatū meneke kiwāhikē.Nōmurinoanei ka tae maingāmihinareiraroi tewhakahaere ā TeWīremu.Nā kotetahi ongārōpūpēneii teHāhiMihingareiwhaipakiakaai ki roto o Tauranga Moana heitorotoro heiwhakawhānui atui tewhakapono.Arānoa atuwetahikōreroiputai te koretake o tehāhiēngarikauatātou epōhēhē hekino te katoa ongā mahiiotii terōpūneimō te iwi Māori.Nāōkumātua o roto oNgāpuhi a HongiHikamāiwhakatūpatoi Te Ao Māori. Ko tekararehe heiwhakamatakui ō tamarikii ō mokopuna ko tekoti wheroēhara kongāmihinare.Nā kiawhārikitia eahaui tetuatahi e TeMāngai o te Whare hekōreropērā.[Greetings to us once again. But first I must address in our Māori language this bill which relates to the Church I was brought up in and relates to the land that belongs to our fellow Māori relations in Tauranga. We must remember that in the coming December at Christmas time 200 years will have passed since the arrival of the faith in New Zealand. The bearer was Samuel Marsden.Ōihi was where he landed andRuatara the elder was the one who welcomed him. They had not stayed at that end atRangihoua for any length of time when they decided to move elsewhere. It was later on that the missionaries arrived under the tutelage of Williams. One of these missionary groups like the Church of England established itself in Tauranga reconnoitred the area and expanded the faith.Much has been expressed about how useless the Church has been but we must never be deluded by the fact that what this group did for the Māori people was not all bad. My elders from withinNgāpuhi—HongiHika and others—cautionedMāoridom: the beast that our children and grandchildren will fear will indeed be the redcoats and not the missionaries. And thus I need to lay out a statement like that first.]ThishapūNgāiTamarāwaho and I have an association that goes back to an incident involving the library in Tauranga Moana. A chap by the name of Hone Ngata since disappeared—passed away should I say—who was married to a leading woman of this tribeNgāiTamarāwaho akaumātua by the name ofKōpū and a host of others occupied that particular library. The occupation turned very sour when the police just to show that they did not discover their foul ways in theTūhoe raid sent the police dogs into the Tauranga library in order to dislodge the occupiers. As a consequence a fire broke out. Considerable damage was inflicted upon the books the library and the members of thathapū who were seeking to recover their rights that they had lost I would say broadly through the process of colonisation but more to the point through the nexus of Crown action and the Church of England.I cannot help but think about those people—indeed one of them aPākehā chap who went to my old school St Stephen’s School—who made unsuccessful attempts in what is a pretty conservative area Tauranga Moana to push their agenda. That was in the late 1980s. When we pass a bill like this the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill it is good that we recite a little of the unknown history so that the efforts and the names of the members of thathapū—as I said most of whom have moved on—are recorded because this is the people’s House and we are talking about a group of people here who have received back from the Anglican Church a small portion of their former estate. Naturally I acknowledge Te Ururoa Flavell and follow onfrom what others have said. I am looking forward to hearing what my colleagues on the Māori Affairs Committee say about this piece of legislation.We tend to regard the centres ofMāoridom in the Bay of Plenty as beingTūhoe Te Arawa andWhakatāne but there is a proud and rich history that has been eclipsed in Tauranga Moana belonging to the tangata whenua and this makes a small step for—and I suppose that when you mention the nameNgāiTamarāwaho to the averagePākehā they cannot pronounce it for a start. It does sound a bit rude if you get the consonants around the wrong way but that is another matter. I would say that they are a truculent group of Māori. Indeed a number of conservative Māori did not like them but we should be here today to support this bill and we do.CLAUDETTE HAUITI (National):Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. The National Party will be supporting this private bill the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill in the name of Māori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell going to the Māori Affairs Committee.What we are effectively doing here is amending a century-old trust. We have heard the story of the New Zealand Mission Trust as well as Samuel Marsden. When I hear the name Samuel Marsden I recall an area in Sydney inParramatta on New Zealand Street where Samuel Marsden had his market gardens. He had a mission there and he established an agricultural college there. A lot of our rangatira were encouraged to send their boys there to learn how to grow kai—as though we at that time did not know how to grow kai. However three of ourtamaiti our rangatahi fromNgāpuhi were sent to SamuelMarsden’s mission inParramatta on New Zealand Street. It was during a time when influenza was running rampant through Australia and our rangatahi there caught the flu. Three of our rangatahi to cool themselves off placed their feet in theParramatta River and subsequently they passed away. It was not until quite a few months later that their parents were told of their passing. However unfortunately they were never brought home. Whether at the time their parents their papa or their mama wanted them returned home or not I am not sure.However in the mid-1990s a very largeope thanks to Wairua Tapu Church in Sydney was invited by the council in Sydney to bless the area before the building on the site was demolished and then turned into a car park. So Wairua Tapu arranged a very largeope and the Māori Women’s Welfare League and the Māori Council brought iwi from Aotearoa over there to bless the area. What they thought would take a few hours took in fact almost 48 hours—obviously they had a break—but they felt that the area was so deep and rich in our history and our wairua that they were not able to leave without it being blessed to the extent that they thought it needed to be done.So that is part of our connection with the Mission Trust. It was not just around Aotearoa but it extended its arm right across the Tasman toPoihākena too. So with the assistance of Samuel Marsden we also have a very deep connection to theKurranulla people who are over inPoihākena. As I said the New Zealand Mission Trust is a remnant of the first missionaries in the 19th century and I think that this deed the original deed—and I would like to congratulate Te Ururoa Flavell the MP on his generosity in stating that it was a deed of its time. This bill therefore is a bill of its time its relevance and its pertinence today.We have also got to remember that this bill is not a precedent. In fact there was something very similar in 1986. A similar issue arose with money and investments derived from lands held by the Mission Trust in Port Waikato. It was to be transferred toNgātiKārewa andNgātiTāhina and the result was the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Port Waikato Maraetai) Empowering Act of 1986. With this bill the return of the land is highly significant to thehapū ofNgāti Tapu andNgāiTamarāwaho. Thehapū say that it will re-establish their connection to the awa—to the water—and provideincome to thehapū and as my colleague said it comes on the 150th anniversary of GatePā. Kia ora.LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): It is my pleasure and privilege to speak on the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill. I initially want to mihi to my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell for sponsoring this bill and also to thewhānau ofŌtamataha Trust engāhapū oNgāti Tapu meNgāiTamarāwahowhānau in Tauranga Moana whose lands will be returned to them [to the subtribes ofNgāti Tapu the family ofNgāiTamarāwaho in Tauranga]. My contribution really is to highlight that this continues to be part of New Zealand’s truth and reconciliation process. It highlights our colonisation history from the perspective of the missionaries’ contribution to creating relationships with tangata whenua which then eventuated in lands of tangata whenua being placed in such entities as the Church Missionary Society. I want to acknowledge that the society was established on 12 April 1799. In fact its mission was to spread the word of the Lord and the Gospel but it was also to go to parts of the world including Aotearoa New Zealand and create an asset base and a capital base that has meant that lands such as the land that is being returned via this private bill was taken so that the Church could establish itself.When looking at this piece of legislation and the history it is interesting to note that the Church made its first voyage here in 1814 via its representative Samuel Marsden. Over a period of 30 years what it did was establish itself to a point where it developed the relationship with tangata whenua which meant that it could give us blankets axes adzes trousers soap the New Testament scissors spades looking glasses razors handkerchiefs and tobacco. Those were the commodities that it gave us in exchange for our lands.What I want to acknowledge in that process is that from the beginning tangata whenua never treated it as a transaction. For us it was part of becoming Christians and part of that was having a relationship with the Church that meant it needed land to build its churches on. But what quickly happened was that we were displaced from a huge amount of land and so in terms of this specific experience what happened was that we are talking about close to 40000 square metres of central Tauranga land that in 1835 the Church purchased. What happened thereafter was continued dispute with the tangata whenua. The Crown intervened and in 1852 actually granted that land to the Church Missionary Society and in 1867 the Church Missionary Society in return gave the Crown 80 percent of the land that it had taken from tangata whenua. I find that really interesting because what we are talking about today is the return of 20 percent of the original piece of land that the Church Missionary Society had. So the tangata whenua get 20 percent back by virtue of this private bill but I am actually interested in the 80 percent that the Crown was gifted in 1867.But what I do want to acknowledge is that over a period of time the Church Missionary Society obviously developed a philosophy about this land and the fact that it needed to give it back to tangata whenua. So I want to acknowledge that from 1998 it replaced the trustees of the New Zealand Mission Trust Board with tangata whenua representatives and what this bill will do is ensure that those lands that property are transferred to theŌtamataha Trust. It will be a tangata whenua trust and it will benefit thehapū beneficiaries of that particular trust. Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am pleased to stand and speak on the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill in its first reading and I commend the Māori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell for bringing it to the House. This is a private bill in his name. It seeks to return transferred land in Tauranga and other property from the New Zealand Mission Trust to theŌtamataha Trust so that it can be used by the beneficiaries of that trust thehapū of that area.It is going to be interesting as we go through this bill in the Māori Affairs Committee and as we look at the history of events. I want to make the comment that we do hear sometimes I guess a converged history of what has happened here in New Zealand and not all of it in terms of the missionary work is as bad as some people may portray. As we go to the select committee I would like to ensure also that the good is acknowledged as well. I think not particularly of this area but of one of my own forebears John Hobbs who during the Northern War in 1845-46 used his influence with a number of Hokianga chiefs to limit the spread of the fighting and during other wars he used his influence among warring entities in order to seek to preserve life. I think that through all of these things yes there are things that need to be redressed there are histories that have to be acknowledged and there are things that need to be put right but let us be careful and let us also reflect the good that has happened in our country in the past. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Te Ururoa Flavell 5 minutes in reply.TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): Firstly can I acknowledge all of the statements made by members of the House this afternoon. I appreciate very much the support and it sounds like it is across the House for this bill the New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill. Can I just own up and say that the work that I did was relatively minimal and I acknowledge again Alan Tate who was the adviser to theŌtamataha Trust who basically over the last couple of years has been the communication person for me through my office and of course through the trust—so thank you to him.There are some interesting points I picked up in the discussion and in the couple of minutes that I have got just to wrap up I say that I am sure we will learn a lot of history when we go to Tauranga Moana and pick up much of the discussion when submitters present evidence in front of the Māori Affairs Committee. It reminds me of another bill that we had in the House here not long ago that related to sewage pipes and a large chunk of area of land being handed back to the Tauranga people that was originally taken for a sewage pond. Those sorts of things I think very much stick in the hearts of Māori people but I do acknowledge the point that Jonathan Young has made. Sure there were some good things that came with the arrival of the missionaries but some things very much stick in the heart especially if you have been hanging out for a long period of time to get your land back.This for me is a very important bill because I do not recall—not that I am the expert in it—that there are too many times that the Anglican Church has handed land back to Māori people. But in my area my constituency theTūhoe people up atMaungapōhatu received some land back from the Presbyterian Church I think it was through MrLaughton who had a close association with RuaKēnana back in the day. They set the scene a couple of years ago because they started handing land back but there is a hell of a lot of land out there that is still under the auspices of a number of churches that has not come back to the Māori people and I hope that the precedent set with these sorts of bills is going to be some good news for years to come.I do not think we can deny too some of the main thoughts of the missionaries as they came to New Zealand because they are pretty much set out in a lot of the doctrine that was set up at the time. I am thinking about my old school St Stephen’s School—Mr Jones’ school as well—which pretty much had a set charter if you like which was about educating the uneducated and indeed young Māori boys. Some of them were heathen—Mr Jones well I am not too sure about that but nevertheless he is all right; he came good after a couple of years at St Stephen’s but he has sort of faded away alittle bit since that time. Mr Hone Harawira is another old boy—a sort of similar pattern but nevertheless they might come good at some point or other.I have to say that I do cringe at times at some of the actions by the Church. When I was teaching Treaty education we always referred to two doctrines of the time of both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church. One was called the papal bull set out by the Pope which I suppose set the scene for colonisation throughout the world and the other one under the Anglican doctrine was called therequiremento—meaning you were required to read a certain statement. Both of those statements were about “Take the land take the women and if anybody gets in the road deal to them and do it in the name of God.” Under those circumstances we have got a lot of work to do to catch up with those sorts of things.I do not want to take up too much time but I think the key point that was made by Louisa Wall around the reconciliation process is important—that we are on that line in particular with the efforts around settling Treaty settlements and that the work that has been done by Mr Chris Finlayson is along the way. Talking about the other 80 percent as Louisa Wall said it will be interesting to see what the people think about the other 80 percent of land that might come back to them. For those who are travelling through Tauranga Moana I think the easiest way to find this place is to look for the best fish and chip shop in Tauranga Moana down on the harbour—they are blinking nice fish and chips from the Palmerwhānau I think it is. They look after that fish and chip shop and I hope they give me free fish and chips when I go up next time. But also theSebel Hotel is sitting right on that land. It has all been reclaimed I think right on the harbour. If you are flying over there I am sure you cannot miss it.I look forward to hearing the stories from the people up in Tauranga Moana and congratulate them on advancing this bill. Today I think of the korouaMōrehu—the old koroua up there atNgāiTamarāwaho. I am sure that he would be pretty proud to finally get this land in their hands. Ka nui te mihi kia oratātou.Bill read a first time.Billreferred to the Māori Affairs Committee.Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) BillIn CommitteeJACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question for the purposes of debate and voting.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? It appears not. Leave is granted.Parts 1 to 6 and clauses 1 and 2JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): The Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill amends six of the main Acts administered by the Department of Conservation. Those Acts are the Conservation Act 1987 the National Parks Act 1980 the Reserves Act 1977 the Wildlife Act 1953 the Wild Animal Control Act 1977 and latterly—and I will come to this later—the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978.I would like to outline to the Committee five key aspects of the changes that are set out in the bill. The purpose of these changes is to better safeguard New Zealand’s protected native wildlife public conservation lands and other natural and historic resources. To do so the changes seek to create effective deterrents against conservation-related offending with a clearly formulated and consistent penalty framework that is in line with the modern era.The key changes are to provide significant penalties for illegal activities carried out for commercial gain of a maximum of 5 years’ imprisonment a $300000 fine or both and an additional fine of $20000 a day if the offence is ongoing. This will greatly reduce the incentive for such offending. The bill increases penalties for serious offending that is not commercially motivated to a maximum of 2 years’ imprisonment a fine of $100000 or both. If the offence is a continuing one there may also be an additional maximum fine of $10000 a day. The bill increases the maximum fines for offending by bodies corporate to $200000 or to $300000 where the offending is commercially motivated. It increases the penalties for breaches of regulations and by-laws made under these Acts to a maximum fine of $5000 or $10000 in some specific cases plus an additional maximum fine of $500 a day if the offence is ongoing. It improves the courts’ flexibility to tailor appropriate penalties by enabling the courts to impose a penalty of imprisonment or a fine or both and providing for community work sentences.I would note to the Committee that the bill does not amend the Marine Reserves Act. The Minister of Conservation intends to amend penalties in that Act through a separate legislative process. I want to also note to the Committee that the additional daily fines for ongoing offences are amended only where the relevant Act already provides for such fines. The bill does not propose any new fines of this type.So these improved penalties and more flexible sentencing options apply across the six Acts that I have mentioned. I will go through those Acts. Part 1 of the bill amends the Conservation Act as I have described. The new penalties primarily relate to offences committed in places protected under the Conservation Act but also include offences involving freshwater fish and their habitat. The bill increases fines for breaches of regulations only as the Conservation Act does not provide for by-laws.Part 2 amends the National Parks Act. Likewise it amends the penalties under the National Parks Act. These will apply to illegal activities in all of New Zealand’s national parks. The bill increases fines for breaches of by-laws only as the National Parks Act does not provide for regulations. Maximum fines for breaches of by-laws involving aircraft in national parks are set at a higher level of $10000 as such breaches are potentially more serious.Part 3 amends the Reserves Act for all reserves including those administered by the Department of Conservation local bodies boards and other administering bodies. The bill increases fines for breaches of both Reserves Act by-laws and regulations. The bill sets penalties for national and other reserves at the same level. This is because the new higher penalties provide better scope for courts to take into account factors including but not limited to the status of the particular reserve the values contained in that reserve and the seriousness of the particular offending.Part 4 amends the Wildlife Act as I have described previously with some variations which I will go through. Absolutely and partially protected native species will have their protection increased by the higher new maximum penalties of 2 years’ imprisonment or a $100 fine or both. An existing slightly higher maximum fine of $250000 is retained for offences against absolutely and partially protected marine species. Offending in wildlife refuges and wildlife management reserves will have a maximum penalty of 1 year’s imprisonment or a $100000 fine or both. Wildlife sanctuaries have higher status and will attract the 2-year maximum imprisonment penalty.Existing additional per head fines are removed as these are rarely used. The courts can take the number of animals affected into account as an aggravating or mitigating factor—aggravating I would hope. Penalties for offences involving game birds or unprotected wildlife such as introduced species are not changed by this bill andneither are the penalties for failing to report accidentally killing or injuring protected marine life during fishing. The bill increases fines for breaches of regulations only as the Wildlife Act does not provide for by-laws.Part 5 amends the Wild Animal Control Act as I have described. The higher new penalties apply to offences such as aerial hunting without landowner permission and unlawfully releasing wild animals. The bill increases fines for breaches of regulations only as the Wild Animal Control Act does not provide for by-laws.Part 6 of the bill amends the Marine Mammals Protection Act. Thanks go to Maryan Street and the Local Government and Environment Committee for their work in bringing this amendment to the bill. I thank the member for that good work. Higher standard penalties apply to offences including illegally taking or killing marine mammals harassing them or using a purse seine net without escape panels. An existing slightly higher maximum fine of $250000 is retained for illegally taking marine mammals. Changes to the Marine Mammals Protection Act do not change penalties for failing to report accidentally killing or injuring marine mammals during fishing.I have gone through the changes proposed in this bill at some length. I want to thank the House and the Committee for consideration of this bill and for your support of our special places and species which are backed by this bill. Thank you.