Volume 609 Week 29 - Tuesday 1 July 2003 
Volume 609 Week 29 - Tuesday 1 July 2003 
[Volume:609;Page:6677] 
Tuesday 1 July 2003 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Points of Order 
Question No. 4 to Minister 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT NZ) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think it is better to raise my point of order now rather than later as it might give you a chance to think about the issue. I raise a point of order about Speakers’ rulings 115/2 to 115/6 and 116/1 and 116/2. Those rulings are about the transfer of questions to Ministers. The relevant ruling says that really it is not a matter for the Speaker and the Minister can transfer responsibility. 
I raise this issue in respect of question No. 4 in my name. The transfer has resulted in the question no longer being the question I wanted to ask. That has occurred because my question was whether the Minister of Police had had discussions with the Commissioner of Police and what that meant for New Zealand front-line policing. It has now been transferred to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade so it now asks whether the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade has had discussions and what that means for front-line policing in New Zealand. If I had wanted to ask the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade that question I would have addressed my question to him. I want to know what the Minister of Police thinks. 
I put this point to you. The reason I put “he” in the question is that if one writes “Minister of Police” the Clerk’s Office always crosses it out and writes “he” above it. If the Government wants the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade to be the Minister of Police in New Zealand as well that is its prerogative. But just as the Clerk’s Office is able to cross out “Minister of Police” and put in “he” in this case it should now cross out “he” and put in “Minister of Police”. If the Government really does want the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade to answer the question it should now read: “Has the Minister of Police discussed with the Commissioner of Police ...”. That is the point I would like to put to you for you to think about before the House gets to my question. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Very rarely does the Government respond to that kind of question except to reassert the power of the Government to transfer questions. But I think in this particular case the member has a point. I would be happy to seek leave for the question to be transferred back to the Minister of Police. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection to that course being followed? There is not. When the question is called it will be to the Minister of Police. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That transfer may well have been finally agreed to by Dr Cullen but if the Minister of Police is not here then the question will be answered by the person about whom Mr Prebble complained in the first place. It is a device at that point in time a trick and a ruse and treating the House like a joke. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No the member is Acting Minister of Police. I can assure the member of that. The Minister of Police is overseas. 
Questions to Ministers 
Transport Strategy—Land Transport Funding 
1. JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: What will yesterday’s announcements regarding land transport funding do to help implement the New Zealand Transport Strategy? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 The land transport announcements yesterday take a major step towards meeting the objectives of the New Zealand Transport Strategy. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Besides road funding what initiatives to address the Government’s other priority areas such as promoting public transport walking and cycling to reduce congestion were contained in the national land transport programme announced yesterday? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: The funding allocated in 2003-04 is a balance between maintaining and improving roading and promoting passenger transport alternatives to roading and walking and cycling. For example passenger transport has received $101 million for 2003-04 an increase of $16 million; and walking and cycling receive around $3.8 million which is a slight increase to resolve the broad problems of things like congestion in our major cities. 
Dave Hereora 
: What does this agreement mean for people in regions like South Canterbury Marlborough the Kapiti Coast and the Hawke’s Bay? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Quite a lot after years of neglect of those people. I am thrilled with the announcements from Transfund and Transit that for example the Awatere bridge will be replaced the Meeanee Road interchange will be built the McKay’s Crossing overbridge will be built and the Normanby realignment will start this year. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: Given United Future’s commitment to provide confidence and supply to the Government and with the construction of the Transmission Gully highway pivotal to that agreement how does the Government’s announcement which excludes Transmission Gully from its 10-year transport priorities ensure that United Future will continue to support his Government on confidence and supply motions? 
Gordon Copeland 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question relates to what was in United Future’s confidence and supply agreement which made no mention of Transmission Gully. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The question was asked. The Minister can comment. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Quite easily. I saw a statement from Mr Dunne welcoming some of the initial stages in terms of the planning for that project and I am grateful for that support. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Has the Minister seen today’s  
New Zealand Herald 
 
page A5 which says that Auckland has gone from having 18 of the top 20 roading projects to just three; and could he inform us as to what Herculean efforts the Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues Judith Tizard was responsible for in terms of this outcome? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I have seen that report. I have also seen reports that say that Auckland received 18 out of the top 54 places—most of that work done by the Herculean effort of the Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues. 
Larry Baldock 
: Does the Minister agree that the Government’s objectives in the national land transport strategy could be achieved a whole lot more quickly if Transit could borrow against the projected income from Transfund to begin urgent projects now instead of more of the economic resources of our businesses being wasted due to congestion accidents and inefficiency across the country? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes I do agree with that. That is one of the issues being currently considered by the Government. 
Larry Baldock 
: Does the Minister agree that economic efficiency is the major key component of the national land transport strategy as stated in his speech last night and in comments this morning on National Radio when he said: “The Government is committed to improving the transport infrastructure so we can achieve our goal of returning the country’s living standards to the top half of the OECD.”; if so will he ensure that this will be reflected in the final version of the Land Transport Management Bill when it is passed this year? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I know that the member is aware that the transport strategy actually mentions five key objectives and those five key objectives are moving forward as a result of the announcements yesterday. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: When was the review of major projects first announced and what is the scope of this review? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: The review was mentioned in the Speech from the Throne last year and it also is part of the “Moving Forward” package released last year. The scope of the review includes those projects costing over $20 million whose contracts have not been let and it is important that the review be completed by December. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Could the Minister tell us why this Government is entering a review as a result of an agreement with the Green Party a party that believes that people should walk to work—including themselves? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: The reason we agreed to the review was that the Green Party was the only party in Parliament that was prepared to support the 4c petrol increase. What that member wants is more roads but he is not prepared to pay for them. That is the problem he has got. 
Keith Locke 
: How will the Land Transport Management Bill help give further effect to the New Zealand Transport Strategy? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: In a range of ways but most notably through the ability for tolling and public-private partnerships. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table a document that proves that for every $2 Mr Swain takes he spends less than $1 on the roads—that document being the Budget. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table the Budget. Is there any objection? There is. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I call question No. 2—the Hon Bill English. [ 
Interruption 
] I have called Mr English only. [ 
Interruption 
] I said I had called Mr English only. The member will now stand withdraw and apologise for that comment. 
Hon Chris Carter 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: And he will leave the Chamber. 
Hon Chris Carter withdrew from the Chamber. 
Maori Affairs Associate Minister—Confidence 
2.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in her Associate Minister of Maori Affairs (Hon Tariana Turia); if so why? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
 on behalf of the 
 Prime Minister 
: Yes because she is a hard-working and conscientious Minister. 
Hon Bill English 
: How does the Prime Minster reconcile the statement made by Tariana Turia this morning on the radio: “Well we’re not even sure it’s going to go so far as being a bill in the House.” with the statement made by Dr Cullen just 4 days ago that the Government will introduce legislation extinguishing claims to customary title regarding the seabed and foreshore? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Because to my certain knowledge my colleague Dr Cullen has never said that legislation will be introduced extinguishing customary title to the “forebed and seashore”. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: With reference to chapter 3 of the  
Cabinet Office Manual 
 which states that Ministers whose opposition to a Cabinet decision is such that they will not publicly dissociate themselves from it must resign from Cabinet—and I emphasise “must”—does the Prime Minister not accept the principle of one law for all in Cabinet or for that matter one law for all across New Zealand? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I can assure the member that the Prime Minister accepts the rule of one law for all in Cabinet. What I can say is that as the member herself said there is a process under way which at this stage also includes a caucus committee of Ministers and the Maori caucus. That process will lead to certain conclusions. 
Hon Bill English 
: What has the Prime Minister said to the Hon Tariana Turia that has led her to make public statements that there may not be legislation in respect of the argument over the foreshore and the seabed? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Nothing. 
Transport Strategy—Land Transport Funding 
3.  
HELEN DUNCAN (NZ Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: What response has he received to Transfund’s and Transit’s transport announcement yesterday? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I have received a number of responses and too many to comment on. But the Timaru Mayor Wynne Raymond said he was delighted and encouraged that the safety concerns at Normanby had been addressed and the Marlborough Mayor Tom Harrison is elated that the Awatere bridge is going ahead. 
Helen Duncan 
: What are the key differences between Transit’s draft State highway plan and the final version? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: The difference is primarily redressing the balance between making sure that the priorities of congestion are dealt with in the Auckland region as well as regional priorities through the rest of the country. Transit has done a very good job in addressing this balance. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: Will Auckland receive a separate funding package as requested by the Auckland Mayoral Forum simply because yesterday’s announcement was not enough; if so how will the Government impose the extra tax given United Future’s opposition to it? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: The Government is working on a package for Auckland and issues around funding are currently under consideration. 
Mike Ward 
: Has the Minister seen the comments made by the Cycling Advocates Network expressing concern about walking and cycling funding apparently being fixed at $3 million and what is his response to that concern? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I have seen a lot of comments from people saying that they need more money. 
Peter Brown 
: Does the Minister stand by the Government statement that New Zealand will have an affordable integrated safe responsive sustainable transport system by 2010 and if he does stand by that will the $8.6 billion allocated be sufficient; if not what is the estimate for the shortfall? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes I do stand by that statement. The Government is currently working on a range of issues to address what has clearly been a transport deficit that was inherited from the previous National Government. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can we have an answer to Mr Brown’s question which was: what was the shortfall? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No Mr Brown did not ask just that. He had two parts to his question and the honourable Minister addressed that question perfectly satisfactorily. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If that is the case and it was a pretty serious question addressing a 10-year period Mr Brown gave the figure and asked whether there was a shortfall and what it was. Is it too much to ask the Minister to tell us what that is? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Perhaps the Minister might care to make another brief comment. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Well there is debate about this. For example the Auckland region says that $2.4 billion is the shortfall there. We are currently working through these figures. 
Solomon Islands—Police 
4.  
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT NZ) 
 to the  
Minister of Police 
: Has he discussed with the Commissioner of Police the Government’s offer of police to the Solomon Islands; if so what assurances has the commissioner given that this commitment can be made without affecting New Zealand’s front-line policing? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Police 
: Yes New Zealand has been asked to contribute to a police-led deployment to restore the rule of law in the Solomon Islands and Cabinet will shortly make a decision on the shape and the size of that contribution. The Commissioner of Police has been closely involved in the scoping exercise of what is needed and how we can help. A bottom-line consideration will be what New Zealand can do having regard to the priority that is always given to domestic considerations. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: What conclusion can the House reach given that the Minister has not answered the second part of the question as to whether the Commissioner of Police has given him any assurance that a contribution from the New Zealand Police can be made to the Solomons without affecting New Zealand’s front-line policing especially since we all know that last year when the Government sent seven police to the Solomons for training the Commissioner of Police strongly objected? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I can tell the member that unlike last year when there were recruitment problems overall the number of police is now at its target level and in the previously difficult area of Auckland it is actually 10 over its target level. The police commissioner is confident that drawing any support group from across the country as a whole would not leave any areas under-represented. 
Tim Barnett 
: If let us say 30 New Zealand police officers were to be deployed to the Solomons what percentage of the overall New Zealand police force would that represent? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: That figure is somewhat arbitrary but 30 police officers would represent less than a third of 1 percent of the total police force and less than 0.41 percent of the total number of sworn officers. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Given that it takes 9 months from recruitment to graduation before police officers actually reach the front line how will the police make up the shortfall which will occur next month over the 9-month period; or does the Minister agree with the Prime Minister when she said that we could go far beyond 30 before the country would feel the pinch? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The Minister of Police has been very innovative in the way that he has filled the police ranks with competent people. That includes for example 74 experienced police officers from the British Isles who are now being deployed and a new cadet-training scheme that has those cadets moving into training at the Police College at Porirua. 