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I am really pleased to be able to take a call or two in the Committee stage of the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill. Can I begin by commending the member Jacqui Dean in whose name the bill stands before the House and say that it is a very good bill. I appreciate the way that she engaged with the Local Government and Environment Committee and I particularly appreciate the fact that she acknowledged my colleague Maryan Street for her work. I think that is a very good attitude and a very good basis on which to progress the bill.Labour will certainly be giving its support to the bill. It does things that are sensible. Even though it was a good bill to start with it was substantially improved and it was made even better at the select committee. I think that is also a tribute to all the select committee members.Iain Lees-Galloway: It’s like peace is breaking out.Hon RUTH DYSON: Yes perhaps we could quit now. Peace seems to have broken out as my colleagues say. [Interruption] No I am enjoying it. It is a good bill and the select committee did good work as well. So as I say it is a pleasure to support this bill.I wonder what went through the minds of the members or the leaders of the House—the Hon Gerry Brownlee the Hon Anne Tolley and the Hon Steven Joyce—when this bill was due to come up on this particular night. Well I am sure that they would have seen the title of the bill and thought “Conservation? Actually I think we’ve had enough discussion about conservation in the House in the last little while.” because of course the Minister of Conservation the Hon Nick Smith has been figuring quite highly in the last 2 weeks as a result of his inconsistent representations to the House and to the public. So it is good that this bill—even though it deals with the Minister of Conservation’s legislation—is going to be so well supported and that comments that are made about it are going to be consistent rather than highly questionable.The member Jacqui Dean went through the bill in quite some detail. I think that if you go from the starting point of the fact that this is a member’s bill rather than a Government bill and look at what the member Jacqui Dean sought to do it is a really sensible place to start because the penalties regime was clearly outdated and clearly inconsistent. This bill brings it into a much more realistic state where the penalties that are imposed on people will serve the purpose. The penalties will give those people a wake-up call. They will make them pay the price for any damage that they have done.We can go into the details of what the penalties might do later but for any of the penalties that are incurred they now have a penalty that is considered relevant by this Parliament to the damage that has been done. I think that is a very good thing.At the select committee Maryan Street proposed that a new Part 6 be added to the penalty regime so that the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978 was also updated in the same way as the other pieces of legislation. As Jacqui Dean has noted that was a move that was innovative. So I think that the Hon Maryan Street should be congratulated on that forethought but also that the select committee should be congratulated on supporting it.There is a frustration that is often shared in this Parliament about the framing of the conservation debate. I think it is one that is worthy of mention at the moment given that this is the topic before us. It is certainly topical in a number of other areas where the current Government has seen conservation and the environment actually as being something that needs to be balanced off against proposals and against things that might give us economic gain. In my view that is not the appropriate way to view the environment conservation and the economy because if you lose some of the value of the conservation estate it is gone for ever. The overall value to the economy of our conservation estate is very high. New Zealand has a lot of things to offer but our biggest attraction is our natural environment. People come to New Zealand because of that. They enjoy it they go back home and tell other people about it and it is something that many other countries envy. We enjoy so much in New Zealand because of the land the environment that we have around us and these are often things that can be enjoyed at no cost which again is something that other countries are very envious of.So we need to do our best to always offer protection. If you start your frame of thinking with “Well we have got some conservation values here but we have got some potential economic gain there and those need to be balanced off.” then I think you are likely to get the wrong answer. In my view you need to say that there are some things that are so precious that it is our responsibility whether in law or just from a moral standpoint to protect those values and those precious parts of our country—whether it is the water whether it is the land or whether it is other landscapes and fauna and flora. That is the frame that I think we need to bring to the conservation debate.This bill actually contributes in many ways because it comes from the starting point of saying that people who break the law people who do damage should actually have a penalty attached to that action that reflects the upset that New Zealand society feels at their action. The previous penalties were wildly out of date and also inconsistent depending on what action was taken and also where it was taken. So that did not give a strong message about the value of the conservation estate in the same way as the National Party’s frame of balancing up conservation versus economic development sends the wrong message to the public of New Zealand. The message that we should be giving is that we are the guardians of our land and of our sea. We are responsible for what future generations will have to enjoy and that is a responsibility that we should take very seriously.I want to conclude by also noting the fantastic work that the officials did on the committee. It is often I think a pretty frustrating task being an official who is dedicated to the work that they are doing. They are in the main and I have seen very few exceptions to this high quality public servants—oh they should be sitting down here in the Chamber. There are some really nice green seats down the front that officials are able to use sometimes but these particular officials are shy and they are getting more embarrassed by the minute as they are clearly in the range. We cannot refer to where they are of course because that is against Standing Orders but they are certainly within earshot of this.On this bill I want to commend the quality of the work from the officials. I know that officials can often get frustrated by what they see as game-playing with important pieces of legislation that they might have worked very hard on. This bill would have come as a surprise to them because it was a member’s bill not a Government bill. I think that the thought they gave to it and the contribution that they made really allowed as I said earlier quite substantial changes to be made during the select committee process which were unanimously agreed and which will now be progressed through the Committee. I know that the Department of Conservation officials particularly have had a really hard time in the last little while. The department’s funding has been cut back over the last 4 years. It has had big restructuring and for the staff who are there these have been pretty stressful and trying times. The most recent incident was where there had been a whistleblower who—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is not part of the bill.Hon RUTH DYSON: —raised the issue of the submission from the Department of Conservation on theRuataniwha Dam.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Concentrate on the bill.Hon RUTH DYSON: Of course there will be further uncertainty within the department so for those officials to come to the select committee to look at this bill and to support us in the way they did is not just a commendation for their professionalism but also a recognition of what else is happening in their lives.With those highly relevant comments I want to again commend the member for her vision in introducing this bill and to thank the select committee members for their substantive work on it.NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central): I too am very happy to support this Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill brought to the House by my colleague Jacqui Dean. It is a very timely bill. As the Hon Ruth Dyson said everyone on the Local Government and Environment Committee worked hard to make sure that we got a good outcome and it was fully supported. As has already been stated the purpose of the bill is to update penalties across conservation legislation in order to better protect conservation land and protect native species. The bill increases the penalties for offences across six pieces of legislation administered by the Department of Conservation.It was the smuggling of jewelled geckos from the Waitaki Basin that raised the issue for Jacqui Dean. Smugglers were very active in her electorate and the penalties for stealing these very beautiful and very valuable geckos—they are worth up to $25000 each on the international market—were laughably low. We know that the smugglers were very active in her electorate because we managed to catch some of them at customs. We had one smuggler who had nearly a dozen geckos secreted around his person. We also know that there were many smugglers who were spending time in Jacqui’s electorate and getting away with smuggling. Jewelled geckos have unique markings on their bodies and we knew where some of them were living. One day they would be in the Waitaki Basin; the next day you would see their pictures on the internet. They were being marketed to collectors in Europe. We did catch some of those smugglers but when we caught them the penalties were nothing to write home about. In fact they did not punish and they did not deter.There has been other serious conservation offending in recent years. We have all been disturbed by the killing of marine mammals. We do not like the illegal hunting of protected species and illegal commercially motivated activities including the smuggling of animals and plants the draining of wetlands and the logging of native trees.It is very important to have significant penalties for illegal commercially motivated activities because they can be highly lucrative. These new penalties respond in part to the comment by judges when sentencing those very gecko smugglers that the current penalties were not sufficient to punish or deter offenders. These penalties will not affect legitimate operators such as tourism concessionaires if they play fair. Increased penalties are also proposed for non-commercial offences and for breaches of by-laws and regulations across all six Acts.I too would like to thank the officials. They did a lot of work on this bill. They did it with assiduous care. They worked very hard with us and I think we are all very pleased to see this legislation coming out at the other end. We were unanimous in our support around the table. We all believe that there should be stronger penalties for conservation offending. We want to protect our natural heritage. Thank you Jacqui Dean.Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): It gives me great pleasure to rise to support this Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill in the name of Jacqui Dean at the Committee stage. I too would like to join the wave of unanimity and harmony and peace that has broken out in the Committee over this bill and say that it gives me great pleasure indeed to support it. In fact I want to thank Jacqui Dean for her gracious acknowledgment of the contribution I was able to make on this bill by extending it to cover the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978. I will come back to that in a moment because the purpose of the inclusion of that Act in this bill will become clear.But I have to say that in the course of thinking about whether or not there was something more that could be done with this bill there were a number of recent cases of harm to marine mammals that had come to public attention. I must confess that I approached the Minister of Conservation Dr Nick Smith and asked him whether he would oppose or be averse to the inclusion of the Marine Mammals Protection Act and penalties under that Act in this bill so that in the process of making penalties consistent across a range of Acts we could include harm done to marine mammals. He was very enthusiastic about that incorporation and in fact signalled a review of marine mammals legislation and marine Acts in general which I understand he is pursuing. He was very gracious and I want to give him credit for that. Notwithstanding the difficulties he is facing currently I believe credit should go where credit is due and after all every dog has his day.As far as this bill is concerned the purpose that Jacqui Dean brought to the Local Government and Environment Committee was to ensure that New Zealand’s wildlife and natural and historic resources would be better protected. This was her motivation. I applaud her for that. It was a worthwhile effort and in the course of the select committee I think we have jointly made some constructive improvements around the table at the select committee that have strengthened even further the capability of this legislation.The problem had been that across a range of pieces of legislation the penalties differed. It was entirely possible to commit an offence and have it receive a negligible penalty under one piece of legislation and a different penalty under another—for example if someone were to release a stoat on to a nature reserve the highest penalty would be $500 or 1 month’s imprisonment. Under the National Parks Act 1980 if a bit of a national park was carved off and converted to pasture or a stand of trees milled the highest penalty would have been a maximum fine of $2500 or 3 months’ imprisonment. However if the same offences happened in a conservation area then the maximum penalty would be $10000 or 12 months’ jail.Typically the national parks’ protected areas were of higher value than conservation areas. But when it came to the creatures that inhabit these for us special areas the range of penalties made no sense—made absolutely no sense. Obviously the situationthat my colleague Nicky Wagner referred to a moment ago arising out of the member Jacqui Dean’s own electorate of Waitaki where the smuggling of jewelled geckos was becoming rife and hugely lucrative for the people who were engaged in it was impetus enough for this bill.But what we have done in this bill which I think is highly commendable is that we have taken the Conservation Act 1987 the National Parks Act 1980 the Reserves Act 1977 the Wildlife Act 1953 the Wild Animal Control Act 1977 and added to that the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978 and we have brought them all under the same penalty regime. So there can be no more obfuscation around damage to harm to stealing of or smuggling of creatures that are precious to us whether they be eggs or whether they be live specimens.Now we have changed that—or at least we will with the passage of this legislation currently in its Committee stage. Most penalties are increased to up to $100000 for individuals and $200000 for individuals who are acting for commercial reasons or for a company. Ongoing daily penalties are increased to up to $10000 and $20000 respectively for individuals and those working on behalf of a company. Breaches of by-laws incur up to $5000 or $10000 penalties. This two-tiered kind of regime will make not only the monitoring but the implementation and the prosecution of this legislation consistent.So at the moment we have—without wishing to comment unduly on a case before the court—a case of a Blenheim man in front of the Nelson court currently on charges of killing 13 female breeding seals at a seal colony on theKaikōura coast two bulls and eight seal pups. Because of the difference in the regimes under different pieces of legislation he is being tried under a piece of legislation that will have far lesser consequences for him than if he were being tried under another piece of legislation. That was then and he will be tried according to the law in place at the time of the alleged crime so that is happening as we speak. But no more after this; once this bill gets to its third reading people will not be able to pick and choose which piece of legislation they will contest their crime under.The police will have an easier job of prosecuting under different pieces of legislation because the penalties will be comparable. So it will be easier for the police to make sure that the actions will be dealt with consistently in terms of penalties regardless of the particular piece of legislation they are charging a person under. That has got to be helpful. We need to protect our special fauna in this country and that extends to marine mammals.I would also like to add my congratulations to the officials on the work they did. They advised us in a way that was impartial but very committed. They were very committed to what they were doing. I recognise this as a feature of staff who work in the Department of Conservation and I thank them for it. There are fewer and fewer of them as the days go by but the ones who still remain are absolutely committed to the conservation of our endangered species and our special species in our jurisdictional area. I thank the officials for their advice and for the way they made sure that what we were doing in this bill was consistent throughout. I commend the bill to the Committee.MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): It is with great pleasure that I talk to the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill. As many have said it is a member’s bill with enormous merit. It is an omnibus bill which will be heard in one part of course and its purpose is to increase the penalties in the main enactments administered by the Department of Conservation. It is all about as many have said already in other readings consistency. It is about making people aware of the problems and making through the various Acts a clear picture of what will happen if you do the wrong thing by our flora and fauna and now I should say marine mammals as well.I think as others have mentioned that this bill has been a particularly harmonious bill at the Local Government and Environment Committee. There were no changes really that were put through that were not agreed to. That sort of harmony if you like was also evident in the submissions we heard. We heard only one from the New Zealand Law Society and eight submissions were received in support. The submissions were very helpful and very useful. They talked about the value of higher penalty levels the need for a consistent approach—all of the things effectively that came out in the ultimate bill that we have.I must say that one of the submissions that stood out for me was from TeRūnanga oNgāiTahu the board ofNgāiTahu. It talked about the need to have consistency and the need to put some money into some positive steps towards entrenching kaitiakitanga from a Crown perspective and also into public education and behaviours within the community. Its point I thought was very well made in its written submission to us: that it is certainly about the carrot and stick approach. The stick is that the penalties had to increase—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.EUGENIE SAGE (Green): I am pleased to take a call on the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill. The Green Party supports this bill and congratulates Jacqui Dean on her work in bringing it to the House because it will encourage compliance with conservation legislation and by doing this it better protects our natural and historic resources and our wildlife. Jacqui Dean provided a very comprehensive summary of the bill’s purpose and its contents so I will not repeat that but I will just say that it does not create any new offences or have any new powers and that may account for the small number of submissions. There were eight submissions to the Local Government and Environment Committee and all of those submissions supported the bill. None of those submissions opposed it. Submitters certainly stressed the value of higher penalties and the need for a much more consistent approach across the five pieces of legislation—including the National Parks Act the Conservation Act and the Wildlife Act which the bill originally dealt with. Now there are six pieces of legislation with the addition of the Marine Mammals Protection Act. Submitters stressed the need for effective penalties to encourage compliance and they also highlighted the value of having some flexibility in terms of sentencing options.So we certainly welcome the legislation but we do wish Jacqui Dean would encourage Government members to have a rather more consistent approach to the protection of our distinctive plants and wildlife. If you look at clause 4C of the bill which inserts new section 43C that has penalties in relation to “unlawful acts in respect of spawning fish:” and in section 26ZR of the principal Act—the Conservation Act—to “the use of a substance or electric device to take or destroy freshwater fish:”. Under the principal Act because of this bill the courts will be able to impose a sentence of imprisonment of up to 2 years or a fine of $100000 if you do anything to interfere with spawning fish or if you put a hazardous substance or a narcotic substance in the water with the intention of killing fish. Yet the very same department the Department of Conservation which is able to prosecute those offences with those penalties is not able to put evidence in front of the board of inquiry on theTukituki catchment proposal which would show how the intensive agriculture and irrigation that that catchment proposal enables could kill about 18 species of native fish in the Tukituki River because when the nutrient runoff—the nitrogen that is associated with intensiveagriculture—seeps into waterways you get more algal blooms and you get conditions that are toxic to fish.This bill increases the penalties for harming fish. Yet when the very same department with the very same statutory responsibilities to advocate for conservation to preserve as far as practicable all indigenous freshwater fisheries to protect recreational freshwater fisheries—the purposes that this bill is based on—tries to carry out that same statutory responsibility in relation to the Tukituki catchment and in relation to the GovernmentRuataniwha irrigation proposal it is not allowed to do it because a Minister of Conservation who has been as slippery as an eel in relation to his denials of having anything to do with suppressing that Department of Conservation submission has not allowed the department to put forward evidence of how irrigation can make rivers toxic. Yet this bill is increasing the penalties for an individual who does that. So we desire more consistency across Government.We welcome this bill but we think that the department should also be allowed to carry out its statutory responsibilities for freshwater fish and for conservation advocacy in a wider sphere under the Resource Management Act not just relating it to individuals. So we will be supporting it but it is a very great pity that the board of inquiry will not have any contestable evidence from a Government department in front of it when it considers the Tukituki catchment proposal. It will have evidence from the Ministry for Primary Industries but not from the department. Yet this bill is right on point in terms of recognising the department’s responsibilities for the protection of freshwater fish and for increasing the penalties for killing fish. Thank you.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): That was a very good choice of yours Mr Chair. I am taking a call on behalf of New Zealand First on Jacqui Dean’s Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill. We have said in the previous reading that we would be supporting this bill. We believe that it has a lot of merit in terms of what it tries to achieve.I have mentioned in this Chamber before that we have had many instances where there was smuggling of some of our endangered and precious creatures including a case where a German tourist tried to smuggle 44 Northland green geckos out of the country and was caught. That was in 2010. There was another case where some Czech botanists were convicted in 2004 for attempting to smuggle 363 wild plants including 93 endemic orchids. This sort of thing goes on all the time. Of course for all the cases that we do hear about and where we do apprehend the culprits obviously there are many that go unnoticed and where people are getting away with it. Worldwide Interpol estimates that the smuggling of wildlife and precious species is worth in the order of $10 billion to $20 billion. So worldwide smuggling of precious flora and fauna is quite a big trade.In New Zealand’s case we do have some unique species that are found only here in Aotearoa because of our isolation and because of the way we separated from Gondwanaland and the rest of the continents. As a result we have some species that people in other parts of the world would very dearly love to get their hands on. So this is a good piece of legislation to increase the surveillance of that and to ensure that there are increased penalties for those who are caught and apprehended. Some of those penalties are quite hefty going from 1 to 5 years’ imprisonment and particularly for those who are caught doing it for commercial gain or commercial reward penalties going up to 5 years’ imprisonment a $300000 fine or $20000 per day. That sends a very strong message to anybody who feels that they wish to participate in the illicit trade in flora or fauna that this is getting into fairly serious money.But sometimes it is not always done for commercial gain. Sometimes it is done perhaps somewhat negligently but again people need to be aware that there arepenalties if they are negligent when it comes to New Zealand’s precious fauna and flora. So there is the ability within this bill for people to be sentenced to community work and other smaller penalties if they are caught offending perhaps unwittingly in this manner.We do have concerns like some of the other Opposition parties that although it is a good move on behalf of one National member to bring this bill to the Committee to help protect our environment there are many other things that this National Government is doing that are flying in the face of the environment. When we look at some of the reforms in regard to the Resource Management Act and now particularly as we are moving towards Part 2 and clauses 6 and 7 of the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill we have some grave concerns in that area of the environment. So we would hope that we are not seeing a double standard here from the Government in terms of a good member and a member on our Local Government and Environment Committee doing a good job bringing this Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill to the Committee to improve the standards.We certainly do not like the idea that on the other side of the ledger the same Government is perhaps pulling the rug out from other aspects of the environment. We do stand by our pride in having a “100% Pure New Zealand” image and branding and trying to be internationally respected for that so it is important that we maintain that high level. In that respect we do have some concerns about what is occurring this very week in terms of the Minister of Conservation Nick Smith and what is happening in that whole saga. Therefore we are perhaps seeing some double standards coming through which we certainly do not condone and we do not wish to see.However we do applaud the member Jacqui Dean for bringing this bill to the House. It is overdue. There have been now quite a considerable number of years where things have occurred and where people have got away with various things. Just to conclude we think as a result that this bill can serve only to further the good work that has been done in the area of conservation and the environment and we certainly support it. New Zealand First will be following this through.CLAUDETTE HAUITI (National): The Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill sets out to better protect ourwāhi tapu and taonga by increasing penalties for non-compliance with laws administered by the Department of Conservation. It also implements a consistent approach to penalties across the amended laws. The bill proposes bigger fines and longer jail sentences for people who endanger our wildlife or damage our protected natural habitats. Some penalties currently in place are far too low and there are other inconsistencies that need to be addressed.But this bill is more than a technical bill. This bill is safeguarding our intimate relationship between us the people of Aotearoa New Zealand and our natural world—all that isbetween Ranginui andPapatūānuku and including Tangaroa. This is about kaitiakitanga the very thing thatTe Rūnanganui o Ngāi Tahu pinpointed in its submission. This is about cultural guardianship the system of law and lore through which we are obliged to nurture and care.This bill is relevant and responsible to a changing and demanding world. We are continuing to improve the environment and build a cleaner greener brighter future for all New Zealanders. This bill upholds ourkaitiakitanga in law. Amendments are proposed to the Conservation Act the National Parks Act the Reserves Act the Wildlife Act and the Wild Animal Control Act. The bill will also apply to the Marine Mammals Protection Act.This bill upholds our kaitiakitanga in lore—as an example keeping the two species of tuatara safe. It is helping protect the only surviving members of its order which flourished around 200 million years ago. To Māori tuatara are ariki and thought to be messengers ofWhiro the god of death and disaster. To some tuatara also indicate tapu.Māori women would sometimes tattoo images of lizards some of which may represent tuatara near their whare tangata or genitals and this was in celebration ofHine-nui-te-po and her power to bring life and death to mankind asMāui Tikitiki-a-Taranga discovered when she squashed him between her legs. The whakapapa of tuatara is just one history of a species we are protecting.This bill sends a strong message that we take protection of New Zealand’s wildlife and natural areas very seriously. What this bill does is send a strong message to ourselves that we take seriously our role as kaitiakitanga.BRENDAN HORAN (Independent): I rise to take a short call on the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill—[Interruption]—and I want to make just a few brief points when the follicly challenged one over there is quiet. Firstly I observe that Part 6 which was inserted at the Local Government and Environment Committee is a victory for the process of public input—for this nation’s citizens being able to make submissions on legislation and to improve a bill. I have been one to condemn this Government for the way it has had to put amendments to amendments to amendments and rushed because of its policy of rushing through bills but it is great to see the democratic process working with this bill.The select committee reported: “We recommend inserting new Part 6 to reflect the intention of bringing consistency to the penalties administered by the Department of Conservation.” The committee went on to refer to Standing Order 288(1) which states that “a select committee may recommend only amendments that are relevant to the subject-matter of the bill are consistent with the principles and objects of the bill …”. The Local Government and Environment Committee went on to say that it was confident that Part 6 which amends the Marine Mammals Protection Act meets that requirement.I suggest that it would be useful for the select committee report to record why this particular change came about—that reason being that a member of the public asked for the change in a submission. Only eight submissions were received including a learned one from the New Zealand Law Society—and I will touch on that one shortly. One person asked for the change to the marine mammals law and put in just a short submission of 300 words or more. The submitter did so firstly because of a report on Radio New Zealand National in January this year entitled “Claim of illegal fishing in marine sanctuary” and secondly because at the time submissions were being received on this bill. To cut a long story short the select committee was convinced by the power of the argument which spoke for itself. It was an overnight success which we are debating just 8 months later. That is a good-news story for the public of New Zealand—that input by New Zealanders into our nation’s legislation can be brought to fruition.The next point I would like to touch on is the process that has brought us to where we are today debating the Committee stage of the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill and its Parts 1 to 6 and preliminary clauses. We are doing this on a members’ day because the bill has been brought forward by the honourable Jacqui Dean as a member’s bill. I say good on her for doing that but she has done it because it has not been brought forward as a Government bill by successive Governments led by the last four Prime Ministers.Let us look for example at clause 4B in Part 1 of the bill. It updates the penalties in section 39 of the Conservation Act for a person who in the words of section 39(4) of that Act: “disturbs injures poisons kills or detrimentally affects any freshwater fishery fish spawning ground or food of freshwater fish in any river stream lake or any other water by allowing any contaminant to enter into any such water or refuses to remove as much as may be practicable of the contaminant”. Well it is a mouthful but it defines a specific offence. The provision was added to the law in 1990 by theConservation Law Reform Act 1990 with penalties of up to $30000 and a further fine of $3000 a day for a continuing offence. In the intervening 23 years the quantum of the maximum penalty has not changed. The dollar amounts are the same today as they were 23 years ago yet the value of $30000 in 1990 was obviously far greater than the same amount today.I frequently hear members in debate observing the importance of this House getting the regulatory framework right and of setting good policy parameters yet too often they do not get revisited and so we have a massive catch-up as we see today in clause 4B of this bill as brought forward by Jacqui Dean. The Law Society whose submission I alluded to earlier made four recommendations. One of the recommendations was that a review should be undertaken to ensure that the bill’s penalties are consistent with the penalties specified in other enactments that protect or manage aspects of the natural environment. The Law Society suggested it would be desirable for there to be a consistent approach to penalties in all enactments that protect or manage aspects of the natural environment.Perhaps another useful step would be for Parliament to have a process for bills to specifically revise and update penalties contained in statute as it is important constitutionally that this House sets out penalties and maximums in primary legislation. But it would do little harm for one bill in each Parliament an omnibus bill to be introduced to keep the penalties up to date and as desired by the Law Society consistent across the statute book. The Law Society suggested that it would be desirable for there to be a consistent approach to penalties in all enactments that protect or manage aspects of this national environment.Finally I turn to clause 2 which sets out the commencement date. The clause is a good one and I commend the honourable member Jacqui Dean for specifying a fixed date. I will support this bill.Parts 1 to 6 and clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.Bill reported without amendment.Report adopted.Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment BillFirst ReadingDebate resumed from 4 September.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): When this bill was last being debated in the House we had the honourable member Iain Lees-Galloway who was speaking. Mr Lees-Galloway has 1 minute and 30 seconds remaining to speak if he so wishes.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I will take that opportunity Mr Assistant Speaker I will. Well they say in life that the only constant is change. In the brief period of time since I began my call on this Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill there have been some minor adjustments to the Labour line-up and sadly I am no longer a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee which means I will not get to follow the intricate passage of this bill through the select committee process. I will not get to hear the dozens of submissions.Hon Phil Goff: Oh we could sub you on.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Oh well I could get subbed on. We could talk to the whips about that. But it is a great pity because I do respect the member Cam Calder forbringing this bill to the House. I know that the Airline Pilots’ Association will be very grateful and I do anticipate that the Airline Pilots’ Association will come to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and will make a very serious contribution to the bill.As I said when we were last debating this we do agree with the thrust of the bill. We think it is a little bit broad in its scope. We could narrow down the scope of the bill to the high-powered lasers such as the one that Cam Calder demonstrated during his first contribution on the bill rather than the lower-powered—the one that the member is holding up right now—ones that are used with PowerPoint presentations or entertaining domestic cats. If we could get those ones out of the legislation focus on the real causes of the problem then Labour would have no problem supporting this bill into—[Bell rung] What did that bell mean Mr Assistant Speaker?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That means your time is actually up.DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): I would just like to congratulate my good friend and colleague Dr Cam Calder on the excellent work he has done in progressing this Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill to this House. I am sure it will be a very proud moment when he sees this bill pass through the House. Mr Calder is a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee along with other members of this House. I would just like to acknowledge the Labour members who have worked so diligently with us on these types of bills.Hon Todd McClay: What’s in the bill?DAVID BENNETT: We will come to the bill Mr McClay. Mr McClay is a good shooter and likes to play with guns so I am sure he will be interested in what this can be about as well.John Hayes: That’s not all he plays with.DAVID BENNETT: Yes. But thank you Mr Iain Lees-Galloway for your support of the bill and your involvement with the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee as well. But this is Mr Calder’s day and well done to him. We look forward to this bill progressing through the House.When we look at it it is a preventive bill and I think that is the nature of Mr Calder. He sees that we need to go out there and do things before they happen and to be—[Interruption] Yes Mr McClay I am sure that is a very generous contribution. Mr Calder has looked at a problem that he has seen out there and done something about it before it actually ended in tragic circumstances which it could—it very well could. It is one of those things that it is easy to dismiss and say that this is not going to happen and in some bizarre circumstances it may well happen. The reality is that is exactly the time that something does happen. As Mr Calder said there have been over 100 cases that have caused him to look at this bill and the measures he has taken here to assist.Mr Iain Lees-Galloway mentioned an issue around the degree I guess of laser capability. That is going to be very very hard to actually identify and to make possible and makes it difficult for the police in enforcing that as well. But I am sure the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee will look at that issue as we go through it. Just from a general starting point there is an issue there around how you actually determine those different classes and nature of the instruments. Mr Calder will show you one of these later on in his speech. We look forward to that demonstration. I have been lucky to touch it. I was told I am not allowed to touch this but he has finally given it to me. It must have been all those good words I said about him. This is the instrument which I am holding up. This is the nature of what we are looking at.Hon Member: Don’t shine it at me.DAVID BENNETT: I will not shine it at anybody. But this is the kind of thing that can cause a terrible tragedy and that could cause the loss of life. Nobody wants to see that happen and this Parliament with this bill has the opportunity to take some steps to stop that happening.I would just like to once again congratulate the proponent of the bill. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee looks forward to hearing submissions and working with the bill’s proponent to make sure it is a reality. Thank you.DARIEN FENTON (Labour): Well it is a pleasure to take a call on the Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill. In my introductory comments I do want to congratulate Dr Cam Calder for bringing the bill to the House. I will be remaining on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. What is more I am going to be flying the flag for Labour in the transport portfolio which is fantastic. I am very excited about it. I am sure we will get round to talking about the Hamilton expressway at some stage Mr Bennett.I want to start first of all by acknowledging the pilots of these aircraft—you know the wonderful pilots who work for our wonderful national carrier Air New Zealand. But they must be not only worrying about lasers at the moment; they would probably also be dreadfully worried about the Government’s plans to partially privatise or further privatise Air New Zealand. That is probably a far greater risk to their sense of job security and safety than anything that some larrikins may do with lasers. So as I say I want to acknowledge them and acknowledge all the people such as the flight crew who fly on Air New Zealand who are feeling some uncertainty at this stage as this Government progresses its crazy asset sales programme.Although I have congratulated Dr Cam Calder it is tempting to say that I have to wonder why we are doing this on a members’ day—I do. I really have to. I have gone back—and in one of my previous portfolios I was the transport safety spokesperson—and this is not something that is new. In 2010 someone said: “Larrikins shining lasers into the cockpits of aircraft might need to experience the full penalties of the law to remind them of the seriousness of their [actions].” That was me. In 2010 I was calling on the Government to do something about it.In February 2012 someone else said: “The unlawful targeting of aircraft by reckless laser users is endangering the safety of both pilots and travellers”. Who said that? That was Iain Lees-Galloway. It was in 2012 he was saying that. That is 2 years after I started this crusade about lasers with genuine concern so I am really pleased that Dr Cam Calder has followed the lead of the Labour members on this side who have been calling for something to be done about this.We are very pleased to support the bill although as I have said I believe it should be a Government bill. The Government really needs to not waste members’ days on things it could do itself. It could easily easily put this into a transport bill—easily—or an omnibus bill. It could easily do that and instead we could be dealing with some issues in this House that actually need to be addressed by members—particularly those members on this side of the House who do not get the opportunity to put forward Government bills.Having made those comments congratulated the member and said he has done a good job in doing this we all know this is a growing problem and it has been growing since 2010 at least—at least. We know it is a growing problem and it does need to be dealt with. We are talking about people’s lives. It is a highly dangerous situation. I do feel very concerned however that the Minister of Transport has fobbed this off to a backbencher. He has fobbed it off to a backbencher to use up a members’ day. David Bennett is now threatening me with a laser. He is now threatening me with a laser—forgive my croaky voice but I have got the lurgy.We do accept this is a serious issue. I am looking forward to discussing this in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and seeing more demonstrations—seeing some more demonstrations. I am sure Dr Cam Calder as I know the member really well will have done his research and will have a variety of lasers to demonstrate to the select committee.I am also looking forward to hearing from the pilots and other members of the public because it is a serious issue. It is highly dangerous. It is madness actually to be shining lasers in the eyes of pilots who are bringing aircraft in to land or who are just flying over and above. It does put people’s lives at risk so we will support the bill. I look forward to some interesting discussion in the select committee. I just wish that the Government was doing this rather than the member but however good on him for doing this.DAVID CLENDON (Green): I am pleased to take a brief call on this Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill. I have to say that when the Greens first sighted this bill we were somewhat ambivalent about it because of its inclusiveness. This point has been touched on—the fact that it does indeed make it an offence to possess any laser pointer means that even people carrying them would have to rely on fairly thin defences based on reasonable grounds and reasonable cause. We found that slightly less than persuasive in terms of the way the bill is worded. So as I say we are ambivalent about it. The inclusiveness is counting against it. It does in some way reflect Dr Calder’s personality. He is a very inclusive sort of fellow—not at all of the prophylactic sort of nature that Mr Bennett referred to. I was rather surprised to hear that.But more seriously I guess I was somewhat more persuaded to support this bill albeit we see it as flawed when I learnt that there are something like 100 incidents a year—twice a week effectively—where aircraft are endangered by misuse of these instruments these items. I would not suggest for a minute that anybody in this House would vote according to self-interest but it must be recognised that as MPs we all spend an awful lot of time at airports and in the air so of all people we are quite sensitive to the safety of air travel in New Zealand. If this is occurring twice a week—and of course I take Dr Calder at his word; I am sure it is well-grounded information—then that is a very serious problem. It is almost inevitable if it is happening a couple of times a week that at some point a pilot will lose control through being blasted with light losing his night vision or whatever it might be and we will see a tragedy occur.Having said that we do nevertheless feel that clearly the regulations are going to be put in place and given some work through the Ministry of Health and elsewhere to restrict the import of the high-powered instruments that are inevitably—well they are invariably going to present some danger if they are in the wrong hands. That was part of our objection initially—that the bill was focused at the wrong place to restrict the import of these. As I understand it I could purchase myself online tonight a very high-powered laser and wave it about willy-nilly with very little risk of being prosecuted unless I actively sought to disrupt an aircraft or a vehicle or whatever it might be. But I do think that now it seems that regulations will be in place perhaps this year to put some serious controls around the import of these things.They do have legitimate uses and astronomers are mentioned in this. I had the very fortunate experience about 2 years ago of visiting the Mount John Observatory inTekapō on a very dark very cold night. In the midst of an extraordinary experience which I would recommend to anybody who has not done it I saw those lasers being used appropriately by astronomers and people presenting to tourists and visitors to indicate constellations. They do have legitimate uses and I see that researchers and the Defence Force also have a reason to use these high-powered things.The notion as the bill is drafted is that anyone owning even a very very low-powered very inoffensive instrument could be liable to prosecution if they could not demonstrate reasonable cause. I think we have common ground with our Labour colleagues here. We would like to see some tightening up of the drafting and I am sure that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee will do some creative work. I accept Dr Calder’s analogy about possessing knives. Nobody is offended by someone carrying a pocket knife but walking through an urban environment with a large hunting knife in your pocket clearly would raise some questions about your purpose.But essentially we see that the intention of this bill is clear—and we respect that—to protect air travel drivers people who ought to be protected from the potential dangers inherent in these very very high-powered instruments. We do expect and we would like to see some redrafting of the bill just to perhaps put some clarity about the class 1 lasers for example which could be exempt perhaps but I will leave that to the select committee. So for the moment we are supporting this bill’s referral to the select committee. We look forward to being part of the debate about making it a better bill and achieving the ultimate goal of it which is about protecting people from the malicious use of these things. Kia ora.RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the first reading of the Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill. New Zealand First supports this bill.I was discussing this bill with a colleague of mine last month and my colleague remarked: “What a shame it is that we have to legislate that we have to pass laws because of people’s stupidity.” Yet that is what we are doing. It is a great thing that Dr Calder has brought this bill to the House and we are pleased to be able to support it because it will address an issue of safety that is of genuine concern but at the same time it is a very great shame that he has had to draft a bill to address the matter at hand because the need for it has come about wholly and solely thanks to the stupidity of a few individuals.Lasers are a fascinating invention. I have been fascinated by them since learning the theory and workings of them in physics in high school. Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation is what the acronym LASER stands for and a truly wonderful process that is. The principle of wave-particle duality the fact that light can exist as either a wave form or a particle but not at the same time has been employed by mankind to his great benefit since the invention of the laser in 1960. Today lasers are common in industry medicine and science. Lasers are used for precise and accurate measuring cutting reading and recording engraving incising excising and aligning and levelling. Everything from dumpy levels to DVD players have lasers in them. Of course they have other uses such as the hunter using a laser sight to pinpoint the hapless bunny in his crosshairs to a lecturer or presenter highlighting elements of his or her presentation on a screen or a whiteboard for the benefit of the audience and to driving one’s cat into a frenzy as it chases the impossible-to-catch little red dot all around the house. Indeed they have many practical and legitimate uses. They have less legitimate uses as well and it is one of these in particular that has been the reason for the good Dr Calder to bring this bill before us.Laser pointers—hand-held lasers in particular—have evolved rapidly in recent years and their availability has increased as prices have fallen exponentially. Once the preserve of fictional characters in futuristic movies and TV programmes the hand-held laser has become an easily accessible reality powered by ordinary torch batteries and capable of great feats such as igniting matches and bursting balloons over a great distance. I would have loved one as a boy and with hindsight in some ways I think it is just as well that I never did have one. But boys today do have them and some of thoseboys choose to do stupid things with them which is why we are here debating this fine member’s bill from the very fine member indeed if I may say so with the intention of making it into an equally fine law.I do own a laser pointer—I should confess that at this point. In one of my previous lives I was involved with the manufacture of colloidal silver which is a broad-spectrum germicide consisting of the suspension of microscopic silver particles in distilled water. One of the tools that is used to confirm the presence of the silver particles in colloidal suspension and solution is a laser beam. When it is shone through the brew the laser produces what it known as the Tyndall effect which is the scattering of light by very small particles diffused in suspension. The laser pointer that I used for this purpose was a very small device that I purchased from a well-known chain of red shops for the princely sum of $2. It has a power output of about zero-point-nothing of amilliwatt but that said it will still illuminate a reflective road sign some 2 kilometres away.The hand-held lasers that the silly boys I referred to earlier seek to own and misuse however are a different animal altogether. They are advertised online as being of great power and effect many hundreds and even thousands of times more powerful than my own little key ring device which despite its utility is really little more than a toy—a toy that could still blind somebody mind. But these powerful lasers are in a different league and use them to blind they do. Foolish boys have taken to using these devices to blind the pilots of aircraft approaching our airports putting literally hundreds of lives in the air and on the ground at risk. It is only a matter of time before some clown decides that drivers on the motorway are an equally hilarious target and fair game for their stupidity.Dr Calder’s bill will remove these devices from temptation’s reach and that is why we are happy to stand alongside him shoulder to shoulder in support of it. We despair that this bill has become necessary and that as my erstwhile colleague said we have to legislate because of people’s stupidity. But it appears that we do and here we are. New Zealand First congratulates Dr Calder on having his bill drawn from the ballot. We thank him for his motivation and his reasoning. We support this bill and I commend it to the House.MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): It is always a pleasure to follow the member Richard Prosser—Hon Christopher Finlayson: Why?MIKE SABIN: I have got only 5 minutes Minister; I do not want to lose too much of it. I just want to commend Cam Calder for this member’s bill the Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill. Although there is obviously support across the House for it I do not think we should underestimate how significant a risk these lasers actually do pose. If anyone has any doubts about that it is actually not that hard to pull up some footage in some of the warring nations in the Middle East. If we have a look we will actually see that there are people trying to take down aircraft with laser lights. They are doing it by the hundreds. So it is actually used in a sense as a weapon of warfare. While we can jest to some extent about laser pointers that may be used in a classroom or used to—Mr Lees-Galloway plays with his cat or something with it as far as I can be aware there.Iain Lees-Galloway: Try it. It’s hours of entertainment.MIKE SABIN: Well there you go—hours of entertainment with his pussy. We can make light of that but the reality is that these lasers have been used in an offensive manner.David Bennett: Ha ha! That’s the best line of the day.Iain Lees-Galloway: Hey David you’re even redder than normal mate.MIKE SABIN: They have been used in a manner in which the lives of New Zealand citizens are actually put at risk. I do not want to get Mr Lees-Galloway too excited by that but clearly it has.It has been discussed that although the Labour Party will be supporting it it is a Clayton’s support where members will support it but will ask many stern questions at the select committee. Members raised the valid issue of whether or not we should measure the strength of the lasers and make it an offence only if they are over a certain strength. I think what we could do is draw a comparison to the unlawful possession of a knife. That is a very similar type of offence in the sense that a knife in itself is not an offensive weapon unless the context in which it is carried or possessed is one in which it has an unlawful intent. In that offence it is not a case that the length of the knife is the issue because if anyone has ever been confronted with a knife as I was as a police officer a knife that is the length of a finger can do just as much damage as one that is the length of an arm if it is used in the right place. I would liken that to the situation in this bill and put it in the same category. It is not about the scale or the calibre of the weapon or the laser in this case; it is about the purpose and the intention for which it is being carried and how it will be used. I think that is where Mr Calder intends this conversation to be focused—[Interruption] Dr Calder—Dr Calder absolutely.When all is said and done most people will have lasers for various reasons and most of them will be lawful. But it is the ratbags and Mr Prosser alluded to the fact that if we could legislate for stupidity—or what was it Mr Prosser; I cannot quite recall now—Chris Auchinvole: Irresponsibility.MIKE SABIN: —irresponsibility stupidity or what have you well this House would be a lot emptier that is for sure. If only we could legislate to make people more responsible but the reality is legislation goes only so far when it comes to personal responsibility. What we have to get right is sending the right sort of message and creating the right boundaries where we do not penalise those who go about life in a lawful purpose whether it be with a knife or with a laser but where we ensure that those who choose to use them for an unlawful purpose are actually deterred from that and are subject to some sort of criminal sanction or some sort of—[Bell rung] Does that give me a minute left sir? One minute—there we go.As we take this matter forward to the select committee as I say I want to commend Cam Calder because many a pilot in New Zealand has been subject to this. We have seen it with police helicopters we have seen it with rescue helicopters and we have seen it with planes landing at Wellington Airport. There are some dangerous idiots out there and this legislation needs to send a very clear message that if you take something that has a lawful purpose and use it unlawfully there will be a consequence. Actually it is time to reflect on that stupidity and sheet it home to the people who are responsible and the people who are responsible are those who as I say will take a lawful product and use it for an unlawful purpose. Are you happy with that Mr Deputy Speaker? I am happy to sit down. I commend it to the House.SUE MORONEY (Labour): Can I just say at the outset in this debate that we are talking about “laSERS!”. I just had to get that out of my system because Austin Powers has for ever made this bill the Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill difficult to talk about without at least giving an attempt to honour the icon thatAustin Powers movies have made lasers into.But having got that out of my system I will of course say that this is a very serious bill and I want to congratulate the member in charge of the bill Dr Cam Calder on its first reading. It is around a serious issue. However I do wonder because of the serious nature of this bill why we are debating it on a member’s day. Good on him. Good luck to Dr Cam Calder. I might take him to the races one day with that sort of luck—gettinghis bill out of the ballot. But why did we have to wait for the magic number to come out of the tin for the members’ ballot instead of this being a Government bill that actually could have been addressed and have gone right through all of its processes by now? The Government did not take this issue seriously enough to put it forward on the Order Paper as a Government bill. Instead it left it up to the whim of the members’ ballot for it to be drawn out. Fortunately it was drawn out so congratulations Dr Calder on willing it out of the members’ ballot.I say this is a serious issue because it has serious consequences. Of course the Labour Party will support this bill in its first reading to go to a select committee because there have been incidents—I think some 120 incidents. Am I right about that? There were 120? There were 102 sorry—I have got a bit dyslexic with my numbers there. There have been 102 reported cases in the last year where the high-powered laser beams have been used from these hand-held lasers when pilots are landing planes at airports. I am not sure what type of mind gets an absolute kick out of that but clearly that is what has occurred.There is no doubt that there is an issue here to be dealt with. Some of the issues though that the Labour Party will be interested in pursuing at the select committee—and I heard the contribution from the last speaker Mike Sabin. He seems to have a view that asking questions at the select committee is somehow idiocy. In fact that is what the select committee process is for. That is exactly what it is for and we will be asking questions. This bill does not deal with the unlawful nature of it because it is already unlawful. It is already illegal for anyone to take that action against those pilots and their passengers. Let us be clear about that. This is about making it unlawful to be in possession of a hand-held laser in certain vicinities.We want to make sure that that is not going too far. We want to make sure that this has been done in a way so that it is actually addressing the problem and the problem only and not going much wider than it needs to. So we will be interested in knowing what the problem is with someone being found in possession of a low—what would you call it—density or low-power laser if it is not even capable of causing the sort of catastrophe that we are concerned about in this bill. What is the harm? Therefore is this bill actually going too far in terms of having unintended consequences I guess is probably the way to put it. So those are the issues that we will be concerned about at the select committee.Probably the final thing that I will say on this bill is that I will not be on the select committee as a permanent member to hear the submissions on this bill. That is probably a good thing because whenever I think about this bill I am inclined to want to say “laSER!” and that might get a bit on the nerves of a select committee. So it is probably a good thing that I will not be there for the submissions but I wish the select committee all the best in its deliberations.