Ron Mark 
: Given that when the commissioner asked the Government for another 169 extra police over 3 years the Government’s response was to announce in the Budget a total of 55 police over 4 years if the commissioner says to the Minister that such a deployment will have a huge negative impact on policing on the ground will he even be listened to? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I can say for a fact that the commissioner is not stating that. He is very happy that with 9554 members he has the largest police force ever in the history of this country. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: How will the Minister explain to constituents of mine who are already feeling that community policing is being cut back and that their community policing centre is at threat that the deployment of a police force to the Solomons will not make that situation worse for them? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The member can explain that to his constituents by stating that because of the extraordinary efforts of Government the Government is now filling fully the quota of police officers that it wants and that a relatively small number of police officers taken from around the country will not have any noticeable effect on policing in any district. He can also quote to his constituents that the president of the Police Association said it was a good move for the police and would lead to better policing overall because of the experience that officers would gain. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Does the House understand the situation to be that the Commissioner of Police earlier this year said that he needed 169 extra police and the Government gave 55—a deficit of 114—and that the Government has brought in 74 British police so that we can send 40 to the Solomons so I ask why did we not just send the British police to the Solomon Islands? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: This Government is proud of the fact that since becoming the Government it has increased police numbers by 9 percent. I remind that member that when he had a short period of time as Minister of Police it was one of the occasions during which police numbers in this country decreased. So our achievement is somewhat better than the member’s was when he had his chance. 
Solomon Islands—Pacific Forum 
5.  
LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN (NZ Labour—Mana) 
 to the  
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade 
: What recommendations were made by the Pacific Forum Foreign Ministers meeting in Sydney yesterday in regard to the situation in the Solomon Islands? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
: 
 The Pacific Islands Forum Foreign Ministers meeting in Sydney yesterday decided unanimously to recommend to forum leaders a package of strengthened assistance to the Solomon Islands. This will include a policing operation to restore law and order supported as necessary by armed peacekeepers and a programme of assistance to strengthen the justice system and to restore the economy and basic social services. 
Luamanuvao Winnie Laban 
: What multilateral support is being offered by way of assistance to the Solomon Islands in response to its request? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Of course the Pacific Islands Forum itself is a multilateral organisation and the support was offered unanimously. What is more more than half the countries present at the forum said they would give not only support in principle but also practical support. The Commonwealth Secretary-General has also endorsed the moves being made by the Pacific Forum countries and when the matter was referred to the United Nations Department of Political Affairs the United Nations also responded warmly to the effort being made by the forum countries to respond to the request from a sovereign country for badly needed help. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Given that the Minister has indicated that the United Nations is only informed at best why does the Minister insist on going through that process whereas Mr Downer the Australian Foreign Minister has specifically said: “The United Nations is unable to deal with collapsing societies such as the Solomon Islands.”? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I think I have spoken to Mr Downer rather more recently than the member. Mr Downer has confirmed that where we can get multilateral support that really helps the achievement of the objectives being set out. Once a final decision has been made the same process will be followed with regard to the Solomon Islands as was followed in relation to the deployment in Bougainville. The United Nations will be notified by the Solomon Islands under article 54 and the United Nations will respond warmly to the effort that is being made to restore security and stability in the region. 
Keith Locke 
: In what the Minister has described as essentially a policing operation would it not be a little bit over the top for the Australia - New Zealand military back-up force—recognising the need for a military back-up force—to be something approaching 2000 soldiers when the police will be confronting a relatively isolated and disparate group of criminal elements rather than an organised military force? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The member is right that the proposal is for a police-led deployment. The restoration of law and order is after all a policing task and not a military task. The member is also right that we need to have a military back-up of armed peacekeepers because there are estimated to be up to 750 high-powered weapons in the community. I guess the country that should have the greatest say on this is the Solomon Islands and the Solomon Islands Government has indicated comfort with the sort of figures that were discussed at the forum yesterday. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Do the detachments that were discussed at the forum yesterday in respect of New Zealand have the approval of the New Zealand Cabinet at this stage and if they do not have that approval what is their status in terms of both their ultimate approval and the time line by which they might be implemented? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: There are a couple of prerequisites before support can go ahead. One is obviously the formal request through the Governor-General of the Solomon Islands; the second is for the Solomon Islands Parliament to pass legislation. In anticipation of that Cabinet will shortly be discussing the nature the shape and the size of the deployment that is being made—policing military and aid. I would expect Cabinet to be considering that in the near future. It has not been done yet no. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: I seek leave of the House to table a report in the Australian newspaper the  
Courier Mail 
 in which Mr Downer says that the United Nations is unable to solve the problems of rogue States and collapsing societies such as the Solomon Islands. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is. 
Te Mangai Paho—Reviews 
6.  
KATHERINE RICH (NZ National) 
 to the  
Minister of Maori Affairs 
:  
What reviews of Te Mangai Paho or its senior staff are being undertaken at present and what is the reporting timetable for each of those reviews? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Maori Affairs) 
: 
 There are two reviews being undertaken at the moment. The board is in the process of completing its review of the chief executive’s performance and specific conduct relating to allegations made and I expect to be advised of the outcome in the next day or so. The Audit Office is currently conducting its annual audit of Te Mangai Paho and that is expected by mid-July. 
Katherine Rich 
: Noting that comment about the Audit Office what assurances can the Minister give this House that Te Mangai Paho funding to Dreamtime Entertainment Ltd has been appropriately spent given that the company presented 13 cheques totalling $19810 for petty cash and the Audit Office could not find any documentation or reconciliations showing how those payments reconcile with that amount? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I look forward to the audit report so I can read the detail that the member seems to have. 
Darren Hughes 
: What will the Audit New Zealand annual audit of Te Mangai Paho include? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: The board has advised me that as part of its annual review of Te Mangai Paho Audit New Zealand will do an in-depth review of the systems policies and procedures surrounding the allocation and monitoring of Te Mangai Paho contracts. 
Katherine Rich 
: How does the purchase by Dreamtime Entertainment of two sets of golf clubs valued at $2281 ostensibly as props for  
Te Wero 
 a youth game show but now in possession of two company directors contribute to the promotion of te reo and Maori culture? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I am sure that that is an issue that will be addressed in the review. 
Primary Health Organisations—Establishment 
7.  
STEVE CHADWICK (NZ Labour—Rotorua) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What progress has been made in the development of primary health organisations since the first one was established 1 year ago? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 The implementation of primary health organisations has far exceeded expectations. We hoped there would be around 300000 people involved with primary health organisations after 1 year. Today there are 47 primary health organisations covering 1.7 million people. By October every region in New Zealand is expected to have a primary health organisation. 
Steve Chadwick 
: What reports has she received regarding the future of primary health organisations? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I have seen many reports most of them indicating that primary health organisations are here to stay and that the need for low-cost access to primary health-care is widely accepted by New Zealanders. I also note the Auditor-General’s comments that the primary health-care sector could benefit from a period of stability. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: Why at the general practitioners conference on continuing medical education in Taupo last weekend did not one of the hundreds of general practitioners who were at that conference raise a hand when asked to do so if he or she thought that primary health organisations would improve patient care in this country? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I cannot speak for the general practitioners at that conference but I can quote from a statement by the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners which stated: “The commitment to an improved funding environment for primary health-care is therefore significant and timely.” I could quote from general practitioners who are working in primary health organisations who say that primary health organisations will provide a new way for health professionals to work together in the community to prevent ill-health and provide early intervention. I could provide many testimonies from general practitioners who like working in the way that they are working and are prepared to speak up. 
Pita Paraone 
: What is the Minister doing to address the inequities in the current system whereby people’s health needs are being addressed differently in terms of cost by virtue of a geographic dint? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Inequities in the provision of primary health-care have existed since we got rid of subsidies for all New Zealanders in the “mother of all Budgets” of 1991 and brought in a community services card. This Government is undertaking to bring back affordable primary health-care to all New Zealanders. We are doing it over time but we are addressing first those people who need primary health-care the most. In the first instance we are most interested to address the inequities that they face in their health status but we will address the health needs of all New Zealanders over time. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Given the objective referred to by the Minister of getting health professionals to work together how many pharmacies are part of primary health organisations and are any such collaborations between pharmacies and primary health organisations likely to be compromised by the Pharmac stat proposal which is likely to cause the closure of many pharmacies around New Zealand; if not why not? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I am pleased to inform the member that pharmacists are increasingly interested in primary health organisations. At 6.30 this evening I am launching the capital primary health organisation which is made up of a number of Maori providers and the Wellington Independent Practice Association and pharmacists are part of that primary health organisation. I have a number of other examples and I have been encouraging pharmacists to look to work within primary health organisations because they have a very important role to play. 
Heather Roy 
: What guarantee can the Minister give that the health outcomes from the Ngati Whatua primary health organisation will be in any way measurable given that $1.5 million of taxpayers’ money was spent last year on the Ngati Whatua O Orakei Health Clinic with her excuse for a lack of outcomes there being that “general health gains are difficult to assess” with an example being spending of $370000 in 2002 for smoking cessation which questioning revealed to be just a pilot scheme? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Firstly the fact that we would want a pilot anti-smoking programme for Maori to be run by a particular Maori health provider should be welcomed by this House but having heard that member’s speech on a bill before this House I understand that she is not the least bit interested in that. Money spent on health outcomes is hard to measure over a 1-year period because one is looking to change behaviour in terms of smoking obesity and exercise and one does not get results overnight. This Government is committed to achieving better long-term health outcomes for New Zealanders and we will see them. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The answer was too long. 
Home Detention—Sentenced Offenders 
8. RON MARK (NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Corrections 
: Is he satisfied that sentenced offenders are adequately screened for their suitability for home detention before it is granted? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 I am confident that the Community Probation Service has robust procedures in place to ensure that the New Zealand Parole Board has relevant information to assist it in making decisions on home detention. 
Ron Mark 
: Can the Minister tell the House which of the following offences committed by Delaney Mark Temara make him suitable for home detention: using a loaded firearm against police assaulting a female assaulting prison officers intimidating a court witness by hanging her dog on a clothes line and slitting its throat stabbing two counts of aggravated robbery burglaries and wilful damage—or have I missed some endearing quality that has rendered that violent criminal as being worthy of home detention? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Of course I cannot comment on a specific case but what I can say to the member is that the procedures in place for the probation service to provide information to the Parole Board are robust. The Parole Board is the body that makes the decision and it is an independent organisation. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Why can this Minister not comment upon a specific case? It is not a matter of things being sub judice. The person has gone to trial. This is about a matter of home detention for which this Minister has responsibility. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister does not have the details. He is perfectly entitled to give that response. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a further point of order Mr Speaker. That Minister said: “I can’t comment on a specific case.” It is not a question of whether he has the details; he clearly implied to this House that it was not a matter that he could comment on from a legal or other restrictive point of view. That is what he said and I ask why he is constrained from talking on this case because he is the Minister responsible. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member’s point is not valid. 
Georgina Beyer 
: What matters are required to be covered by the Community Probation Service when reporting to the Parole Board about an application for home detention? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: The report must cover matters listed in the Parole Act—namely the likelihood of an offender committing more offences while on home detention the nature of the offence or offences the welfare of the offender and the safety and welfare of occupants in the residence where the offender is to be detained. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: How can the Minister stand by his comment that the Community Probation Service provides robust information to the Parole Board when it was the Community Probation Service that recommended that a man who went to jail for beating his wife so badly he had to give her cardiopulmonary resuscitation to keep her alive can serve out part of his sentence on home detention with the woman he originally bashed only to bash her again within weeks of his release on home detention recommended by that Community Probation Service which he says provides robust information to the Parole Board? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: As I pointed out the Parole Board makes the decision not the Community Probation Service. The Community Probation Service is not the only organisation that provides information to the Parole Board. It is the Parole Board that makes the independent decision on the information it has before it. 
Stephen Franks 
: Precisely how does the probation service or any other corrections officer measure risk to the community when offenders are released given that the Minister’s Government thinks that Michael Carroll a five-time rapist with an assessed two-out-of-three chance of seriously reoffending within 5 years and with the second most dangerous prison security classification is not an undue risk to the safety of the people he was placed amongst; and if the Minister will not deal with a particular case can he tell us precisely which rule or Standing Order he is hiding behind in not giving answers to the House? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: As I said the Parole Board which is an independent organisation makes the decision. The probation service provides information but it is not the only information that the Parole Board uses to make its decision. 