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): I too would like to congratulate Dr Cam Calder on a thoughtful considered concerned piece of very serious legislation. Good legislation can often be identified early on in good speeches and this bill the Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill I think has generated a number of interesting speeches already. It is a compliment to all those who have given their speeches—Sue Moroney: Oh thank you.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: —I am not sure about Iain Lees-Galloway’s speech; no it was all right it was all right—but also it is a compliment to the author of the bill.David Bennett: And the select committee.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: All right and the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and the chairman of the select committee—we will get it right. This bill has produced some interesting speeches from all around the House.I thought that Mike Sabin introduced a very interesting perspective from his earlier career as a law enforcer in that he sort of emphasised that it is not enough just to have a law that risks making people more inventive than more honest; there have to be consequences attached to their not staying within the law. That is why I worry a little bit about Labour thinking that this bill is perhaps going a little bit too far and asking whether we could weaken it down a bit and I think that should be discussed properly within the select committee—Iain Lees-Galloway: It’s already illegal to do it.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: —and I look forward to that. Say that again?Iain Lees-Galloway: It’s already illegal to actually point a laser at an aircraft. This is about possession.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Well yes I will cover that. I might have thought that that was a little bit late if you were thinking of stopping things by law. “No you shouldn’t have done that. That’s no good.”—that was I think MikeSabin’s point of view. You cannot leave it that late. The misuse of these instruments puts New Zealanders’ lives at risk. National is committed to ensuring the safety of New Zealanders using the transport system so that it is not compromised. This bill ensures the proper regulation of devices that pose a threat to the safety of New Zealanders and it is the threat that you are required to deal with.It is not just larrikins is it? It is not just larrikins. There can be really disturbed people.David Bennett: Like New Zealand First members!CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Now now. There can be really disturbed people and there are those—and we live in a country that is relatively free from it—who are inclined towards terrorism. So is it over the top? I do not think so—I do not think so. Hand-held lasers can be used at football matches or any crowd scene. Darien Fenton called it madness. Yes it is. It is madness and we cannot presume sanity on the basis of who might use these things. Let us think back to some of the crazy things that have happened in the past such as stones or bricks being chucked offoverbridges on motorways presumably just for laughs. Dreadful things can happen and you have to have consequences attached to breaking the law. I am particularly glad to see that the Greens have seen sense through the voice of Mr Clendon recognising that there are dangers and that they cannot pursue their normal standpoint which I respect of liberty for all. Well this is not liberty for all. This is liberty for some without this law and dangers for others. There are dangers and there is no such thing as an inoffensive laser light.There will be inoffensive proper uses and these are the things that select committees are there to consider. I do not doubt that we will have people whose eyesight perhaps is not as good as that of our current presiding officer in the Chair Mr Deputy Speaker who might have better shooting with a laser-assisted target selection thing but I am quite sure that the Deputy Speaker does not require that. [Bell rung] Indeed he is bringing me to a sharp stop in case I carry on. There should be no place for the casual recreational use of these instruments. I thought that New Zealand First’s Mr Prosser gave a wonderful dissertation on the physics of laser lights. One could almost call it illuminating.Hon Members: Oh!CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Ha ha!The availability of the price the lack of responsibility powerful equipment and irresponsible hands and minds—all these things have to be taken into account. I would like to join with the others and express congratulations to Dr Cam Calder on his thoughtful considered concerned and serious piece of legislation. Thank you.Dr CAM CALDER (National): Well it is a huge pleasure and I must say that I do appreciate the speeches from around the House in support of this bill the Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill. One of the privileges of being an MP is to craft a member’s bill and this is not the first one I have crafted. I have brought one together on low-ball share offers and another one on changing the right-hand rule. They were presented to the various Ministers concerned and in fact were rolled into the regulations or the legislation of the Government.Iain Lees-Galloway: Why wasn’t this one?Dr CAM CALDER: Taking up the point that Sue Moroney and Iain Lees-Galloway my colleagues across the House have made of course the Government is working on this and it has done work in the area of importation and sale. Regulations around those areas have been promoted and will likely come into force as was pointed out by one of the earlier speakers later on this year.I was working in Manurewa—Sue Moroney: “Manu-ray-wa”.Dr CAM CALDER: I have my office in the vibrant and diverse community of Manurewa. There are 140000 flights—Iain Lees-Galloway: “Manu-ray-wa”.Dr CAM CALDER: —each year that over-fly Manurewa. My colleague William Sio across the Chamber there would have the same experience in “Mon-gere” of 140000 flights across that urban area. So this bill has relevance not only for those who fly in aircraft but also those who are residents of communities around airports and the approaches to airports.This is a simple bill but one that could potentially impact on all members in this House as was pointed out by David Clendon. I thank the Greens for their support in referring this bill to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. It could impact on all members of this House and indeed on all New Zealanders who travel by air. As was pointed out by I think Sue Moroney and others—by Mr Richard Prosser also speaking in favour of the bill and possibly by my colleague Chris Auchinvole who gave a very learned dissertation on this bill—over 100 cases each year—H V Ross Robertson: What do you mean “possibly”? He’s going to support you.Dr CAM CALDER: Mr Robertson would agree with this. Mr Robertson is from Manukau East also over-flown by 140000 flights each year. The residents of the electorate that you currently represent are going to be safer when this bill is passed.What does this bill do? Can I just address a point made about the size of the laser device. I will not go down the line of what you do with your laser with your cat Mr Lees-Galloway—and maybe we can look at that in the select committee—but what is the relevance of the size or power of the laser? I think the learned exposition of Mike Sabin a police officer who has been faced by potentially lethal weapons in the form of small knives had actually a very valid point and that Mr Clendon is why I did not restrict the power of these lasers. As Mr Prosser pointed out his very small device hanging on the end of a key ring—I understood you to say in the House a few minutes ago that you could illuminate a road sign at 2 kilometres. That is a very small supposedly underpowered safe device.The point I would make and the reason why we have not restricted the size or the power of these devices is simply this: in the hands of miscreants and malcontents these devices can cause problems whatever their power. I have the proof here in thesedocuments. As we have said the Airline Pilots’ Association is very much in favour of this bill. It has sent me a huge amount of information including on the various ratings of lasers.Even class 2 lasers—I should say that class 1 lasers of course are unlikely to cause problems because they are the sorts of lasers that you see in CD players or possibly laser printers. I do not imagine someone going along with a CD player pointing it at someone is going to cause a problem in the street so there is no problem with those. Class 2 lasers however which are those with a power of less than 1milliwatt—and what I presume Mr Prosser had on his key ring—can in the wrong hands and with prolonged exposure cause problems. My feeling was that just as with knives where no size is determined the same should apply with lasers.I thank all those around the House for their support of this bill. It is a very serious problem that this House needs to address. We will address it. I look forward to further discussion in the select committee but in the meantime I thank members of the House for their support.Bill read a first time.Billreferred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment BillFirst ReadingLe’aufa’amuliaASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR (NZ First): I moveThat the Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Law and Order Committee to consider this bill. Talofa lava greetingstēnā koutou katoa and thank you for the opportunity to introduce this bill to the House for its first reading. In introducing this bill to the House I would like to acknowledge the late Brian Donnelly QSM a former New Zealand First MP who strongly advocated for a bill like this to be developed in order to tackle the issues that this bill intends to address.JimRohn said that “Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.” Our young children deserve happiness with good education and secure homes. It is impossible to postpone happiness for our younger generation for they need to plan for prosperity and stable lives today. So in order for our future generations to have stability we ought to carefully engineer their current environment and ensure that we design the best platform to counter the risks and evils that could harm and cause more damage to them and our nation in years to come.The bill brings a unique focus to the way in which New Zealand deals with criminals who continue to ignore the rights of our children to a safer and secure environment—an environment where they can grow up to become good citizens with aspirations to be great leaders of our future generations instead of professionals in criminal activity or leaders of some gang-affiliated organisation. I ask that we put aside our politics and come together and be united for the sake of our vulnerable children.The Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill seeks to make criminal offending in the presence of a minor an aggravating factor at sentencing. Criminal offending by adults often exposes minors to serious harm. That is why this bill aims to enable the legal system in New Zealand to view such criminal activities and give appropriate sentences that are reflective of this harm. I say: let the punishment fit the crime. There is a need for more emphasis to be placed on the well-being of minors or our children who witness and are exposed and unfairly subjected tocriminal activity. At the same time criminals who ignore these children should be held accountable.The bill will make criminal offending in the presence of a minor an aggravating factor at sentencing. It is a crackdown on individuals who engage in criminal activity in the presence of young minors and a minor would include anyone under the age of 17 years. The intention is to send a clear message to others in New Zealand that we will no longer tolerate crime being witnessed by children and that we can no longer allow our children to be abused in such a way that they become emotionally and psychologically affected.Another important aspect of this bill includes strengthening judges’ powers when sentencing offenders where minors have been exposed to potential serious harm. A primary example of serious harm is the production of illicit drugs in homes where children are living. Honourable members this bill sends a clear message that this is unacceptable. It has become too common for young children to be living in homes where drugs are produced and sold. The reality is that drugs are often associated with other forms of illegal activity from theft to gang associations and violence and with this comes the abuse. Young children are far too often the innocent parties to criminal offending by adults. There have been numerous media reports of children being placed in danger where crimes are committed which shows a real need for this bill to be passed into law.On 3 September or earlier this month I read a media release by the New Zealand Police saying that young children were present at some addresses that were the subject of a search executed on several Mongrel Mob addresses and that the police had made three referrals to Child Youth and Family. Children living in P labs suffer the risk of harm from living amongst toxic waste explosive chemicals and drug-manufacturing debris. Living in such a dangerous environment children are exposed to immediate danger from chemical poisoning contamination and the high chance of fire and explosions. Children found in P labs are likely to be inhaling and absorbing the same levels of methamphetamine as adult drug users.Senior lecturer in psychological medicine at the University of Auckland DrTreciaWouldes said that although there was no research on the long-term effects of P on children what was known about the effects of passive smoking could be indicative. The effects range from allergies to irritations from the drug with the worst coming from breathing the fumes daily and physical trauma or burns that could occur if the labs exploded. In 2010-11 more than 460 children were found in 37 percent of all clan-labs and 73 percent of all drug-dealing houses identified by the police. This is up from 26 percent and 65 percent respectively in 2009.If the direct harm from the drugs themselves is not enough children are often neglected because of the nature of the trade. In many cases children are subjected to and witness violence. A High Court judge last year was appalled at the number of women he saw in court for neglecting their children while using methamphetamine. Justice Williams reported that cases like these only create a generation stuck in the same drug-addicted cycle. In other words children pick up bad habits.I worked in the Department of Corrections where I came across offenders who were in prison with their father and grandfathers. Studies have shown that children learn from adults. Parents’ criminality strongly correlates with an increased chance of a child developing conduct problems and later on criminal activity. Children in environments where crime takes place are taught at a young age to accept this certain lifestyle. Offending is an indirect consequence of the offence.Several jurisdictions in the United States have passed legislation where drug manufacturing in a residence occupied by a minor is an aggravating factor at sentencing.In the state of New South Wales in Australia sentencing procedure legislation makes it clear that an offence committed in the presence of a child under the age of 18 is an aggravating factor. Why then is New Zealand turning a blind eye? It is time that sentencing takes into account the safety of the children. A situation where children have been exposed to dangerous criminal activity cannot and must not be taken lightly.The National Government’s White Paper for Vulnerable Children introduced in recent years although well intended unfortunately gave New Zealand no assurance that the problem of children in crime-operating environments will be addressed. So let us hope that the Vulnerable Children Bill will enhance our combined efforts in this area.New Zealand First has brought forward before Parliament a solution to this serious problem. The bill recognises that children will slip under the radar. Just because harm to children occurs behind closed doors it does not mean that we should turn a blind eye when it comes to sentencing those guilty of the actions that have created such unfortunate consequences.The current legislation does not go far enough to provide results in sentencing that properly take into account the safety of children and their exposure to dangerous criminal activity. This bill defines minors as “under the age of 17 years” and covers both mental and emotional harm as well as physical harm to minors. Furthermore children need only to be present to trigger this as an aggravating factor.If this Government is going to take a serious stance on vulnerable children and tackle the negative issue of child abuse this bill paves a way in the right direction. Let us not seek the answer from the right the left or the centre but seek the answer that is right. I commend this bill to the House.