Ron Mark 
: Why when police officers’ lives were imperilled while apprehending this dangerous offender when witnesses were subject to horrific intimidation and then suffered amnesia when questioned in the court is this Government allowing offenders like Delaney Mark Temara the privilege of home detention? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: As the member knows home detention has had a lot of support in the House—actually it was introduced by the previous National Government. It is supported because it has a very very good record in terms of reoffending compared with imprisonment. As that member knows the Community Probation Service provides information but ultimately the decision is made by the independent Parole Board. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is the Minister aware that this violent thug is permitted to go shopping on Fridays in Christchurch and to attend carving instruction Monday to Thursday at a venue other than where he resides and why does the Minister persist in the use of the term “home detention” when it is obvious that it is neither detention nor at home and how does the Minister ensure that this man is taking his psychiatric medication as well? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: No I am not aware of that particular case but I am aware that there are a number of phases under home detention which that member supported when he was in the Government. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The last part of that answer was unnecessary. The member should withdraw it. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I withdraw. 
Ron Mark 
: I seek the leave of the House to table some documents. The first is a document relating to Delaney Mark Temara and his home detention. 
Document not tabled. 
Ron Mark 
: I seek the leave of the House to table a number of reports published at the time that Delaney Mark Temara was tried in May 2000. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table those documents. Are they press releases? 
Ron Mark 
: No they are press reports. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Business—Compliance Costs 
9.  
H V ROSS ROBERTSON (NZ Labour—Manukau East) 
 to the  
Minister for Small Business 
: What success has the Government had in implementing the recommendations of the Ministerial Panel on Business Compliance Costs? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE (Minister for Small Business) 
: 
 Today I have released the Government’s report back on the implementation of the recommendations. I am pleased to announce that over 80 percent of the recommendations are now implemented or are in the process of implementation. Together these represent at least 95 percent of potential benefits from compliance cost reduction to all small businesses in New Zealand. 
H V Ross Robertson 
: What initiatives have been taken to improve Resource Management Act applications to facilitate resource consents—a common compliance-related complaint of developers? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: Additional funding for the Environment Court and collaboration between the Ministry for the Environment and the Environment Court mean that significant reductions in Environment Court backlog and delays are being achieved to the extent of over one-third or 1000 cases in 1 year. The introduction of limited notification has curbed frivolous and vexatious objections. If the member wishes to know more about developments in this area I suggest he set down a question to the hard-working Minister for the Environment. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: What was the position of the Ministerial Panel on Business Compliance Costs on today’s tax increase of 3c per litre of petrol and also its position on the proposed flatulence tax on farmers? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: It had no position on those matters. 
Pharmac—Dispensing 
10.  
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (NZ National—Kaikoura) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What analysis has the Government undertaken into the impact on the pharmacy workforce of a return to stat dispensing? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 Pharmac has been reviewing the 2500 submissions received regarding the proposal. Included amongst the submissions were a number that raised workforce issues. Pharmac is considering these submissions at present and has investigated many of the concerns including costs associated with maintaining the current geographical spread of pharmacies. To date no decisions have been made in relation to this proposal. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: Is she aware that in the Nelson area alone pharmacists estimate that five pharmacies are likely to close 10 pharmacists’ jobs may go or be reduced in hours nine dispensing staff may lose their jobs and 15 shop staff may lose their jobs or have reduced hours and what does the Minister have to say to the people who face job losses if Pharmac’s dispensing proposal goes ahead? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I intend to wait until Pharmac has considered all the submissions because part of its consideration is the provision of pharmacy services around New Zealand and I know that Pharmac is taking account of that. 
Nanaia Mahuta 
: Is she concerned that young pharmacists will leave the country if stat dispensing is introduced? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Recent evidence from the Pharmaceutical Society’s survey found that over half of the New Zealand – trained pharmacists living overseas plan to return. Most live in the United Kingdom where stat dispensing is the norm. They are paid 93 pence per item minus 11 percent mark-up. New Zealand compares very favourably. We pay $5.16 plus a 4 percent mark-up. Members can see why they want to return to New Zealand. 
Pita Paraone 
: Does she think that a stat-dispensing regime would undermine the primary health-care strategy by compromising close control of patients; if not why not? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No I do not think that stat dispensing would necessarily undermine the primary health-care strategy. Certainly it would depend on how pharmacists work with primary health organisations and the primary health-care strategy. There is an opportunity in the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill to ensure that primary health organisations can have a far greater role in the provision of pharmacy services. 
Sue Kedgley 
: If as predicted hundreds of pharmacies around New Zealand close down do I take it from the Minister’s previous answer that she is suggesting that one solution would be to use her powers under the forthcoming Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill to open up pharmacies in other areas around primary health organisations and supermarkets etc. in New Zealand? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No I am saying that there is the opportunity for pharmacists to work in the primary health-care strategy and in primary health organisations. That was what the member asked me about and that was what I was talking about. However I would say to the member that it was only at the end of last year—and some members may have forgotten—that headlines in  
Pharmacy Today 
 stated that pharmacists were overworked because of the number of prescriptions they had to dispense. It may be that with a stat-dispensing approach the number of prescriptions that pharmacists are required to dispense would be reduced and therefore some of their workload would be relieved. 
Judy Turner 
: In view of the concerns expressed by the pharmacy sector about Pharmac’s proposal on stat dispensing will the Minister consider convening a meeting between Pharmac district health boards and the pharmacy sector to address the threat that that proposal has on the viability of pharmacies and community access to pharmacy services particularly in provincial and rural areas? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: A very good suggestion was put forward by the leader of United Future that the parties involved—the Pharmacy Guild the Pharmaceutical Society Pharmac and others—discuss the provision of pharmacy services. I am very happy for such a meeting to take place. However it needs to be around the role and provision of pharmacy services because in our changing environment we need to look at how we do provide those services. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: Is the Minister aware that in a survey of members of the Pharmacy Guild in March it was conservatively estimated that 2000 jobs would be lost in the sector if the Pharmac proposal went ahead; and if pharmacies are going to close and staff lose their jobs why is this not an issue that the Minister of Health should take some responsibility for rather than simply passing the buck? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I have to say that I have taken my lead in this respect from when we changed from stat dispensing to monthly dispensing. It happened in 1996 and the then Minister of Health Mrs Shipley in conjunction with Mr Williamson decided that that issue was to be decided by Pharmac. Its job was to manage the pharmaceutical schedule. I have taken my lead from that and I am watching very carefully as to what is happening and ensuring that there is the provision of pharmaceutical services not in terms of the management of the schedule. 
Transport Strategy—Green Party 
11.  
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: Can he confirm that the Mt Roskill extension the Esmond Road interchange the North Shore busway the Hewletts Road / Maunganui Road overpass and the Wellington inner-city bypass highway projects are all now subject to review because of an agreement between the Government and the Green Party? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 Yes and it was also foreshadowed by the Government in the Speech from the Throne last year. The Transit authority and the Transfund board will be making final decision on the outcome of the review by December. 
Larry Baldock 
: Is the Minister saying by his previous answer to question No. 1 to the leader of the New Zealand First Party that when the Government made that deal with the Greens in the previous Parliament it had no choice but to accept the Greens’ demands; if so does he think the country should be rejoicing now that the Greens can no longer hold us all to ransom because the Government has a more reasonable choice with United Future to help solve the country’s problems? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: It would be highly inappropriate to comment on the second part of the question. I can say that as part of coalition agreements and discussions with parties under an MMP Parliament the Greens provided support for the petrol price increase; and that provided the Government with the ability to fund a number of the projects that were announced yesterday. 
Lynne Pillay 
: When will the review of major projects be completed? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: The review will get under way immediately. It will be completed by December 2003. This tight time frame will ensure that any delays are kept to an absolute minimum and that final decisions can be made as soon as possible. 
John Key 
: Why is the Minister letting the Greens hijack the Government’s transport strategy; and in doing so does he accept he is threatening the confidence and supply arrangement between United Future and Labour? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Because I am not. 
Peter Brown 
: Is the Minister aware that it does neither him nor his Government any good to allow rumour to develop and persist around the projects that were outlined in the principal question by giving credence to a bunch of wacky-baccy skateboarders simply because they roll over every time he wants to increase the price of petrol? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The phrase is a little infelicitous but I will ask the Minister to comment. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I do not think I will comment on that particular part of the question but I will say that the Greens did provide support and it is interesting to note that the vast majority of Opposition parties want to spend more money on roads but are not prepared to provide support to the Government to be able to do that. 
Stephen Franks 
: Now that it appears that the Greens—who have no support agreement with Labour—have more clout than the Hon Peter Dunne who has bound himself to support Labour should Wellingtonians seeing the bypass project again at risk from Government policy be begging Mr Dunne to please stop championing roading efficiency here in case he proves even more successful than he has been to date in getting changes in Government policy? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I work very constructively with United Future. Can I just say that it is not just about roading; it is about a wide range of transport projects including walking and cycling. About 3 percent of the funding goes towards walking and cycling which is about the ACT party poll result. That party will need to keep pedalling faster if it wants to get above the 5 percent threshold. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Can the Minister confirm that the Greens and the Government have an ongoing cooperation agreement on transport and that we are working on a range of transport issues including vehicle emissions various pieces of legislation coastal shipping rail policy and the review of major projects which was announced last year? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes I can confirm that. 
Larry Baldock 
: What is the Minister’s response to Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast’s comments when she said she feared that the review would be used to further delay the Wellington inner-city bypass project and that she hoped the Wellington City Council and other local authorities would be given a chance to set the terms of reference? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Sometimes that mayor worries a lot unduly. This review will be robust and it will be completed by December. 
Civil Aviation Authority—Confidence 
12.  
RODNEY HIDE (ACT NZ) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Transport 
: Does he have full confidence in the Civil Aviation Authority; if not why not? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Associate Minister of Transport) 
: 
 Yes. 
Rodney Hide 
: Could the Minister then please explain why the flying public should have confidence in the Civil Aviation Authority when he as Minister says he has to await the results of a State Services Commission inquiry before answering such straightforward parliamentary questions as to whom does flight inspector Mr Richard Cox report and what were his expenses for the year—or does he expect the public to fly blind while he is not prepared to? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: My confidence is based on the fact that when the issue was raised first a full internal review took place and as a result of that review the chair asked the State Services Commissioner to conduct a full independent review. I have answered many questions on the issue and am very pleased with what has taken place to date. 
Mark Peck 
: What reports has the Minister seen on the performance of the Civil Aviation Authority? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: In May of this year Colmar Brunton surveyed a range of customers of the Civil Aviation Authority including pilots maintenance organisations doctors and airline operators and owners—a total of 302 respondents. Thirty-one percent rated the performance of the Civil Aviation Authority as excellent and a further 56 percent rated its performance as between five and seven out of 10. 
John Key 
: Why is it that he as Minister refused to answer parliamentary written question No. 5776—as to whether flight inspector Richard Cox was working privately for the company he was inspecting—when the State Services Commissioner disclosed that very fact in his terms of reference only a few days later; and does the Minister no longer think he is accountable to Parliament? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I did not refuse to answer the question. I simply said that that was a matter being investigated by the State Services Commissioner. The member cannot have it both ways. We cannot actually have an independent inquiry then have the Minister coming over the top of it and answering questions. It seems to me that we leave the inquiry to do its job properly then report on that. 
Rodney Hide 
: In the light of the Minister’s confidence in the Civil Aviation Authority does he believe it appropriate that the Civil Aviation Authority director Mr John Jones approved his “top flight inspector Mr Richard Cox” to tout for business as a safety consultant from an airline operator that he had through the Civil Aviation Authority just grounded and had under inspection; or is misusing the Civil Aviation Authority safety rules to profit privately par for the course and something he says we should have confidence in? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: Those are exactly the sorts of matters that are being investigated by the inquiry. Mr Hide has made many allegations such as that just now and I have asked him on several occasions that if he has evidence to back up his claims to please provide it. Action will be taken very quickly when he does so. 
Rodney Hide 
: To help the Minister I seek the leave of the House to table the very answers to the question he has given me that confirm everything I have just said. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that. Is there any objection? There is. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I seek to table the terms of reference for the review by the State Services Commissioner of the Civil Aviation Authority matters raised. 
Document not tabled. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. As the Minister has now been given leave to table the terms of reference is he prepared now to answer all the written questions he turned down? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order; it is a point of debate. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not want to carry this on. 
Rodney Hide 
: I have got myself in a difficult situation and so has the Minister because he said that I had made allegations yet he has just tabled the terms of reference which state precisely what I asked him about. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Yes and that is a debating point. It may well be made in debate but it is not a point of order. 
Urgent Debates 
Solomon Islands—Deployment of Police and Military Forces 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have received a letter from the Leader of the Opposition seeking to debate under Standing Order 376 a decision in principle that New Zealand will send police officers and military forces to the Solomon Islands as part of the South Pacific’s intervention in that country. The announcement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade that the decision has been taken in principle is I believe a particular case of recent occurrence even though the final details of that intervention have not yet been settled. The matter clearly involves ministerial responsibility and requires the immediate attention of the House. I therefore accept the application and call on the member to move the motion accordingly. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance 
. We are debating this matter today because it is another significant contribution New Zealand is making another significant call on our defence forces and in this case our police forces. The lesson that we can draw from it is this: so much for the benign strategic environment! The irony is that this Parliament has just in the last couple of months debated three significant deployments by the New Zealand Defence Force to parts of the world that certainly cannot be called benign. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the Leader of the Opposition but there are people close to him who are talking. There is too much noise. I regard it as a rare occasion when I accept one of these debates. This debate is to be held in comparative silence and I want it to proceed from now on in that vein. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Parliament is conducting this debate against the background of a defence policy that is based purely on that one single assumption: that we live in a benign strategic environment. It is becoming increasingly clear—in fact I think it is actually a fact of Government policy—that New Zealand is the only country in the Asia-Pacific region that believes we live in a benign strategic environment. The commitment to the Solomons is yet another piece of evidence. 
Let us just sort out the facts of the matter about what this commitment is because I would be interested in the Government explaining its own rhetoric. We are being told that it is a police-led deployment. Well that must and can only mean that the police get off the boat first because in fact it is a major defence commitment first and foremost. We can go only on the reported comments coming out of the Pacific Islands Forum which say that New Zealand will commit up to 200 soldiers and 40 police. 
The Government is going to have a discussion in Cabinet about the exact size of the deployment and the details of who goes when and with what equipment. But the Government should stop calling it a police-led deployment. We are sending 200 of our armed defence personnel—soldiers not engineers; 200 of them—to a place where there is plenty of shooting going on and where as the Minister has pointed out today 750 automatic weapons are estimated to be floating around what is quite a small community even by New Zealand standards. 
 There also happen to be 40 police going as well. The Government seems very anxious to couch this whole deployment as simply a matter of law and order—dealing with the criminals and getting a law and order system going. I do not believe that that is the case. I believe that the fact that the Government is sending 200 armed soldiers tells us that the objectives of this deployment are rather different. Certainly the Australians think so. 
Listen to this description from Greg Ansley at the Pacific Islands Forum: “With several hundred firearms in the hands of militants and criminals including automatic weapons”—and members should listen to this—“combat troops will be deployed to quell opposition by militants.” Now what does that mean?—“combat troops will be deployed to quell opposition by militants such as warlord Harold Keke ...”. Quelling opposition with soldiers does not sound like a police-led deployment. Either one story is being told at the Pacific Islands Forum and we are getting a different one here in New Zealand or worse than that maybe there is fundamental disagreement between the New Zealand Government and the Australian Government about the purpose of this deployment. 
The Minister of Defence who I know has been over there in discussions with Alexander Downer and the Australian Defence Minister ought to get up in the House and tell us whether New Zealand is sending combat troops who will be deployed to quell opposition by militants. Is that what we are going to do or are we going to send some police to round up a few criminals—because these are completely different objectives? I am asking the Government today to explain clearly to the public of New Zealand and the Parliament of New Zealand who will back our defence forces to do the job and to explain to us exactly what it is they see as the objectives in the Solomons. 
I have been hesitant to inject criticism into this debate because in general I believe that this is exactly the kind of role New Zealand should be fulfilling in its region. But I have learnt as has this Parliament that the Government is at best economical with the truth in describing what it is doing with our military resources and our police. Here we have two completely different descriptions of the objectives: a police-led deployment focused on rounding up some criminals or on the other hand the evidence of 200 soldiers we are sending. Australia is sending about 1500 troops. Let the Parliament not be confused: 200 is simply New Zealand’s contribution. The Australians are sending well over 1000 armed soldiers to this police-led deployment to round up a few criminals. 
We simply do not believe the story because the story does not add up. On these matters more than any the Government should be candid. We are looking for a full explanation of the Government’s aims and the Government has already set out some of those aims. It has said that it wants to restore a working police force a justice and corrections system that works. They are quite laudable aims. We believe that a contingent of New Zealand police will be able to contribute to restoring that part of law and order in the Solomons. But Minister Phil Goff could not help getting carried away. He is also setting out to rebuild the social system that has broken down. Now again the Parliament needs an explanation. We have a role for the 40 police and we have an implied role for the 200 armed soldiers to back up those police. But is either of those groups capable of rebuilding the social system? What does the Government mean by that? This sounds a lot like nation rebuilding. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: It’s a pretty good thing to do when the nation has collapsed! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well it is a pretty good thing to do. But will the Government explain just what role for combat and aggression there will be? The problem in the Solomons is not just about a few criminals breaking windows and taking the odd potshot. The problem in the Solomons is a fundamental breakdown of government—as the Minister has said a collapse of a State. Why? Is it just because the police force is not working? No it is because there are underlying ethnic and historical tensions that run very very deep in that community. To call them criminals—well of course they are criminals—is a bit like saying one can fix Northern Ireland just by rounding up a few of the IRA criminals. That is what they thought they were going to do 30 years ago only to find now that in Northern Ireland they are conducting political discussion with the IRA. The problems are very deep seated and I am asking the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Minister of Defence I think a reasonable question. It is not a partisan matter. It is not a criticism. Simply there is a need for the Parliament to know the purpose of the deployment. 
How will the police and the soldiers contribute to rebuilding a social system? What measures will New Zealand be taking on our behalf to deal with the fundamental underlying ethnic tensions in the Solomons? Because if those are not dealt with then there is little hope that that State can be rebuilt. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: What has that got to do with anything? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well it will take a quarter of an hour to explain it. I would also be interested in how long the Government believes that these New Zealand troops will be committed to the Solomons. If in fact the goal is to rebuild that State—to put back together a shattered nation—the troops will not be home by Christmas. This problem has been decades in the making. Our contribution to Bougainville which now looks very simple by comparison with the situation in the Solomons went on for 5 years. I would hope that the immediate objectives of the Australian and New Zealand Governments will be achieved that law and order can be sufficiently restored so that we no longer need 1500 or 1700 armed troops from Australia and New Zealand in the Solomons and that a process like the Bougainville process can be begun. 
I have said that National supports this deployment—and we do. We believe that Australia and New Zealand ought to be paying a great deal of attention to matters in our own region. I would note in passing the contrast between how Australia and how New Zealand are balancing their regional and global interests. Australia now has very minimal involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: It’s got a thousand people in the Middle East for goodness’ sake. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well it has a lot less involvement than it had. Proportionately what troops are there are relatively small compared with Australia’s resources. On the other hand New Zealand in recent months has with the full support of this side of the House made significant redeployments to Afghanistan to Iraq and now to the Solomons. That of course underlines the original point I made—that we do not live in a benign strategic environment. But it does raise this issue. These deployments are all likely to be lengthy and there is now accumulating evidence that they are putting pressure on our defence forces. The effect of East Timor is still rolling through our defence forces. I understand that the Territorial Force has almost halved in number since the beginning of the deployment to East Timor. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: More than halved. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Its numbers have more than halved to be under 2000. We are clearly not sustaining our Territorial Force on the past deployments that we have made. The past deployments have been sufficient to exhaust the Territorial Force. The evidence is that with the shortages of personnel in the defence forces those three major commitments are beyond the sustainable capacity of our defence forces. It is not that the defence forces cannot do the job they have been given in the short term but in the long term it makes it very difficult for the current defence establishment to maintain its training its skills and its professional attitudes as a modern professional army. I would be interested in hearing from the Minister of Defence about how he sees the impact of those major deployments on New Zealand’s defence forces— 
John Carter 
: And on the police. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: —and on the police. I will just come to that. The Government cannot resist saying too much. The fact is that we have made a decision out of our best impulses as New Zealanders to send 30 police to the Solomons. Why does the Prime Minister not just own up to the fact that there will be 30 fewer police in New Zealand? Why do we get given all this stuff about how it will not make any difference how the Government has a bottom line about policing in the community and what is needed there and how the number could be trebled and it would not make any difference? There will be 30 fewer police and all the Government has to do is to appeal to New Zealanders’ better instincts and say: “Yes we have decided that it is important that New Zealand makes a contribution to law and order in the Solomons and yes that means fewer police in New Zealand.” If we listen to the Government we get the impression that we will have 30 more officers in the Solomons but no fewer in New Zealand. I am asking: “Why bother?” and “Why go to all that trouble?”. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
: 
 I welcome the chance to debate this issue but I have to say what a pathetic contribution that was from the Leader of the Opposition. I would like to hear one member of the Opposition tell this House one substantive point that Mr English made on this debate—because he made no substantive points. First of all could I begin where he ended— 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I point out through you that the member on his feet is quite able to yield to me so that I can explain exactly the substantial points that the Leader of the Opposition is making because it is clear the Minister missed them. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member knows that is not a point of order. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Let me start where the Leader of the Opposition ended—discussing the question of police. He said that sending 30 police was not affordable and that we cannot do it. I ask that member why it is that in the last year of his Government the police numbers went down but does he not know that there are now 700 serving police officers more in this country than when he lost office? Those are police figures. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It’s not true. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: If Dr Smith challenges the veracity of that he could ask me to table it and I will table it at the end of my speech if he so desires. There are now 700 additional police officers and from somebody no less than the president of the Police Association in the paper today we had it said that this deployment makes good moral sense and it makes good pragmatic sense. It is good for our members; there will be no shortage of volunteers. They will get invaluable training and experience and they will come back better officers—and they do. They do something for the Pacific and they come back to New Zealand with a better understanding and a better ability to police. There is no question about our ability to afford to make a commitment on that basis. 
Now the big point that the Leader of the Opposition seemed to make was that this was not a police-led deployment and so that was further evidence of division between New Zealand and Australia. Let me quote from the transcript of Alexander Downer the Australian Foreign Minister standing as far away from me as the Hon Annette King is at the moment. He said: “This is not in principle a military operation. We feel though—and the police feel very much—that they need the reassurance of armed peacekeepers on the ground as well.”—and of course that is right. He ends up by saying: “This is essentially a police operation with a guarantee of security from armed peacekeepers; this isn’t a military operation.” So the main point made by the Leader of the Opposition added up to nothing because as usual in this House he is speaking from ignorance. Time and again in the course of this debate he demonstrated his ignorance on this issue. He would have been better not to call for the debate at all. 
This is a very important decision that Cabinet will shortly be making and that the House at the moment has the opportunity to debate—but I have no doubt that the right thing for New Zealand to do is to join with the consensus in the Pacific Islands Forum countries to make a contribution at the request of a small neighbour and fellow member of the forum and to respond to its request at its time of need. 