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): National does support this bill the Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill at its first reading. We will be very interested to consider this bill. National does support this bill because it aligns pretty fair and square with the work that this National Government has been doing in first of all putting the victims of crime first but also in its very strong cross-ministerial work programme looking after the interests of all children including vulnerable children.I commend the member Asenati Lole-Taylor for bringing this bill to the House. It is a simple bill. It proposes to amend section 9 of the Sentencing Act to add a new aggravating factor at the time of sentencing. As I understand the bill the judge presiding must take into account whether or not the child who is to be under 16 years old has had a crime committed in their presence by somebody over the age of 17 years—so it concerns an adult albeit a young adult having committed a crime in the presence of a young person or child under the age of 16. So the judge at the time of sentencing is to take the fact that that young person or child was present at the time of the offence into consideration when sentencing that offender.The member will be very aware that this Government passed legislation earlier this year to make it an aggravating factor at sentencing offences against corrections officers police officers ambulance officers—and I might be forgetting—Le’aufa’amuliaAsenati Lole-Taylor: Fire ambulance.JACQUI DEAN: The Fire Service. We did that with the support of the House because we recognised that those service providers did not ever have the option of running away from an incident. So the fireman cannot run away from a fire. If that fireman is prevented from going about their business as happens and as happens to ambulance officers on a not infrequent basis and to prison officers they have no choice. They have to stand their ground. They have to deal not only with the emergency that they face like the prison riot we had recently but also with perpetrators committing offences or attempting to commit offences on them.So you can very well argue—and I think it is very true to say—that young people under the age of 16 can find themselves in circumstances through no fault of their own such as being in the midst of a crime scene be it as I think the member Asenati Lole-Taylor cited being seen in a P lab and having the toxic fumes and the very danger of explosion around them be it family violence or being sat in a vehicle that is the subject of a police pursuit. All of those scenarios are similar in that the child does not have the choice. They are children. They are in the control—one would hope in our society—of responsible adults. So I commend the member for bringing this bill to the House for its first reading and we will have a good look at it in the Law and Order Committee. It aligns very well—very well—with the policies of this National Government and with a lot of the work that this Government has done already in our first 5 years in Government.I will talk about some of the more detailed aspects of the bill. It refers to “in the presence of a minor” and that means in a place or a building where a minor is present or could reasonably be expected to be present or in close proximity to a place or a building where a minor is present or could reasonably be expected to be present. In other words I think the member is saying here that they do not have any choice. They are kids. They have got to do what they are told. They are minors. They get placed in these circumstances and here we have a bill that makes the presence of a minor an aggravating factor in the sentencing of the perpetrator of a crime. Well good on you Asenati Lole-Taylor for bringing this bill to the House.I just want to go through a few of the initiatives that are complementary to this bill and they are around the protecting of vulnerable children. I do have to disagree with the member that the Children’s Action Plan is not going far enough. I believe it is. I believe it is putting the interests of vulnerable children first and I think some of the provisions in that policy are going to be quite crunchy for people. But we are unapologetic in putting the interests of vulnerable children first. Why? To keep them safe. Why? Because they cannot choose the homes that they are born into or the situations that they find themselves in. They do not have that choice. We as adults have that choice; children do not have that choice. So I am unapologetic and I am proud of the Hon Paula Bennett’s Children’s Action Plan. I look forward to seeing the roll-out of the implementation of that plan and keeping our young children safe in New Zealand.Under National we have already toughened sentences for crimes against children. We have already done work in that area. It is now a crime to stay silent if you know that a child or a vulnerable adult is at risk. We removed the parole eligibility for the worst repeat violent offenders and for offenders who commit the worst murders. We did that with the three-strikes law thanks to our coalition partner the ACT Party. We introduced screening of parole applications to allow the Parole Board to reduce the number of unnecessary hearings. Again this was putting the interests of the victims first be they adults or children. Of course there are always children associated with victims. We are all mothers we are all grandmothers we are all aunties and we are all family members. Every crime that is committed in New Zealand has a number of victims and a number of those victims are children.I could go through a number of initiatives and I know my colleagues will. I just want to talk about the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill which is newly introduced into the House and is now going through scrutiny in the Law and Order Committee. Again this is another complementary piece of legislation that puts the interests of the victim first. It is about protecting the victim as much as is possible from crime and criminals in New Zealand. It might be adults but in this case it is children. This Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill is agood bill. We will support this bill through its first reading. I commend the bill to the House and thank Asenati Lole-Taylor for bringing it to this House.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is my pleasure to take the first call from Labour on the Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill brought by the New Zealand First member Asenati Lole-Taylor and to say that Labour is supporting this bill to the Law and Order Committee so it can be given further consideration both by the public and by members of this House. But we do have some reservations and I want to share and outline those with the House now.We absolutely agree with the member that it is incumbent upon us to protect the most vulnerable from harm. Our argument would be: what is the best point of intervention to try to ensure that those layers of protection exist? How do we best ensure that a child is kept distant from harm? How when they are found to be in harm’s way can we best ensure that they are supported and removed from that harm? Our question is whether adding an extra bit of criteria for when an offender comes to be sentenced is the best way to do that keeping in mind that as it is most judges would probably keep in mind or factor in the presence of children when they come to sentence. But what we are relying upon for this bill to take effect is first for a criminal to be charged—for enough evidence to exist for them to be charged—second for them to be convicted and then third for the sentencing to take place.I want to use the example that the member has used around the presence of children in methamphetamine labs because it is a very good example that the member is right to raise. There are a number of vulnerable children in this country who are currently exposed to the dangers of methamphetamine manufacturing. In 2010 alone 44 children were found living in laboratories physically living in the environment in which equipment and drugs were manufactured—a potentially explosive environment not to mention the fact that they were absorbing those toxins into their skin. That was in just 1 year. It is a growing trend and that is down to police records. Police records have demonstrated the presence of almost 200 children since they started measuring that.The issue is that you would assume that the police who for instance then report to Child Youth and Family when they go into a home where there is methamphetamine—they will tell Child Youth and Family that there is a child in the home where they have done a drug raid. We would assume as fair-minded New Zealanders that any parent raising their child in that kind of risk environment would have their child removed. It is a fair assessment a fair judgment to make. That is not the case. In some cases we have parents who are being charged convicted and sentenced but their spouse is still caring for the child and they go back into the home with that child. They may sometimes even return to manufacturing methamphetamine. The police have found this to be the case.Why is that? Well it is simply because the threshold for abuse and neglect implies that you are removing the necessities of life from a child and there is at least in the minds of Child Youth and Family a threshold that is not met through drug manufacturing. There is apparently not enough evidence to demonstrate that that is the removal of the necessities of life. Well in my mind when you find toxins equivalent to that of a methamphetamine user in the hair follicles of a child that is enough. That should be enough. Simply the fact that you consider it acceptable to raise your child in that environment that should be enough.So the point that we want to make is this. If we really want to protect children should we be considering the fact that it should be a separate offence in itself rather than an aggravating factor? Should we be considering that at least our child protection agency considers it neglect and abuse for those children to be in that environment? And why do we not do that first? That is what we know we are crying out for now. Putting any child back into a home where this is occurring says to me that a hole exists and ifwe are waiting until someone is convicted that does not fix the hole. So we have got to look at some of those other issues.But as I have said we support this bill to the select committee so that we can debate some of these issues. As I say some of our reservations are about whether or not it is directed in the right place and whether or not judges already have this power but that is something we look forward to considering. I thank the member Asenati Lole-Taylor for bringing this debate to this House.IANMcKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I too want to congratulate Asenati Lole-Taylor on bringing this Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Bill to the House—I guess on having it drawn by what I should term the process of the roulette wheel. It is quite an achievement as I understand it. Many have sat here for years with no success at all in getting a bill drawn. It is a bit like going to theSkycity Casino and leaving with nothing which of course can happen.Andrew Little: Not by this Government. They’ve got plenty out of theSkycity Casino.IANMcKELVIE: Have you worked that out?The bill—[Interruption] They are rather noisy Mr Assistant Speaker—they are rather noisy. This bill has the potential to complement National’s law and order legislative programme which I think is having spectacular success. Aside from significant reductions in crime at almost all levels particularly in the youth crime area we have also of course seen recently in the youth crime area a great reduction in road deaths amongst young people. That is a pretty extraordinary achievement.My brief time in this Parliament has been spent on the Law and Order Committee and I have seen and learnt a lot about the outstanding role our police play in our communities keeping our communities and our young people safe. I want to briefly mention the work of our youth aid officers in our communities particularly in our rural communities. They really are the key to our policing success and of course to some extent this bill sets out to deal with the harm that comes to young people from their association with crime. Our youth aid officers play a critical part in the success that we have in keeping those young people safe and keeping them out of crime and those sorts of things.I also want to talk briefly about the work of the Department of Corrections and about what are at times testing intimidating and even dangerous conditions. I think the corrections department does a pretty amazing job. We have had the opportunity in the last 18 months to visit a number of New Zealand prisons to look at what goes on there and to see the efforts that have been made to repatriate those prisoners and re-educate them and get them back into the workforce. I think again that we are making significant progress in that area.This bill seeks to I guess impose tougher penalties on those people who by association involve young people in their criminal efforts. There is no doubt that young people associating with crime leads to them being much more likely to have a life involved in crime. So I think that the bill from that perspective has some great potential. There are already of course some opportunities for tougher penalties for people who involve young people in crime but this bill certainly clears it up.I want to talk briefly about this Government’s targets for reducing crime. We have a target of reducing reoffending by 25 percent by 2017. We want to reduce the overall crime rate by 15 percent and of course those results are significant already. I would have to say that some of the legislation that has gone through the Law and Order Committee in the last 18 months has certainly contributed to the improvement in those targets and no doubt the legislation that was put through in the previous 3 years had made a huge difference to those targets.The other area that the Government has firmly concentrated on is putting victims first. As the previous speaker Jacqui Dean said we have a bill currently before the select committee that aims to improve the opportunity for victims to protect themselves once those criminals who have done them the damage get out of prison. That is a pretty good start I think. There are also numerous other means by which the Government has moved to improve the lot of victims. I think that is a great bit of work. It is currently a work in progress of course. As Jacqui Dean said the bill that I am talking about is the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill which is currently in the House.Andrew Little: This is the silliest piece of legislation the House has seen in a long time.IANMcKELVIE: Those of us who have the opportunity to serve on the Law and Order Committee have a greater understanding of these things and clearly we do not need to engage in this kind of discussion.Finally I want to congratulate the member on bringing this bill to the House and I commend it to the House. Thank you.DAVID CLENDON (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. The first line of the explanatory note of this Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill essentially spells out the motivation for it I think. It simply says that “Criminal offending by adults often exposes minors to serious harm.” Undoubtedly it does. To those of us who are parents or even who have the care of other people’s children it is inexplicable in a sense that people would willingly expose children often to quite serious harm but sadly that is the reality. It is something that this bill seeks to address and the Greens are happy to support the progress of this bill. It is appropriate.The bill goes on to mention too that criminal offending by adults does cause harm to children who deserve protection from adult offending that puts them at risk. It is opportune or perhaps it is certainly appropriate that we are debating this bill in its first reading this week which is of course Children of Prisoners Week. I was very happy yesterday to host a brief celebration a launch of that week and of a display from PILLARSNgāPouWhakahou. I do acknowledge my parliamentary colleagues from across the House who cooperated and enabled that brief launch that celebration to occur in the parliamentary precincts. I would just like also—if I may diverge slightly—to mention and acknowledge VernaMcFelin the founder and current director of PILLARS who has 25 years of work protecting and doing her very level best to protect the well-being of the children of prisoners. She was recognised a couple of days ago with an award from the Department of Corrections. Twenty-five years is an extremely long time to be committed and devoted to a very tough call around protecting children from the consequences of adult offending.So with those comments I will talk more specifically to the bill. In a sense we see this as a belts and braces bill. We believe that clearly the intention is that having children exposed to criminal offending—and the specifics talking about P labs and the like—should be treated as an aggravating factor at sentencing. We note that in 2005 JusticeWinkelmann in sentencing an offender who was involved in the manufacture of methamphetamine said this: “it is a considerable aggravating factor that one of these operations was in the garage at the property where you lived with your children”. She went on to say to the offender: “you exposed your children to toxic chemicals in a dangerous environment.” So in a sense we have got some confidence that judges at sentencing would already treat the presence of children as an aggravating factor but clearly this bill would make it perhaps easier for judges to make that call and more likely that they would indeed consider that an aggravating factor. Certainly it does no harm; it may do good. It is kind of a belts and braces approach and there is no harm in that.It is a very short bill and none the worse for that. It is very clear in its purpose. We respect that purpose—to protect children from the very poor judgment clearly of adult offenders who may put those kids at risk. We compliment our colleague on bringing this bill to the House. We will be pleased to support it. Kia ora.SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a pleasure to rise and speak to the first reading of the Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill. Can I at the outset congratulate Asenati Lole-Taylor on bringing this bill forward and on having the good fortune to have it drawn out of the ballot—well done. In a previous speech I made on a Government MP bringing forward a piece of legislation I was critical of course that it had not been turned into a Government bill. On this occasion I will not afford that same criticism to this bill because of course the member has no option but to bring it forward as a member’s bill and that is the right and proper use of the members’ ballot in my humble view. So congratulations.It is an important issue that Asenati Lole-Taylor puts before this Parliament because what more worthy cause of this Parliament is there than to be protecting children from harm and to be putting children at the centre of what we do? The Labour Party made a deliberate decision some 4 years ago that at the heart of all of its policy development would be the impact on children. So of course it is supporting this bill at its first reading and referral to the Law and Order Committee.I will personally be very interested to hear submissions on this bill because I have a bill that is a little similar to this but with quite different implications and different motivations behind it going into the members’ ballot. It is about having domestic violence as an aggravating factor at sentencing. I think there are some real synergies with this bill because of course one of the circumstances in which this bill would be brought to bear is in a situation where children are present during a criminal offence of—I am going to call it “domestic violence” but of course there is no actual criminal offence of domestic violence; possibly it would be an assault male versus female or however it is described in the Sentencing Act.Those situations are often—and far too often—occurring in homes and frequently children who are present are harmed when they are party to that type of offending. One of the stories I still recall—and it resonates with me whenever I think about the work our police do in this country—is the story I heard from a community constable about how important it was for him to do work in the local schools. He relayed to me a story about the fact that because children knew him and he had visited their school the children would come straight to him when sadly he was attending domestic violence situations in their homes. The children would come out of hiding—that is often what children do in these situations; they hide—and come straight to him. When the police knock at the door the children are even more terrified than they are of the events happening around them. But this particular police officer was telling me of the importance of having a relationship with the children in his community so that they knew that when he appeared at their door he was there to provide them with safety.So I think it is going to be quite instructive for us to see what submitters make of this bill. I agree with my colleague Jacinda Ardern—that is probably no surprise to anyone—in that I would much rather we were working at the front end of this and in a way whereby children are never put in this situation because sadly by the time this bill is brought to bear the harm has actually already occurred. The harm for an innocent child—who has no other option but to be party to a crime and to be in the vicinity of that crime—has already happened by the time a judge is considering an aggravating factor at sentencing. That is the saddest thing about the bill that we are debating here this evening. Having said that it is one measure that I hope will make some difference. I congratulate the member on bringing it to the House.MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): I will pick up where the member Sue Moroney left off in acknowledging the New Zealand First member Asenati Lole-Taylor for bringing this bill the Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill forward. Members’ days are a good opportunity for backbenchers to contribute to the work of Parliament. Some bills have merit; some bills do not. They all get debated if they are fortunate enough to be pulled from the ballot. I am actually very pleased to be debating this particular bill.Most in the House will be aware but I am sure for the three or four people who are now watching me at home—Hon Chris Tremain: Come on—thousands.MIKE SABIN: Possibly five if they have not turned off already. As a former detective I worked on electronics undercover operations surveillance all the “ninja turtle” stuff at the time when methamphetamine—I was hiding behind trees; large ones obviously. I was working in the police at the time when methamphetamine went from being really a very little-known issue to New Zealand having one of the worst problems in the world with that particular drug. It is the only hard drug that can be made in the kitchen from readily available retail chemicals.New Zealand was quite captured by that drug. I was one of the first clandestine laboratory officers trained. The clandestine drug laboratory officers were trained to work alongside the Institute of Environmental Science and Research scientists go in and dismantle the labs gather the evidence and prosecute in respect of these things. During that process I came to learn of the immense dangers that the manufacture of this drug actually created. Sure members will talk about issues other than methamphetamine but if we look at that particular drug and the implication of that on children it will give a very good example I guess of where this bill may indeed have its place and that is in the significant aggravation that is caused when someone is manufacturing methamphetamine in the proximity of children. Sadly all too often that is exactly the case.Here is a drug that is made from readily available retail chemicals. It can be made in a plastic bag it can be made in a soft drink bottle and it is often made in the lounges kitchens and bathrooms of homes all around this country—it has been. There have been thousands of labs—many many hundreds of labs—that have been dismantled of significant size and scale. We are talking about chemicals such as hydrochloric acid sulphuric acid and solvents of all manner that are highly flammable but toxic in themselves such as red phosphorus which will self-ignite without any rhyme or reason. These are chemicals that in combination become incredibly toxic. They are not visible and often cannot be detected by the senses. They will emit during the manufacturing process. They absorb into the wall linings. They go through the wall linings and into the stud timber. They go through the floor down into the substrate beneath the floor linings. They go up into the rangehoods and all throughout the plumbing of the house. For every kilogram of methamphetamine 9.5 kilograms of waste is created and often that is tipped down drains or tipped out over the back lawn.When I looked at a lot of the analysis on the implications of the ticking time bombs thatmeth labs become what became very apparent is that children in those environments by simply crawling around would actually pick up those chemicals. They are typically putting a lot of things in their mouths so trace elements of those volatile insolvents and acids drain cleaner and so forth are being ingested by the children. Then of course those chemicals are producing methamphetamine which is often smoked in that environment as well. So the children are ingesting that smoke and the residue from the smoke also falls and they ingest that. Not only are they being poisoned but also they are ingesting the methamphetamine.It is abhorrent when one considers what goes on. Admittedly most people who are manufacturing in that circumstance are doing so to feed an addiction. They are addicted to drugs because they cannot not take them. But when children are in that environment and the parents can turn a blind eye to it it is almost something that I think is contrary to human nature. It is so abhorrent and the implications for the children are so severe. So on that basis alone I am happy to support the bill to be considered by the Law and Order Committee.The one note of caution that we may signal is the fact that judges do of course have discretionary ability to apply an aggravating factor in terms of sentencing and that will always have to be weighed off against an arbitrary legal status such as this. I think the bill has merit and I commend the member for bringing it forward.