It was significant yesterday that 16 countries of the Pacific Islands Forum came together to hear at first hand a request from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Solomon Islands about their need for help. It was hugely significant that the response from the Pacific Islands Forum was unanimous. Every country pledged itself to support in principle and where it could in practice the needs of the Solomon Islands. As the Minister from the Solomon Islands said: “This is not a case of our sovereignty being under challenge by inviting people in to help us from outside. This is a request from a sovereign Government.” He could have added that if sovereignty has been lost from the Solomon Islands at all it has been lost because the men with the guns have usurped the authority of the democratically elected Government to the point where that Government cannot govern at all. 
Sitting behind the Minister of Foreign Affairs from the Solomon Islands was the Prime Minister’s principal adviser. He has a bullet wound to his stomach from an assassination attempt. Sir Fred Soaki the former Police Commissioner in the Solomon Islands was assassinated. They know who did it. They arrested the person who did it. He could not be contained because there is no justice or prison system to carry out those functions and he is at large. This is a country where when money is in its Budget armed thugs will surround the Cabinet room and demand compensation payments—demands that have to be met by members of the Government at the threat of their lives. This is a country where the rule of law has so broken down that Harold Keke on the Weathercoast of the island of Guadalcanal can rage murdering more than 50 people burning houses and villages holding people to ransom and torturing people—and the Solomon Islands cannot do anything about it. 
That is terrorism in our backyard. We as a country cannot afford to allow a small neighbour to suffer from this condition and to continue to deteriorate further to the point of being a failed State. We cannot afford that because as we know from Afghanistan a failed State very quickly becomes a haven for drug smugglers arms traffickers people-smugglers—and potentially terrorism. The regional security and stability situation in the Pacific is such that we cannot allow the example of people who choose to arm themselves to extort and terrorise money out of a Government and individuals—yet that is what has been happening in the Solomon Islands for too long. 
Another point the Leader of the Opposition got absolutely wrong was to describe the current situation as the result of ethnic conflict. There was ethnic conflict—very bad ethnic conflict—in the Solomon Islands between the Malaitan people and the people of Guadalcanal a conflict so bad that 20000 people were effectively ethnically cleansed out of the island of Guadalcanal back to their home islands. That problem however was predominantly resolved by the Townsville peace agreement and the international peace monitoring team. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: That’s not true. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The member might say that it is not true but that is what the Minister of Foreign Affairs from the Solomon Islands says; that is what the scoping mission we sent up there said; that is what the eminent persons group that went up there said; and I think that for once the National Party if it wants to make a positive contribution to a debate ought to do its homework. It ought to seek a briefing from me—which I would gladly give it—because time and again I hear ignorance from the Opposition and that is why it is on 21 percent in the polls. 
The fact of the matter is that the problem is not essentially an ethnic problem at the moment. The problem is a problem of people who are ex-militants using their weapons to intimidate to extort money and to prevent the Government of the Solomon Islands carrying out the basic functions of governance. 
One of the problems that that leads to is that the economy in the Solomon Islands is near to collapse. The banks were all closed at one point because the thugs were extorting money out of them. People will not invest in the Solomon Islands. Why would anyone invest there when there is no rule of law? The Gold Ridge Mine which provided 25 percent of the gross domestic product of that country has been closed for several years. Solomon Islands Plantation Ltd the palm-oil plantation that was once a major provider of employment has been closed. Obviously before that country can get back on its feet economically it needs the restoration of the rule of law. The lack of the rule of law and the collapse of the economy mean that basic social services now cannot be provided by the Solomon Islands Government to its people and that is why I said we are there to help it rebuild its social system. 
Restoring the rule of law is also a means to an end the end being the well-being of the people of that country. When special constables who do not turn up to work get paid but they refuse to pay the teachers the doctors and the nurses and when women go to the hospital in Honiara to have babies and find there are no medical staff there to help deliver a child it is time for the region to come to the assistance of that country. 
 We have tried a number of different ways to help. We currently have police officers in the Solomon Islands. We have a significant aid programme to the Solomon Islands. All of that has been helpful but it has not essentially turned conditions around in that country. To make real change and to avoid the situation of aid going in but no progress being made we have to tackle the question of the rule of law which is why New Zealand willingly joins in the Pacific consensus that states that there should be a police-led deployment backed by armed peacekeepers. It should be backed by armed peacekeepers because police go in essentially to do a policing task. The military cannot do the task that the police are trained to do. It is a specialist task. But our police officers and police officers from Australia Samoa Fiji Papua New Guinea and other countries would be under threat unless we had a back-up of armed peacekeepers. 
Hopefully those peacekeepers will not be required. The general sense coming out of Honiara at the moment is that the thugs who find it so easy to extort and intimidate individuals because they have the guns will be somewhat less courageous when confronted with an armed and disciplined force backing up a police force that will do its job and ensure that the corrupt and criminal elements in society are dealt with—as a country would normally do—through effective justice and corrections systems. We need the police there and we need the armed peacekeepers as a guarantee. It would be irresponsible to put police officers in there without the protection and without the clear message to those criminal elements that if they pick up a gun and fire it the people they are firing at will be in a position to retaliate. 
So we need the police and we need the armed forces but beyond that we have to work with the Government of the Solomon Islands to rebuild the system. The police officers cannot do their job unless there is a justice system that can hear the charges against those people who are the criminal elements try them and where they are found guilty convict them. The justice system cannot work unless there is a functioning prison and the major prison was three-quarters built before the money ran out. Therefore that facility is not available. 
We must as well work with the Solomon Islands Government to build a capacity to better manage the economy and to be able to provide the basic social services that are so badly needed. The 16 Ministers including five heads of State who came together in Australia yesterday unanimously agreed to make that effort and New Zealand will no doubt play its full role in assisting that effort just as we have assisted the Solomon Islands over many years. This country and the Pacific Islands Forum will not stand by while that State collapses. 
Finally there is a question about whether this action has multilateral support. The Leader of the Opposition put out a press statement accusing us of hypocrisy because we were acting without the support of the United Nations. We have approached the United Nations and again contradicting what the Leader of the Opposition says the United Nations Department of Political Affairs is fully supportive of a regional initiative at the request of a sovereign country for assistance. So too is the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth itself will do what it can to assist. 
We are left with the situation that everybody is in favour of acting. Even the Opposition says that it is in favour but it tries to pick holes in the effort. Its members try to undermine the efforts of their country instead of acting in a bipartisan constructive and sensible way. As long as they continue to do that it is they who will be made the fools and they who will seem to be the people who are not getting alongside what this Government is doing and will do in a constructive way the right thing for the Solomon Islands and for the Pacific. I urge every member of every party of this country to support the Government in its endeavours and I am more than willing to brief any party in the House on what we are doing why we are doing it and how we are doing it in order to prevent the sort of pathetic ignorance that we heard from the Leader of the Opposition in his opening speech. 
Debate interrupted. 
Points of Order 
Ministerial Statements 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT NZ) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I apologise to the member for raising a point of order but I do so on a matter that is very important. Standing Order 341 “Ministerial statements” states that a matter of significant public importance can be brought to the House’s attention immediately by a Minister. I have been asked to go to a meeting at 4 p.m. and I now find from the media that the Government has put out a major statement today stating that our whole basis for immigration has been altered—we have gone from a points system to a skills-based system—and that MPs will be briefed at 4 p.m. Madam Speaker you understand exactly the significance of what the Government has done. It has decided to put out a statement too late for the asking of parliamentary questions and will then allow us to go into urgency. Our immigration policy has been turned on its head and the media has been told about it yet we members of Parliament get a briefing after the media. 
I want to draw to your attention that Speakers in the British House of Commons—and this will make you a Speaker that the Opposition will like—have in the strongest terms condemned that sort of action by the Government. Speakers there have ruled that Ministers should make those announcements to the House first and then to the nation. Now we are in a situation whereby the Government puts out a statement that we cannot scrutinise and on which we cannot have any parliamentary discussion since we are all going into urgency. I want you to suggest that the proper thing for the Minister of Immigration to do is to come down to the House take a call under Standing Order 341 and important as this debate is interrupt it and let us know—as she has apparently been able to tell the media—that our immigration system has been turned on its head this afternoon. 
Hon MARK BURTON (Deputy Leader of the House) 
: 
 The critical point in Standing Order 341(1) is that a Minister may make a statement. It is entirely for the Minister to decide to come to the House take a call and make a statement when and if a Minister chooses to do so. It is not for the House to call a Minister down to do so. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I thank the member and I refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 19/1 (Supplement) which states: “While it is eminently good practice for Ministers to make important policy announcements in the House it is not by any means a convention in New Zealand.” 
Urgent Debates 
Solomon Islands—Deployment of Police and Military Forces  
Debate resumed. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I have one thing only to say to the Government which is that if there is any substance to such a press release it should deal with such a matter the same way we would: “Can we fix it? Yes we can.”—and we are doing it every day. 
I come now to the debate on the Solomons. I do not think there is anyone in any party in the House who will deny that there is a need for New Zealand to be involved in the Solomons given that the Solomons is a part of our Pacific backyard and given the problems that face the people of the Solomons. I do not know whether any members of this House have friends who have tried to live and work or do business in the Solomons but it is no secret that the rule of law was lost there many years ago. The only thing I ask is that if the Government is so concerned about human rights why has it taken it so long to do something positive in the Solomons? 
But there is a greater question that the Government cannot be allowed to duck and dive away from and that is this. We agree with the purpose of that deployment; we now know that the Government is committing 30 to 40 police to the Solomons and some 100 to 200 Defence Force personnel in the role of protecting those police. We also know from history and from knowing our Defence Force personnel and our police very well that first there will be no shortage of volunteers to go and second that when they get there they will do a superb job. But there is a price and cost to New Zealand for that deployment and one cannot ignore it. Looking at that price and cost one has to ask oneself where this Government’s priorities are. The cost to the House is the rule of law here in New Zealand. We already know from the documents presented to us that the Minister of Police has told this Government that he does not have enough police to do the work he is trying to do. We know that he specifically asked for more police to deal with counter-terrorist issues and that this Government’s response to his request for 169 police officers was to cut the Minister back to 55 over 4 years and tell him to get on with the job. Hello! 
On top of that we found out over the weekend that the Government now wants the commissioner to take some of his best most experienced police—who should be back here guiding steering and mentoring the young rookies on the beat—and send them off to the Solomon Islands. We have heard the public complain ad nauseam about their frustration at their inability to get police to attend crime scenes—it is in every paper every day. This Government blithely ignores that and once again commits the stretched overworked stressed-out policemen and women on our beats to another task. 
It is the same with the Defence Force. Despite assurances that there were no such papers—and we will deal with that in another arena—we have papers here that say that the Army Navy and Air Force have black holes in their organisations. But do we listen to that? No. In search of political kudos and a good issue that will take the Government off the front pages in areas where it is doing appallingly we get ourselves involved in another deployment. We are sending off another 100 to 200 Defence Force personnel ignoring the fact that the Chief of Defence Force has told his Minister that he is understaffed and overstretched that people are being employed in roles above their level of ability and responsibility and that they are suffering stress and burnout. Is that not ironic coming from this Government? This Government is going to legislate to deal with bad employers who stress out and overwork their staff. It has been proud of its occupational safety and health legislation talking about overuse and burnout yet it continually ignores the advice of its own officials and heads of department who say that the very same thing is happening in the police force and the Defence Force. 
If we want to commit ourselves to our own backyard in the Pacific and deal with the law and order and security issues that face us then given the current shortages of Defence Force and police personnel surely the Government should be reassessing its priorities and commitments elsewhere. It should be asking itself whether we serve a purpose that is any longer worth serving in the Sinai. Can we afford to send 60 engineers to Iraq? Can we afford to be involved in peacekeeping activities beyond the Pacific when we cannot even meet our needs back home? It is not the rule of law in the Solomons that people in west Auckland Manukau and the Rotorua shopping centre are worried about; it is the rule of law and order here in New Zealand. 
That rule of law has fallen down around our ears because this Government will not accept two simple facts. Fact one: it has a huge surplus which it boasts is the biggest in the history of this nation. Fact two: we are understaffed in police and defence. New Zealand First has made it very clear that it believes it is necessary to double the size of the police force to meet current workloads and the internal security needs of New Zealand but this Government will not even give the Commissioner of Police another 169 officers. This Government will be responsible for doing to its own employees the very thing its socialist Ministers say that private enterprise is doing to its employees. There is a word for that; we are not allowed to use it in the House but it is relevant all the same. 