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): The Government has introduced a number of bills that put the interests of children as paramount. An example of course is the Family Courts Amendment Bill which was recently passed. New Zealand First actually opposed that bill because we felt it had too many serious faults. Although it made the interests of children paramount in fact it lessened the circumstances in which a lawyer for the child would be appointed. So we felt that the Government had reneged on its own declaration about the paramountcy of the interests of children in that bill. But although New Zealand First did not support that bill we did support the principle of putting the interests of children first and we know that there is also cross-party support for this important principle.The Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill will increase sentences for offenders as a means of bringing home to them the need to protect children from the effects of their offending. That puts this principle into practice. So it is no surprise that all parties want this bill at least to go to the appropriate select committee for examination. All parties I am sure want to see something done about the problem that the bill seeks to address which is the exposure of children to criminal offending and to the psychological effect that this has on their whole lives one of which is to drag those children into criminal offending themselves in later life. Another recent piece of legislation is the Victims of Crime Reform Bill. This is supported by New Zealand First for the same reasons.New Zealand First and Asenati Lole-Taylor are promoting this bill to protect children from the effects of criminal offending. For too long victims’ rights have been ignored. The current Government legislation to reverse that situation will be well augmented by Mrs Lole-Taylor’s bill the Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill because although the victims’ rights are extremely important generally there is a considerable gap in the need to emphasise children’s rights in these areas. The particular focus of this bill is to deal with a by-product of offending being the effects on minors when crimes are committed in their presence and when they live in unhealthy homes because of the effects of crime especially the production and selling of drugs. So the bill in fact targets that area and especially where methamphetamine is involved. Offenders who allow their criminal activities to cause harm to children must have a much higher degree of deterrence by the imposition of much harsher penalties. Such criminals must get a sharp wake-up call that not only is the offending itself going to be punished but also if it harms children then that will cause a significant increase in the penalty. That is the purpose of this bill. It is a simple and straightforward measure. Even the dumbest criminal will understand it. Accordingly the bill will help to attack one of the worst-affected sectors of the victims of crime—New Zealand’s children.We in this House have a sacred duty to do all we can to protect children and this bill is one way of doing just that. The essence of the bill is in clause 5 which says that it is“an aggravating factor in the consideration of sentencing of an offender aged 17 or over for the crime to have been committed in the presence of a minor if the actions undertaken to commit the offence put the minor at risk of harm.” Although there is nothing in the law currently that would prevent a court from taking that into consideration as an aggravating factor they too often do not do so. So it would be much better if they are required to do so as a mandatory measure. This would advert the courts’ attention to the issue so that they do consider this consistently in sentencing. I congratulate Asenati Lole-Taylor on bringing the bill before the House. It is a small measure but it is likely to have considerable impact on the protection of children and I trust it will get the support it deserves.ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): I rise to speak on this important piece of legislation Asenati Lole-Taylor’s Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill. I want to say as many others in this House have said tonight that we are duty bound to ensure that the laws that this House passes afford proper and real protection to the most vulnerable in our society and children are foremost amongst those.However now I want to be the fly in the ointment or thejeremiah and say that I have some concerns about this bill. I have concerns on the basis of longstanding principles of criminal justice and the drafting of criminal legislation. We all understand the need for an appropriate penalty to be in place when a crime involving violence and/or harm to others has been committed. There are important principles when it comes to our criminal statutes. One is that crimes because they attract the coercive powers of the State through investigation detection prosecution enforcement and sometimes incarceration or other forms of punishment are expected to be very clearly and unequivocally defined so that people know what the boundary is that they have to cross before they attract the label of criminal or before they have committed a crime. That is fundamental.What I see in this bill is some vague language some uncertainty and some equivocation. When it says that a minor is put at risk what does that mean? What is the nature of the risk? And what is the extent of the risk especially if there has been no material impact or effect on the minor? Given the definition in the bill of “the presence of a minor” what does it mean to say “where a minor … could reasonably be expected to be present;”? Well if the minor was not present and has not suffered harm what is the basis of attracting a criminal sanction and punishing the person?Let us punish the wrongdoers. Let us punish those who do wrong things and who cause harm and danger to others. Let us not try to criminalise a whole bunch of activity that in the absence of anything else would not be criminal. That is one point. Let us not have wishy-washy vague terms as the basis of our criminal statutes. We live in a time and sadly in a Parliament where it is very appealing and attractive to create more crimes and create more criminals and all the rest of it. We should be very cautious about doing that.The second point I want to make is whether or not this bill will actually add anything to what is already there. If you have a look at section 9 of the Sentencing Act 2002 it lists 15—actually more than that because some of them are broken down into subsections—aggravating factors that a judge has to take into account. Five of them—at least five of them—would cover the very situation that the member who has sponsored this billLe’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor is trying to cover. If we have a look at section 9(1)(d) of the Sentencing Act one of the factors that a judge could take into account is “the extent of any loss damage or harm resulting from the offence:”. Paragraph (f) is “that the offender was abusing a position of trust or authority in relation to the victim:”—that includes a parent not using the house for the proper reason forwhich it ought to be used. Paragraph (g) is “that the victim was particularly vulnerable because of his or her age or health or because of any other factor known to the offender:”. There are some other ones there.Then you go on to subsection (3) which states some things that the court must not take into account including whether or not the offender was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. And then subsection (4) is very clear that nothing in those earlier subsections “prevents the court from taking into account any other aggravating or mitigating factor that the court thinks fit;” and it goes on to say that that provision does not imply that any particular factor is any less or more important and that they ought to be taken together.The real question when this bill goes to the Law and Order Committee is what it is actually adding to our present law. Although we will support this bill going to the select committee we do not want to continue the trend of criminalising ever more behaviour and adding ever more to our criminal statutes when it may in fact be totally pointless.Tim Macindoe: Mr Speaker—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I call the honourable member Timothy Macindoe.TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): So does my mother when I am in trouble. May I begin as other speakers have done by congratulatingLe’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor on having her member’s bill the Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill drawn and brought to the House. It is an exciting time.I have to say to Mrs Lole-Taylor that I am a little bit jealous as I have been here longer than she has and I too have a bill in the members’ ballot that has never looked like being drawn. If it is it will make a significant difference I think to dealing with an aspect of criminal behaviour in our community. But anyway I will not be churlish.I congratulate her and I want to acknowledge Denis O’Rourke who mentioned at the start of his address that National has had a focus since we came into office on building a safer New Zealand. It has after all been one of our key Better Public Services targets. We have had a huge number of justice-related and criminal justice - related measures that have come through Parliament and we are seeing results with a lower crime rate. In fact crime is at its lowest level in 30 years and that is a fantastic achievement. Youth crime is down significantly—Andrew Little: Get the figures right. Why doesn’t the member get the figures right? Doesn’t have an argument. Doesn’t have an answer.TIM MACINDOE: —and I think that Mrs Lole-Taylor is bringing something forward that is a thoughtful contribution to perhaps making another step in the right direction. I hear Mr Little chirping away. He needs to be reminded that before we came into office in 2008 crime was increasing gangs were on the rampage courts were overcrowded and our prisons were particularly overcrowded and had a chronic shortage of beds—Andrew Little: Why can’t this member get the facts right?TIM MACINDOE: I am giving him all the facts. He does not like it. He will not correct me because he knows that I am right. He will simply continue to barrack. Well that is fine. I expect that sort of fairly churlish behaviour but I will just carry on.In recent times we have put 600 extra front-line police on the beat—that is a good measure. We have got a 70 percent increase in police foot patrols as of the end of last year—that is a fantastic achievement. These are some of the reasons why we are getting these major improvements. I have no doubt that these will continue and at any stage we cannot let up on our focus.This particular bill amends the Sentencing Act. As I am one of the final speakers it may be that some people have only just tuned in. The bill will amend the Sentencing Act “to make criminal offending in the presence of a minor an aggravating factor at sentencing. Where the offending endangers or exposes a minor to potential adverse effects from that offending the sentence must reflect this.” I am sure we all shudder at the prospect of children being exposed to violent crime or perhaps being brought up in a P lab or seeing some appalling gang activity. What an appalling impact that must be having on these children. There is sadly huge evidence that children who grow up in that sort of environment go on to be at risk of committing that sort of criminal activity themselves and therefore everything we can do to try to prevent that from happening has to be a good thing.I do however want to reassure the public who may be listening that the presence of a child and the risk of harm to them are already aggravating factors that can be taken into account by the courts in sentencing even though they are not specifically listed at the moment in the Sentencing Act. Furthermore where the offending has involved the presence of children alongside the manufacture of drugs offenders have also already been charged with neglect offences and so it should be because as I say the prospect of this happening is so damaging for those children.So as has been indicated by my colleagues National is supporting this bill at its first reading so that it can go to the Law and Order Committee so that submissions can be made on it and it can be given due attention.Colleagues have also mentioned theChildren’s Action Plan. I am a particular fan of and advocate for that because it is part of dealing with the real problem we have with vulnerable children in our community growing up in some dreadful circumstances and being subjected to the most appalling abuse. Sadly we have one of the worst rates of child murder in the Western World. As I say this issue is a passion of mine. I acknowledge all those who work in our communities to deal with that issue and again I hope that this bill will make another contribution in that direction because although we have made some progress there is still a long way to go.I was glad that Mrs Lole-Taylor acknowledged the late Brian Donnelly and the work that he did in this area and I too echo that. He was a fine member of Parliament.We know that a key to reducing crime long term is to stop children from entering the criminal justice system. This is a bill that may well contribute to that end. It will I am sure play a constructive role.So for these reasons I too support its introduction and the fact that it should be sent to the select committee. It sounds from the way speakers have talked as if it will be. I again congratulate Mrs Lole-Taylor on her achievement. I will follow the bill’s progress through the select committee and beyond with interest.Le’aufa’amuliaASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR (NZ First):Talofa lava.Malo lava lesoifua. I want to acknowledge the contributions by various honourable members tonight. I am reminded of H Jackson BrownJnr’s words: “Live so that when your children think of fairness caring and integrity they think of you.”—they think of you. During the development of this bill theSentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill the memories of my dear eldest nephew reminded me of the difficulties he faced in his first 17 years. If you are listening nowIoane I just want you to know that I do love you. Your experience encouraged me to ensure that this bill came to the House.I am encouraged by the contributions and support shown by various members in the House tonight. I also want to acknowledge the comments by David Clendon here with regard to prisons and the fact that this week is celebrating PILLARS’ contribution to fathers in prison and their children. Ian McKelvie also mentioned the visits he has madeto some of the prisons. I can assure you that I have spent 6 years in the prison environment. I can assure you that I have spent 6 years in the Department of Corrections looking after or catering for the top part of the northern region in this area. Rehabilitation and reintegration is something that is very dear to me. During that time I came across a lot of different generations from the same families. They happen to be the families who come from the same kinds of problems. If it is not domestic violence it is abuse rape or of course drug dealing.This bill takes a clear stand that it is not OK for children to witness and be innocent bystanders to crime. We need to send a clear message that we will no longer sit back and ignore children who are innocently caught up in high-level criminal offending and ongoing crime that leaves them in the path of harm. Children are too often the innocent parties in criminal offending by adults.I acknowledge the comments that were raised by Jacinda Ardern tonight about the judges that often they do not take it into account or often they do take it into account and they should. I suppose the response I can give to that is that judges often forget that the children were involved by the time the sentencing happens. By then they often just give a lenient sentence based on the actual criminal forgetting that there were children involved and in addition to that forgetting the mental and the psychological effect that has on our children in those situations. I do hope that the Law and Order Committee though will give that some serious consideration in order to incorporate those comments that were raised by Jacinda Ardern. I sincerely hope that AndrewLittle’s concerns will also be addressed and any of the loopholes that he considered to be missing from this bill.Where offending endangers minors or exposes them to potentially adverse effects the sentence imposed should reflect that. Criminals should have no right to endanger innocent children. The people of New Zealand expect us to fix this problem. Our children are the future of this nation and if the individuals around them are not taking responsibility to protect them from harm and a cycle of abuse and plus are initiating them into a life of crime then surely it is time they are held accountable for their actions. Punishment is not for revenge but to lessen crime and reform the criminal. Decisions in this House should be made based on what is in the best interests of our nation and our people not on individuals’ needs or personal agenda. I duly commend this bill to the House. Thank you.Bill read a first time.Billreferred to the Law and Order Committee.Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphans and Unsupported Children) Amendment BillFirst ReadingTRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. I moveThat the Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphans and Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services Committee to consider the bill.There is a story behind this bill and I beg the indulgence of the House to explain the personal connection that has been one of the drivers behind this member’s bill. In the 1940s my mother Anne was 2 years old and living in Christchurch with her 5-year-old brother Barry and their mother Beverley. Their father Jim was away at war. One day Beverley took the kids to the next-door neighbour’s. Nobody knows what she told them but she left the kids there and that was the last time they ever saw their mother. It wouldbe 45 years later that Anne would be able to make contact with people who would speak about Beverley and what had happened to her after the day that she abandoned her children. We now know that Beverley went on to live a completely new life never mentioning her children to her new workmates or friends until her passing from toxaemia in the 1950s.Some months after Beverley left my mother’s paternal grandmother finally became aware of her grandchildren’s circumstances and showed up at that door. Originally she took only Barry with her because Grandfather had said that she could bring the boy home because he could work but to leave the girl. Thankfully a few months later Granny could stand it no longer and she came back to collect little Anne. As life would have it Anne and Barry were loved and cared for by their granny for approximately the next 8 years. The army deducted a shilling from the children’s father’s pay and paid this to their grandmother. When the war was over their father came home. He took time to readjust to life onCivvy Street. He entered a common-law marriage with MaudeMohi and it was another traumatic time for these children when their father arrived to take them to live with him and his new wife in Hastings. My great-grandmother shifted to Napier to follow the children.I recognise today that although each circumstance might be different grandparents are still grandparents and kids are still kids. Nothing has changed but the times we find ourselves in. It is this personal connection and an innate sense of fairness that has been the driver behind this member’s bill under my name.This bill does one thing and one thing only. Bluntly and in a nutshell it says that if a child has been identified as an orphan or an unsupported child then with regard to the clothing allowance eligibility it makes no difference who is caring for them. A child being cared for by kin carers requires no less clothing than a child being cared for by an unrelated adult. However orphans and unsupported children are not eligible to receive the clothing allowance.This member’s bill proposes to give orphans and unsupported children clothing allowance parity with a foster child. Its goal is to have a single section inserted into the Social Security Act new section 29B: “A person who receives an orphan’s or unsupported child’s benefit in respect of a child is also entitled to receive a clothing allowance for that child at the same rate as is determined by the chief executive from time to time under section 363 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989.” That is it. That is all this little bill does but what a difference it will make to the lives of these children and their kin carers.Before I enter into the substantive content of this speech I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the previous and current work by the Minister for Social Development in this area. In 2009 it was the Hon Paula Bennett who took the steps required to raise the main payment that caregivers received to match the orphans benefit and the unsupported child’s benefit to those made to foster carers. This Minister also provided 500 respite care places per year for these children in week-long holiday health camps and I know that the kin carers were grateful for this support.I also wish to acknowledge that the Minister and I have had positive interactions around our mutual desire to recognise and support these kin carers who are very often grandparents raising grandchildren. I am grateful to have recently been a member of a ministerial reference group around the allocation of $35 million over the next 4 financial years. That has been set aside in contingency for extended family members caring for children and in recognition of the difficult job that they do. The Minister however will also concede that if all children are not recognised as equal inside legislation then there is a real danger that at the end of that 4-year period kin carers will once again find themselves back at square one.I also want to recognise that we are as a nation in restrictive financial times and that the select committee will have to take these factors into consideration. However there are times and there are issues where fairness and equity particularly where children are concerned must be the drivers of decision making in the first instance and then a can-do lens around funding should be applied.I want to reiterate what this bill seeks to achieve. The intention of this bill is to recognise in statute that an orphan is an orphan whether placed with foster parents or caregivers and that all State support should be based upon the circumstances of the child not the circumstances of the adult. This must be one of the only pieces of legislation where a distinction is based upon blood and not on any other criteria.For a variety of reasons more and more children are finding themselves in the unenviable position of being declared an orphan or an unsupported child by the State. Kin carers are being targeted by social services to step up and take in these children which they do. We should recognise that the majority of kin carers looking after the day-to-day needs of these orphans and unsupported children tend to be grandparents who are now raising their grandchildren.So these kin carers step up only to find that these children are deliberately disadvantaged through lower support due to this very kin relationship. Children are being discriminated against by the State due to circumstances beyond their control. I do not believe that there is a member in this House who would argue that if you are raised by your grandparents or auntie you therefore wear fewer clothes than a child placed with people to whom they are not related. So if we do not argue that then upon what does this discrimination stand?Just to make sure we are all clear on how these children find themselves in these circumstances I would like to outline the criteria for the two separate categories. A child is considered an orphan by the State if their parents have died or cannot be found or when they cannot look after their child because they have a long-term illness or incapacity. A child is considered an unsupported child when their parents cannot support them because of a family breakdown. Children must be expected to be in caregivers’ care for 12 months or more for support even to be accessed. These criteria have raised their own set of issues for those children whose parents are imprisoned for sentences of 3 6 or 9 months and who are placed with caregivers. These children are not eligible even for the base support outlined here but that is for another day.It is worth noting at this point that when a child is supported by the State in either of these circumstances the natural parents are required to pay child support through the Inland Revenue Department child support scheme should they be earning. I would request that the Social Services Committee take this revenue into account when considering this bill and its expenditure.I would also request that the select committee recognise that more than half of these children are reported as having serious physical and psychological problems as a result of the abuse and neglect they experienced prior to coming into their grandparents’ or kin carers’ homes. However research shows us that 86 percent of these children report significant improvement over time and that this is directly attributed to the stability of care the resilience and the commitment of these caregivers. We ask the select committee to consider the cost savings these kin carers facilitate for the State by stepping up to the proverbial plate. It is because these individuals do step up that we as a State are not looking at creating orphanages up and down New Zealand in which to house these close to 10000 children.Reports have also revealed alarming statistics that show that for 40 percent of caregivers their total family income was less than $30000 per annum. Almost 39 percent were solo carers weighted heavily towards women who were particularlyfinancially compromised. Several described their struggle to feed and clothe themselves and the children adequately. One stated a wish not to go to bed hungry and for clothes that fit. The incidence of kinship care varies across cultures with 53 percent of Māori children in need of care placed withwhānau and 59 percent of Pacific Island children placed with fono compared with 31 percent ofPākehā children placed with extended family.This study evidenced that the children inwhānau or family care do well but that the lack of parity around the application of the clothing allowance is contributing to the difficulties their children and their caregivers experience. The State has calculated the rate at which the clothing allowance is required inside certain age brackets for children but the Act creates a situation where if you are related to the person who steps up to look after you then you apparently no longer need that support. There are no other criteria that affect this decision. It is completely based on blood relationship.A Labour Government acknowledged this issue. A National Government has acknowledged this issue. It is time to stop talking about it and time to take action. On behalf of these children and carers I implore all parties in this House to support this bill’s referral to the select committee. I commend the bill to the House.Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie):Malo lesoifua. It is a real privilege tonight to speak on the Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphans and Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill. May I first commend the member in charge of the bill Tracey Martin—first for sharing your personal story with us and with the nation in terms of why it is important to you and second for bringing this bill to the House. National will support this bill in its first reading.It is about equity as you have outlined in your speech. It is about aligning the rights of orphans and unsupported children to those of foster children. For that I certainly commend you. It is also about supporting children in need. As the member has stated our Government this National Government has put in place a number of measures to support young children vulnerable children in need. But there is much more to be done in this area and certainly this bill goes some way to addressing the needs of our children.Thirdly this bill assists kin carers those grandparents and thosewhānau members who are looking after children sometimes through no choice of their own and sometimes to support a parent as the member has said who may be incarcerated may be missing or may be taking a break. It supports those family members who take up the challenge of looking after these children in need. I think many people out there and many members here will appreciate the work that kin carers and grandparents do. I have seen it certainly in my own family. Having been raised by my grandmother for a number of months in the very early stages of my life I appreciate those moments and the support that I received personally. But other members here will certainly have stories in their own personal lives and their own families that can relate to this bill specifically. I have also seen the needs of constituents in my electorate office who have come in very much in need and very much wanting to support theirwhānau with limited resources. This bill goes some way to addressing the needs of those people who are looking after these children.But as the member has already stated we live in fiscally constrained times. Certainly it is about using taxpayers’ money in a wise way and in an orderly fashion that is targeted to those kids who need these resources the most. But above all it is about addressing the needs of those individual children and what is in their best interests what their needs are and how the State can through the Government support those children.As Ms Martin has stated negotiations have been going on to address some of these needs and to ask how we can better target the spending in this area. The Minister for Social Development has set up a ministerial reference group of which Tracey Martin is a member along with our own colleague Alfred Ngaro as well as representatives from foster care and iwi and of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren. They all have representatives on this group which is working towards putting together a package of options in order to better give extra financial assistance to and ideas towards better ways of spending the money on these children who require it most. That is part of the Children’s Action Plan which the Minister the Hon Paula Bennett is in the process of implementing.I look forward to the deliberations in front of the Social Services Committee which I chair because we will be looking at some of the options. We will be looking in good faith at building on the work that has already been under way. I certainly look forward to working across the aisle as well with a newly appointed spokesperson for the Labour Party Sue Moroney. I am sure Labour will join other parties across this Chamber tonight to support this bill.It also supports the White Paper for Vulnerable Children which was announced and where this funding—$10 million worth of additional kin carers’ costs—will be covered. Certainly it is part of an overall regime whereby we are implementing laws to address the needs of vulnerable children. We have just heard earlier tonight about another bill looking at sentencing that the honourable memberLe’au Asenati Lole-Taylor introduced. That bill is another part of the jigsaw puzzle that will go towards mitigating just some of the factors involved in caring for our vulnerable children. Also as the member in charge of this bill stated in 2009 National ensured that kin carers got the same weekly amount as foster carers. Again it was about equity in terms of the weekly amounts that these kids received. It was about addressing a need in the community and this Government again responded swiftly to that upon coming into Government to address those inequities in the system.I just want to touch briefly on other parenting support that is out there in our communities. This Government in partnership with Grandparents Raising Grandchildren as well as The Parenting Place which is an organisation that does wonderful work in our communities has developed a tailored tool box programme specifically for kin caregivers at a cost of $600000 per year. It acts as a refresher course for grandparents who are for whatever reason returning to front-line parenting duties maybe many years after having raised their own children and after having taken a break. The course gives a little bit of insight into how children’s early experiences might affect them now and into the future. They are useful tools and it is part of providing not just the resources like direct funding but also the tools to allow kin carers to better look after the kids who are within their guidance and their care.So this bill as I said at the outset is a commendable bill. It is a bill that really does focus on those kids who are in need. I still believe that much work needs to be done in terms of targeting some of those dollars to the needs of children and theirwhānau and when we talk about these kids in particular we are talking about kids whose carers are predominantly from low socio-economic groups. You know every dollar that is dedicated to the kids’ upbringing is certainly valued by thosewhānau and the families who are looking after these young kids. So this bill is commendable. It is a bill that we are certainly looking forward to assessing in the select committee. It will help those many thousands of children out there who need assistance. I certainly commend this bill to the House and look forward to its process through the select committee.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I am just so desperate to get my opportunity to put Labour’s perspective on this bill the Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphansand Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill on the table before we finish for the evening. I want to start by adding my thanks to the member Tracey Martin of New Zealand First for bringing this really important piece of legislation to this House. We do not often get the opportunity to discuss the really important work that carers in New Zealand do and this is an opportunity not only to raise that but also to highlight the fact that there are some inequities in the way that our system works. So I thank the member for bringing in this bill. I thank her for sharing her personal experiences. I am looking forward to the chance at the Social Services Committee for all of the other members—although I have recently departed that select committee—to start looking at some of those inequities and I wanted to touch on some of that just quickly.There has already been some discussion over the support that exists for foster carers through the Ministry of Social Development. Obviously they receive some basic boarding assistance. But alongside that foster carers do receive the clothing allowance that this bill confers on other carers. They receive some assistance for birthdays and Christmas. That may seem surprising to members of this House but I can tell members that I come across families who are living in impoverished situations where children know only one birthday in the household because the family can afford to celebrate only once. So the children think that they were all born on the same day. That is the kind of circumstance some children grow up in. So I think it is entirely correct that some of our nation’s most deprived children who often end up in foster care are supported to have things that New Zealanders consider are a normal part of a child’s upbringing. They also get support for pocket money education and medical needs.The thing I want to highlight is that foster carers do not raise children for money. They get a very basic allowance that almost entirely across the board does not even cover the cost of taking on that child. They do it for love generosity of spirit and their sense of duty to New Zealand. There are 5000 children at any one time who are in the care of the State and who may be in the care of foster carers. They might be in a residential facility or they might still have Child Youth and Family oversight for kinship care. It is a discrepancy in my view and in Labour’s view that we do not provide that kind of assistance to groups like the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Trust.But our contention is that rather than just applying one element of what foster carers are able to receive to those who are kinship carers why do we not treat all kinship carers as we do foster carers? Why do we not remove that discrepancy altogether? These are often family members themselves who do not have the resources but do have the desire to support the children of their wider family members in whatever circumstances they find themselves in particularly grandparents raising grandchildren who are often living on a pension and finding themselves dealing with not only legal expenses that come with looking after these children but much much more.There is a distinction I want to make because some people ask what the difference is between a foster carer and someone who is classified as having an unsupported child or orphan. Well actually to qualify if you are a grandparent you cannot be a foster carer because you are a grandparent. It is the same with a kinship carer so that is where there is a distinction there. But the way that it is defined by Work and Income is that it is looking for family breakdown. It will be looking to see whether or not there are reasons that mean that child cannot be with their family. Some grandparents therefore do not even get the unsupported child’s benefit. There might not be a technical breakdown but the grandparent knows that the environment the child is living in is not a good environment for that child to be in but they themselves are often deprived of that support because of the strict criteria that exist. I would hope that the select committee would look at that as well in its considerations because it is a significant issue.I am glad that Tracey Martin has the ability to work with the Government on some of these issues. We would have liked to help too but I have great faith given that the member is there that she is carrying over some of the views that we have. We need to look more generally at foster care in this country. We need to have a look at the fact that foster carers do not receive a lot of support from the State. We need to look at kinship care. Those are all things that Labour will do when in Government.MELISSA LEE (National):Ahnnyung has seyo. It is a great pleasure to rise to support the first reading of this Social Security (Clothing Allowances for Orphans and Unsupported Children) Amendment Bill. Like previous speakers I would like to congratulate Tracey Martin on bringing this bill to the House. I would also like to bid my farewell to Jacinda Ardern from the Social Services Committee. She has actually often brought a very clear view of the Labour position on the bills that we have discussed in the select committee. I look forward to working with the new spokesperson from the Labour Party Sue Moroney.The purpose of the bill is to increase financial support to kin carers who are looking after children such as grandparents raising grandchildren. Many members have talked about the issues earlier and I guess I look forward to the select committee process because often members are exposed to more information about issues that they may not necessarily be familiar with. This particular issue about children being raised by grandparents—orphans and unsupported children—are important issues that we must consider and I am seriously looking forward to the submission process in the select committee.Just to bring a little bit of ethnic perspective into this grandparents often raise children. Even my own mother is I feel raising my child because often as members of Parliament we do leave our homes for long periods of time. Often I am not at home enough to look after my teenage son. My son has just celebrated his 15th birthday and often I do feel very very guilty that he is at the most important time of his life and his mum is actually not at home. And being a single mum is also very difficult as well so having my mother his grandmother at home raising him to provide the emotional support—Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 10 p.m.