The sad tragedy of it is that our defence and police forces will go out there bind things together and do the very best they can. They will perform admirably while their families back home get broken up. Here in New Zealand the families of staff who are required to pick up the extra workload because this Government will not give the Defence Force and the police force the extra personnel they need will get broken up and this Government just does not want to know. How many more official papers do we have to read from the Defence Force and the police asking for more staff and an increase in baselines before this Government actually does something? 
New Zealand First reminds the Government that in the  
Inquiry into Defence Beyond 2000 
 it signed up to four full-strength rifle companies per battalion. Has it moved to meet that? No. Currently our army would be lucky to scrape up one and a half to two rifle companies on a very good day and the Minister knows that. It is all very well to trumpet  
Inquiry into Defence Beyond 2000  
when it suits him but on staffing levels he blithely ignores it. 
I give the Government marks for doing something in the Solomons but it should have done something months ago. It should admit that there is a need to restore law and order on its own streets— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: The member has never yet asked a question on it in the House. 
RON MARK 
: There goes the Minister of Justice—the man who gives us home detention detainees like that cretin I talked about. Do members remember that that Minister used to call all crims “scumbags”? Well there is a new term which is “scunter” and the people he is letting out on home detention are an absolute abomination on the State. He should think about his faulty and flawed sentencing and parole legislation. 
The Minister does not care about the work the Defence Force does. He does not care about the stress and overwork that exists now inside the police force; he just wants to look good on the international stage saying: “New Zealand will be in there—we will give more police and we don’t care what Robbie Robinson says.” 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Is the member against that? 
RON MARK 
: Come on Minister! Does the Chair want to give me an extension of time? She should tell him to sit down and shut up. 
The Minister should look after his police force and Defence Force. He should not go out in the international community seeking photo opportunities and feel-good moments for himself at the expense of the good men and women who are here to provide security back at home. He should give them the staffing they need. Right now this Government is stretching the personnel rubber band so thinly that when it breaks there will be repercussions inside the Defence Force. The Minister has the papers here that say that the Defence Force is suffering stress and burnout—[ 
Interruption 
] I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. From the running barrages I know it is hurting the Minister but running barrages are not permitted. 
This Minister—along with the Minister of Defence the Minister of Police but primarily the Prime Minister—is big on representing the rights of workers but where are those rights for the police force? Government Ministers do not give a rat’s about the police force. The Commissioner of Police simply asked for 169 extra officers over 3 years—that is all he asked for. I think he totally undershot it but as he has publicly said there is no sense in asking for what one really needs because one knows one is not going to get it; one has to ask for something that is realistic. He should have added “in the eyes of the Government” because that is what he meant. Fine commit but tell me now—how long can we sustain that commitment given the current problems inside our forces? 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT NZ) 
: 
 First let me say that in principle the ACT party is in favour of the proposal but we will obviously reserve our position until we have looked at some of the details. The reason I say that is that the House knows I have a connection to the Solomons. My wife comes from the Solomons and has been the honorary consul for a number of years and I have spent some time in the Solomons. I was in the Solomons during the uprising and I was actually in the first plane to arrive there after the Townsville peace agreement. I went up to the various barricades and spoke to some of the “rascals”—somewhat to the horror of the New Zealand diplomatic community. 
Peter Brown 
: That’s what the “rascals” were saying about you. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Probably. Does the member think they recognised a kindred spirit? 
Firstly let me make a few comments about the situation there and not in an “I told you so” way. I told the previous National Government and then the Labour Government that the various measures that were being taken would not work and that the only way we would be able to restore things in the Solomons would be to send some real police with the ability to arrest criminals—and yes because the criminals had some high-powered weapons I said that the police had better be armed. 
 The House should also realise that this request from the Solomons Government is not a new one. Bartholomew Ulufa’alu who was the Prime Minister of the Solomons when the real unrest started and was really replaced by a police coup had himself made a request for police to Australia and New Zealand. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Had he? 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Yes he said he wanted 200. I do not know whether he needed 200 but he said that he wanted 200. He said: “If you don’t give them to me there’s going to be a coup by our police force” and there was. That was the Malaita Eagle Force and things in the Solomons got worse. Basically Honiara became a Malaitan town surrounded by the people of Guadalcanal who as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade correctly said did their own ethnic cleansing. 
How bad are things at the moment? In some ways they are not as bad as people say. I have been up there this year and personally have never felt under any threat. I have walked around Honiara and been in various parts of Guadalcanal but then I am obviously an expat. If one talks to the Solomons Islands people themselves in many ways things have improved but in other ways things are awful. They are so bad because law and order really fails in a country when the police cannot be relied upon. While there are many good policemen in the Solomons Islands I am afraid there are some very bad ones and some who are criminals. 
When the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade mentions as he did in the media that shots were fired at the Prime Minister’s residence most people think that the shots were fired by the police. The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that the militants demanded money but the militants who demanded money just before Christmas were actually police officers. The commissioner turned up and said to the Minister of Finance: “If you don’t give me all the money the Government’s got”—and that is not a lot because it is a very poor country—“the police can’t guarantee that Honiara won’t be burnt down today.” What would one do if one was the Minister of Finance and in that position? Basically the Cabinet was locked up until he was prepared to walk down to the Solomons Islands Reserve Bank and empty the vault. That money went to the police in so-called bonus payments. No there is another name for it. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Allowances! 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Yes so-called allowances. I am obliged to the Minister. After the Townsville settlement various militants in collusion had emptied the police armouries and got guns. They came up with the idea that the thing to do with these militants was to make them members of the police. They made them special policemen but that did not stop them being criminals; it did not stop them robbing. Indeed all it did was to put them on the payroll. The Solomons Islands Government now has this huge number of police and special police—so many that its tax base cannot afford it. Money that ought to be going to pay for nurses teachers and the like is going to these so-called special constables. They have made a number of attempts to try to stop this system but have been unable to do so because the police feel that they cannot. That is why we need the numbers. We now have a British police commissioner but he reports that he cannot restore law and order until he has a number of reliable policemen. In that respect it is mainly a policing problem but those police need some protection from the army. I suspect that it will be the army that will have to go after Harold Keke. 
I heard Mr Locke say and I am not criticising him that these are just a few desperate people. Mr Keke has killed about 50 people. The Weathercoast of the Solomons is total jungle. If people walk into that jungle they are in darkness. People have no idea where they are going. During World War II the Americans and the Japanese landed troops in that jungle and the whole army was lost. They knew that the other enemy was 3 kilometres away but they could not find each other even when they were trying to. People should not underestimate the difficulties of trying to catch Mr Keke and his group. That is their home and that is what they know about. 
The Solomons is in the bottom ten nations of the world in terms of wealth. It is a truly very poor nation but it has great potential. The Gold Ridge Mine is a rich mine. It is only a few kilometres from Honiara but has not been able to be reopened. That mine used to provide 25 percent of the Government’s revenues. The palm plantations that the Minister referred to are within a few kilometres of Honiara as well and palm prices have been good. 
However I want to say to the House—I made the comment somewhat frivolously during question time but I mean it quite sincerely—that I think the ethnic problems of the Solomons are real. It is very hard for example to arrest somebody from one’s own tribe. I have been in a situation where I was trying to pay customs duties and the officer would not accept it. I was told that I was causing huge embarrassment because he came from my wife’s “onetalk”. Can members imagine what it is like for a policeman to be asked to arrest someone from his own “onetalk”? People there find it difficult. 
A State like the Solomons will need assistance. I do not like the idea of sending New Zealand police there for ever. We have brought 74 British police over to New Zealand and the idea of hiring some Brits permanently is a good one. They ran the place for 100 years and did it with about 20 policemen. There is a need for a few people who are seen by everyone in the Solomons to be independent. I know that contradicts our notions of nationality and the like but we are hung up by our own political correctness. If we had acknowledged the real problem 5 years ago then a lot of Solomons Islanders would not have lost their lives the State would not have collapsed and we would not be in the position of asking the taxpayers of New Zealand for the amount of money that we are asking them for. 
I say sincerely that we ought to look at that as a long-term solution. The Solomon Islands has a British commissioner at the moment but he will need at least 20 officers for the foreseeable future. It would be far better to pay them for doing that than taking police from our streets in south Auckland. We would be in trouble as a Parliament if we sent New Zealand police to the Solomon Islands long term. I make that suggestion but given the position we are in the actions that the Minister is taking are the right ones. He is entitled to ask this House for support and he has it. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party supports our police going to help the Solomon Islands people to move to a situation where the rule of law applies and we support what our police force has done so far. I understand that about 10 New Zealand police are there now and that that will expand to perhaps 30 or 40 under the arrangements. We are very grateful to those police who will go on this operation for what they will do and for the sacrifices they will make. The Green Party wishes them well in their work over there. The critical element in determining how we see such an operation is what the people of the country itself want. So far it seems that the people of the Solomon Islands from the Prime Minister Sir Allan Kemakeza down want to have a contribution of this sort. But of course we have to keep monitoring that because we want to make sure that as we go through this exercise it is always with the support of the Solomon Islands people. 
I am a bit concerned about some of the Australian Government’s comments which almost determine in advance that this will be an operation that will last for years when the aim should obviously be to help through this process to boost the confidence and ability of the Solomon Islands people to get their own society on track. Our aim should be to complete the operation in the shortest possible time frame. It is good that the Pacific Island leaders who met yesterday endorse this operation. I hope that they will make a contribution to it because sometimes Australia and New Zealand are seen as the bigger white members of the Pacific nations although of course the New Zealand contribution to such operations usually has a strong Maori and Pacific Island dimension. However it will be good if other Pacific Island countries are involved in the Solomons alongside Australia and New Zealand. 
Essentially as the Minister has explained this is a policing operation against criminal elements and there is a need for an armed back-up of military components to support those police given the situation that has been outlined by other speakers in this debate. But I am still concerned at the number of military personnel envisaged—1500 Australians and a total force of 2000. I take the point that Richard Prebble has made but I do not think it requires a force of that size to indicate to the criminal elements that there is a seriousness about this operation. It is not like the East Timor commitment where because there was organised backing from West Timor in support of the militias that went into East Timor as organised forces we needed to have more systematic patrolling than will be the case in the Solomons. 
I take up the point that Bill English and Ron Mark have made: can our armed forces stand this contribution? I think there is an easy solution to their concerns and that is not to send the 60 or 100 troops to Afghanistan as planned where they will be involved in a dirty war essentially defending one set of warlord factions against others. That will be a dirty war in the sense that any prisoners we capture in Afghanistan will be handed over to the United States and held in places like Guantanamo Bay where the rule of law does not apply and people are mistreated etc. Rather than getting involved in a dirty war in Afghanistan as the Government is planning to do it should concentrate our forces on peacekeeping which we have gained good experience in through our Bougainville and East Timor commitments. We are developing a speciality in peacekeeping with regard to both our military and our police. I think the nation is proud of what we have achieved in peacekeeping and will be proud of what we can achieve in that role in the Solomon Islands. 
I want to go back to the origin of the problem there. I think to a large extent it is the result of overseas interests such as Malaysian logging interests corrupting the political system to their own ends. Ten years ago there was a big debate in the Solomon Islands about that. The present Prime Minister was forestry Minister at that time and there was much criticism of him for allowing Malaysian logging companies to clear-fell much of the Solomons with little taxation duties or anything like that applying to them. A couple of years later in 1995 an anti-logging activist was murdered and seven Government Ministers were charged with accepting bribes. So outside interests were fostering corruption and we must put that problem on top of the economic problems that developed around the time of the Asian economic crisis. The growing unemployment at that time was exaggerated by the International Monetary Fund’s prescriptions that the Solomon Islands should cut the public sector. The resulting social crisis allowed the more corrupt element in the political system to use factional differences to foster ethnic differences and conflict between Malaitan people and those from Guadalcanal in furtherance of their own narrow political interests. 
The problem of corruption continued through to the year 2001. Sir Allan Kemakeza was dismissed then as Deputy Prime Minister. He was charged with taking hundreds of thousands of dollars for himself and his family. The former finance Minister Snyder Rini was dismissed because he had given undue remissions of duties to forestry companies. So there was that continuing problem of corruption and a very bad economic situation. 
Unfortunately there is another contributing factor. I do not think Australia and New Zealand have provided sufficient aid to the Solomons over the years. We have of course had an aid programme to the Solomons and currently we give $8 million in aid. It is very good that the Government has announced that part of our response to the Solomons crisis will be a doubling of that aid. That will catch up on some of the shortfalls in the past. 
However I am not sure whether we need to have 2000 military people in this force. I think we have to be concerned that we could have too much overkill in terms of military intervention. I am not really concerned about the New Zealand troops operating in an insensitive way because they have a very good record internationally—a better record probably than the Australians. But I think we have to learn for instance from what is happening in Iraq today with the US getting off side with the people. I am not making a direct parallel here because our peacekeeping force in the Solomons will not be an occupation force as is the US force in Iraq. But we do have to be mindful of the problems that could develop if we do not handle the situation sensitively or if there is a bit of overkill in our response. We could draw hostility from the local population which could make the situation worse. 
What we want to do—and I think Bill English was right—is to move as fast as possible to continue the process that began at Townsville in the year 2000 of trying to get the civil society and the various parties back together. We need to work with the politicians and the civil society. There are groups like the Civil Society Network in the Solomons that are trying to draw things together. One of the problems with the political system there is that it is a first-past-the-post system. I think one of the MPs is there on 13 percent of the vote so it is an inappropriate political system. We need to work with the civil society and also to resist the temptation to dominate the country too much. I have heard reports from Australia that it will put various Australians in the different ministries for the long term. I think we have to be a bit wary about being seen to dominate the Solomons. 
I think another lesson we can draw from this situation is that we should watch for problems in the Pacific and give support at an early time. For instance we tend to ignore another Melanesian nation West Papua when ignoring what is happening to its people may can come back to haunt us. We should support the rights of those people against the Indonesian occupation as well. 
The New Zealand Greens support this peacekeeping force as do our colleagues the Australian Greens on other side of the Tasman. We are very pleased that they are putting their support behind this force because something that the Greens as a whole internationally have put forward is that we should really concentrate on peacemaking trying to bring parties together and trying to resolve situations in other countries in as peaceful a manner as possible but backed up with policing and peacekeeping forces where required. I think we need to specialise in that area. One of the Green Party’s proposals is to set up a peacekeeping school in New Zealand and there are some ongoing discussions with the Government on how to progress that. I think such a school would increase our ability to do this peacekeeping work and to be able to work with other police and military personnel in our region towards resolving situations like the one we see in the Solomon Islands today. 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
:  
The litany of the history of the Solomons from the time of the start of the struggle between the Malaitan people and the people of Guadalcanal has been well canvassed this afternoon. This is not really the time for us to enter into a debate about the rights and wrongs of what happened when and who did what to whom. It is time for us simply to recognise that that country is on the point of economic and social collapse that it is in our region our part of the world and that it is in the sphere of influence we may claim as our own. The question then becomes this: what role if any should we as a sovereign nation with a history of seeking to uphold good Government in our own country and elsewhere play in response to that situation? That is the background I believe against which the House debates this matter this afternoon. May I note in passing the appropriateness of this debate today at this time given that when a similar debate was sought in 2000 it was ruled that it could not occur until such time as an intervention took place. On that basis we would not have debated World War II until the first shot was fired. It is appropriate that we debate this issue in the House today. 
 This debate immediately raises the question of the status of New Zealand’s decision. If one listened to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade in question time this afternoon one heard there has actually been no decision by the New Zealand Government at this stage. There has been an indication in principle given at the Foreign Ministers meeting in Sydney yesterday of the type of commitment that New Zealand may make in response to an invitation from the Parliament of the Solomon Islands. However I was struck by the fact that this afternoon the Minister said in response to my question that the New Zealand Cabinet has not yet decided formally on its position. The first step to be taken is that the decision in principle made yesterday in the context of the Foreign Ministers meeting in Sydney obviously needs to be considered by the New Zealand Cabinet and endorsed and then we await the invitation from the Parliament of the Solomon Islands which from memory is due on about 7 or 8 July before the deployment can even begin. People who may fear there is a rush to judgment going on here should bear that time frame in mind. There will not be a precipitate deployment. 
The next issue that arises is the nature of the deployment itself. Arguments have been raised in the House this afternoon about whether we can afford—if we are sending 30 police officers and a couple of hundred military personnel to support them—such a level of deployment given some of the pressures at home. I think that is a very reasonable question. I for one am not convinced that we can give satisfactory answers to it at this stage. I know in my own electorate—and I do not want to dwell on this unduly—there are problems with community policing. One the one hand it will be difficult to tell people to endure their problems while on the other we are sending police to sort out the difficulties in the Solomons. There are matters relating to the level of recruitment for the armed forces at the moment both in terms of the regular forces and the territorial forces. Those issues will come back into play as a result of a decision that may be made to send a force to the Solomons. But I say that important though those considerations are—and they should not be overlooked—in my view they are not of themselves reasons for New Zealand not to seek to play a role. They are excuses that can be offered as to why we should not play a role but they are not reasons that we should not play a role if we value our role as a good international citizen. 
If I may hark back to the debate this House held a couple of months ago regarding Iraq—and I am not trying to make a political point here so no member should assume that I am—at that time the debate was over whether New Zealand should play a role in that conflict because as a good international citizen it was its responsibility to do so. The counter-argument was raised that that event was some considerable distance away from New Zealand and that we had limited supply lines and difficulties in meeting those needs etc. I think all those arguments become more difficult to sustain in respect of something that is going on in our own region. That is why I think it is appropriate for New Zealand to give support to a prospective deployment to the Solomons. 
But there are some bigger issues here. Mr Prebble alluded to some of them and they require some expansion. This is not just an issue about the impenetrability of jungle or about warlords or about the breakdown of law and order. Important though those things are this is an issue about the lack of economic viability of many small Pacific States and about that lack of viability giving rise to the instability that we see exemplified in the Solomons but by no means isolated to that country. It is a chilling fact that over the last 30 years some $50 billion in cumulative overseas aid has been pumped into the Island States in the Pacific yet their net positive economic growth rate in that time has been around 1 percent. There are lessons for all of us in respect of that process. If we want to uplift the standard of living and to promote the level of democracy and security then very clearly the developed world has to do much better than has been its record to date. 
We also need to look at our processes of engagement. In this particular instance the potential decision has arisen out of an initiative by the Foreign Ministers of the Pacific Islands Forum meeting it would appear under the joint convenorship of our Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Australian Foreign Minister in Sydney yesterday. That initiative is to be applauded but it is essentially an ad hoc one. There is the Biketawa Declaration and there are the processes of the Pacific Islands Forum. They need to be refined more thoroughly in order to ensure that we can become involved in situations as they develop and not very much as an ad hoc afterthought as I think is potentially the case at the moment. 
When the New Zealand Government does make a decision it is important that those who are deployed to the Solomons go with the knowledge that the Parliament and people of this country support them. As I have said on the occasion of other such deployments they go not as the representatives of a particular Government but as the representatives of the people of New Zealand and therefore they are entitled to know that when they go they have the support of the people of New Zealand. They will go into what will be very difficult and stressful circumstances in the Solomons and I do not imagine that any member of this House would willingly trade places with any of those forces to be so deployed. 
On behalf of United Future I say that like other parties we join in supporting the intention for New Zealand to play a role in attempting to restore law and order to the Solomons. We recognise the huge difficulties that that of itself involves but we acknowledge also that this deployment is only part of a wider process to put in place better ways for the States of the South-west Pacific to work collaboratively and constructively together so as to ensure that in our sphere of influence the rising arc of instability that has been occurring in recent times can be diminished and the collective peace and security of all of us can be ensured. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (NZ National—North Shore) 
: 
 It is a rare occasion when the entire House—certainly it must be the first time in my experience—supports a deployment. Not a single party has said that this deployment should not take place. However serious questions have been asked across the House by National New Zealand First the Greens ACT and United Future. Through the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade the Government has chosen not to answer those serious questions—not to address them properly. I hope that the Minister of Defence will deal with them seriously and not in a partisan fashion as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade did. 
The National Party and I have been saying for many months—in fact years—that we needed to take a closer look at the serious problems emerging in the Solomon Islands which have many of the characteristics of the inter-tribal disputes that occurred in Bougainville. In Bougainville there was a dual-track process: bringing the parties together to deal with the very deep issues between them and providing a surety around law and order and the building of stability in civil society. The question raised by National in this particular case is whether we have taken a too one-sided approach. Certainly we recognise the need to restore stability in the Solomon Islands and obviously that is the reason for both the defence forces and the police being deployed. But it would be wrong for us to pretend that that is the totality of the situation. I believe the Government has too often minimised the broader issue and has focused largely on the law and order issue. 
 Certainly it is easy to refer to corruption in the police. The fact is that the Solomon Islands police are part of the problem rather than the solution; they have raided the Treasury and helped to be part of the destructive force. People who are now referred to as ex-militants are the very same people—or at least their representatives are—who were part of the political dialogue that occurred in Townsville in the year 2000. The reality is that people do not fundamentally change their character. People who admittedly commit serious criminal acts need to be brought under control but nevertheless in their own fashion—in much the same way that perhaps the IRA did—they represent political interests within the Solomon Islands. The same thing happened in Bougainville. We have to deal with people almost simultaneously both in a law and order situation—hence the need for the troops and the police—and also on the political level notwithstanding that there is a democratically elected Government in the Solomons. 
The Solomon Islands are a very good illustration of the tensions in the South Pacific between the processes of representative government which we all support overlaid on a tribal society. Although the Solomons perhaps from afar look like a somewhat homogeneous Melanesian society beneath that surface there is a whole series of competing tribal interests. We know they have had a difficult outcome in the past and they have a continuing outcome today. The reality is that we do not get a total collapse in a society on a law and order or on an economic front unless there are also quite deep ethnic issues involved as well. 
We on the Opposition side of the House have asked—I believe United Future also did ask—the Government to look at those issues seriously. There will have to be more than one track involved in this intervention: the law and order track—the defence track—and also the building of civil society. Mr English posed that serious question to the Minister but the Minister chose to simply dismiss it. That was a mistake. Unless the Government addresses that additional dimension as well then there will be serious problems ahead. We know that is the case because we have tried to intervene in the past unsuccessfully over several years. A new way forward is needed. We cannot look at this issue purely on the basis of the defence and police forces alone. 
I now turn to two particular issues: first the question of sustainability which relates to the previous issue and second the role of multilateralism in regional security and that of the United Nations. The Government’s desire to be a good citizen in the South Pacific is obviously to be applauded. We know that it is a region of instability these days. It is not a benign strategic environment and it does require our defence forces. At the same time we have deployments right through the Middle East. It has been noted in the  
New Zealand Herald  
inaccurately that there could be up to 579 defence personnel currently deployed. That is largely the Army component. On top of that we also have the Orion deployed to the Gulf. It is not just a matter of eight or 10 crew members; there is a whole airfield team as well. Also there is the Hercules deployed north of Afghanistan and the Anzac frigate in the Gulf which also has a shore component in the Gulf of Oman. We say there is a serious risk in terms of sustainability. The reason I raise that question is that in East Timor the six battalion-sized rotations caused serious problems for our defence forces. I am sure the Minister of Defence recognises that reality—the Army has done so. 
The whole issue of the Inquiry into Defence Beyond 2000 was to narrow the focus of and to build depth in our defence forces. I am sure the Minister of Defence would accept that. The abolition of the air combat force was intended to be part of meeting that goal. But that has not yet happened. Certainly some new equipment has been ordered—no question about that. But what has not happened is the beefing-up of the components of the defence forces that we use the most so that they are made more sustainable. The question that has come out of East Timor and the deployments in Iraq Afghanistan and now in the Solomons is whether we should not have a three-battalion Army so that it would have that continuity and sustainability. I understand that the Army has looked at that question. It will take money but that money was saved when the air combat force was ended. Similarly that issue arises with regard to the two Anzac frigates. We had the two Anzac frigates simultaneously in the Gulf of Oman. That is our entire Navy. Surely the change in circumstances asks us to look at the issue of frigate numbers afresh. 
The final issue I wish to talk on is the matter of regional security. In our region Australia and New Zealand take the lead; there is no question about that. This deployment is largely an Australian – New Zealand deployment. The Government has said that it is all multilateral and that the UN supports it through its political committee. What if the UN did not? Would we say we were therefore disempowered? I think not. That is why Alexander Downer on 27 June said that in our region we have to take responsibility along with the South Pacific nations. At best the United Nations is informed. We expect its acceptance that we have responsibilities in terms of regional security. Members should contrast that to the situation with regard to Iraq. There the Government says that the UN should make the decisions exclusively. The problem with that is that a veto or a threatened veto by France would have had the result of Saddam Hussein still being in power. Surely that could not be a good thing. So the Government needs to be honest on this issue. It is not about UN approval but about the countries of the region taking the leadership roles and being responsible for the security of their region. We say the Government should at least recognise that fact be honest with the people of New Zealand and not pretend that UN approval is actually a prerequisite for a deployment. 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Defence) 
: 
 Firstly I would like to recognise the thoughtful dignified and I think genuinely sincere contributions from Richard Prebble Keith Locke Peter Dunne and indeed Wayne Mapp which sadly contrasted with the— 
Mark Peck 
: Wayne Mapp? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Yes indeed Wayne Mapp. It would perhaps have been better had his leader led off with that speech rather than with the unfortunate rather sad miserable and petty contribution from him— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: They are serious questions. 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: I say to Mr Mapp that I listened quietly to him for 10 minutes and I ask that he afford me the same dignity. 
A number of members raised important and serious questions that I will endeavour to give some response to in the limited time available. Firstly reference was made to the numbers in the territorial force. Indeed there are issues to address there and they are being addressed. I should point out that the absolute numbers need to be understood against what is called the efficiency level—the percentage of those in the force who are at the required level of training to be deployable. That level is the highest it has been in decades. So although the absolute numbers have reduced the number of efficient members has increased. I am not for a moment disputing that we have a challenge and an issue to address there but it is well on the way to being addressed through a number of measures that are being taken and by others that are being addressed as we speak through the select committee. 
I refer to the matter of attrition. Again 10 or 20 years ago if one went to a Minister and a Chief of Defence Force then yes indeed they would have been talking about problems of recruitment and retention. Ten years from now I am sure they will be doing the same. We have compounded problems at the moment. We have record employment which means there is a more competitive job market. We have the problem that we have always had in the New Zealand Defence Force: we have the very finest people we train them to the highest standard and many of the skills and talents they have are internationally marketable. 
So those issues will always be issues but we have addressed them as a Government in a manner that they have not ever been addressed before. For 3 years and three Budgets in a row we have seen funded pay increases and improved conditions for the members of the Defence Force. It is a bit rich for Mr Mark whose party was a member of a Government during which time his party did not even have a defence policy— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Not true. 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Mr Mark’s party had no defence policy. It went into an election without one and it was in Government without one. The National Party had one but New Zealand First did not have one. They did nothing and indeed even during that time Mr Worth a member of the National Party at the end of 1999 described the state of the Defence Force as perilously low in capability and short of funds to correct the situation because of what he called 9 years of neglect. That was how Mr Worth described the Defence Force at the end of 9 years of National. 
We are dealing with those issues with major re-equipment upgrades and the developing of depth across all three services. There is a long list of new equipment modernisation and upgrades. Mr Nick Smith does not like it but facts are a bit of a problem for Mr Smith. He has always had difficulty with those. Even our good friend and neighbour Australia in its most recent publications about defence policy acknowledges—as I am sure most of the world acknowledges—that it sees the threats to Australia in the future as being less about conventional threats and more about unconventional threats. I refer to things like terrorism border security and so on. The challenges that Australia and we and others will face are around those issues. 
I also note the comments about a police-led operation. Mr Mapp touched on that as did others. I will come back to it but the police-led operation has been strongly affirmed. 
The Solomon Islands is a nation that is teetering on the edge of State failure. Civil unrest and an ongoing governance crisis have resulted in significant deterioration there both in the standard of living for the Solomon Islands people and in their basic level of security. We have seen a cumulative decline in gross domestic product over a 3-year period to 2002. That decline has been as high as 30 percent. They have a Government debt of about US$230 million. At every level they are in crisis. The public service payroll is erratic at best and operational funding for Government departments is now virtually non-existent. As a result we are seeing a complete decline in basic service delivery or at least it being desperately disrupted. Health and education services the absolute core of any society are severely curtailed and there is a real risk right now that if this situation continues a whole generation of Solomon Islanders will be deprived of a basic education. 
Over and above that there is the failure to exercise expenditure controls within Government which makes it very difficult for donors to provide support at a sufficient level to arrest the decline and indeed to assist the Solomon Islands Government to make fundamental change. If this situation continues it will be dire indeed for the Solomon Islands. 
I want to pick up on the point that as we anticipate the formal request from the sovereign nation of the Solomon Islands a formal governmental request of course New Zealand is sympathetic and it is pleasing to hear every party in the Parliament express support for a New Zealand response to the Solomon Islands. That sympathy of course will be reflected in Cabinet decisions presently. It was good to see yesterday in Sydney Ministers from the Pacific Islands Forum nations gather and again express their collective support for what is importantly going to be I think a Pacific response and a Pacific solution to this dire situation in the economy and social structure of one of our neighbours. 
The breakdown in those social structures in governance and in law and order requires a comprehensive package of assistance not just a civil/police intervention backed by military capability if we are to restore law and order and if we are to empower the institutions of the Solomons so that they can ultimately achieve economic and social recovery. There is clearly a need for that police-led intervention and I want to stress that strongly. It is something that Alexander Downer the Foreign Minister of Australia has said. My colleague Senator Hill the Minister of Defence for Australia at our press conference last Thursday in Canberra also emphasised the same thing. This must be a police—a civil—intervention at that level but of course it will require to the extent that is necessary military support to back it up. It should be seen in those terms: a military capability to back it up to the extent to which it is required to restore civil control and law and order. 
But let us not forget that that civil restoration is all about creating what some have called a security pause so that in effect in parallel those social political governance and economic interventions can happen as well. That may well require integrated packages of assistance from New Zealand Australia and others along aid lines to help stabilise the budget in particular to help with the strategic planning for the future and to get those instruments of State and society back on track. It will need help to enable the criminal justice system to function effectively and cope with an increased caseload as a result of the police and defence interventions. Most of all it will need help to get the health and education systems back on track because without those no society can function. 
So I welcome the support of Parliament. I know that when the time comes to dispatch police and defence personnel we will give them our full support. I want to say finally as the Minster of Defence that any defence personnel who are dispatched will I know go willingly and proudly to represent New Zealand. They will represent us with distinction and I am sure that that can only add to the high reputation that New Zealand has through the efforts of its defence personnel. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I seek the leave of the House to table New Zealand First’s defence policy of 1996. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Defence) 
: 
 I rise in anticipation of the fact that the member is going to table a document that I was genuinely led to believe does not exist—if it does in advance I apologise. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: There is no objection. 
Document not tabled. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I also seek the leave of the House to table New Zealand First defence policy of 1999. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none. 
Document not tabled. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed. 
Care of Children Bill 
First Reading 
Debate resumed from 26 June. 
MARK PECK (NZ Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 I want to take just a very short call on this bill and say what an extraordinary debate it has been punctuated by quite a bunch of inaccuracies and scaremongering. I support the bill. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson) 
: 
 This bill will be opposed by National because it is part of Labour’s dangerous social engineering that has the State assuming more and more control and power over children’s lives at the expense of parents. The Minister stated last week: “This legislation is getting away from the language of parents having rights. Parents have responsibilities towards their children.” We take a very different view. [ 
Interruption 
] Only a Minister like that member who is interjecting a member who does not have any children could make a statement in this Parliament that parents do not have rights. 
Is it not interesting that members opposite are all very keen to have gay rights they are all very keen to have workers’ rights they are all very keen to have human rights and they even want to have prostitutes’ rights but when it comes to parents’ rights this Government is not interested? It is so revealing when looking at this Care of Children Bill to see whom the Government consulted. It consulted the Law Society the Principal Family Court Judge Barnardos and the New Zealand Association of Children’s Supervised Access Services. But why did it not consult parents? If there is anybody who is important in the lives and care of children it is parents. Where is the Federation of New Zealand Parents Centres with regard to this bill? Why did the Government not talk to that organisation? Why has the Government not talked to any organisation that is representative of parents’ organisations? No wonder the Government came up with a bill that neglects the rights of the people who are most important in children’s lives. 
National believes that rights go with responsibilities. They belong together like glove and hand. Judith Tizard can laugh all she likes. But I say to Judith Tizard that the people who get up in the middle of the night to attend to a sick child like my wife last night have rights. People who change dirty nappies day in day out have rights. People who work day in day out for the well-being of the children of this country have rights and members opposite need to start thinking about that. 
Ruth Dyson is trying to interject but I want her to get to her feet. The question of whether the State can make a better parent than the parents themselves goes to the core of the bill. This bill is all about extending the powers of the State. The Minister makes much of the bill’s stated purpose—the best interests of the child. Well this is one of those warm fuzzy statements that it is impossible to disagree with. It reminds me of a candidate who once stood against me and said: “Well I’m going to do what’s best for Nelson.” That does not say a lot does it. It does not say anything at all. All it does is abrogate the responsibility of this Parliament to say how the best interests of children will be served. 
The key issue is who decides what is in children’s best interests? The Minister says the State does. That is why this bill gives increased powers to social workers counsel for the child psychologists cultural advisers and the courts. The National Party says that that is mistaken. These people are just momentary visitors in the lives of children they can never make as important a contribution to the lives of children as parents do and that is why they should be mentioned. The real way to get children a better deal is to strengthen families and that will not come about by a bill that diminishes parents to being bystanders in the decisions that affect their children. 
The second issue on which National takes a very different view is the Minister’s statement that the sex of parents is irrelevant. Whether a child has a mum a dad two mums or two dads in the Minister’s mind it does not matter. Well I have a different view. We do not live in some sexless society. Men and women are equal and they are different. No amount of wishful thinking from Government bureaucrats or politically correct Ministers will change those facts of life. This bill completely ignores the importance of children having relationships with their mother and their father. That is the significance of this debate. 
Every MP in this Parliament will have had instances of responsible dads coming to see them who are desperate to play a role in their children’s lives but are beaten by the costs the bureaucracy and the bias of the court. This bill ignores their plight and makes things worse. The parent not providing the day-to-day care of the child previously known as the non-custodial parent may in fact find it even more difficult when trying to get a role in the upbringing of his or her child. That is not in children’s best interests. 
I want to make plain National’s position in respect of same-sex de facto and reconstituted families. We take issue with the ridiculous notion that this bill creates female fathers. That is a nonsense. However there is a need to make better provision in the law for the wide range of family arrangements that exist today. Step-parents gay parents and de facto parents need to be recognised in law. However an underlying principle needs to be recognised. Children need long-term stable relationships. The way in which the Department of Child Youth and Family Services moves children around willy-nilly is a total disgrace. The extent to which these parents have a say in the lives of others needs to reflect the degree to which they have contributed to a child’s well-being. The step-parent who has attended the odd birthday party has a lesser right to a say on the welfare of a child than a step-parent who has been the full-time caregiver for years. This bill makes absolutely no distinction in that regard. 
National further notes other concerns. We think that clause 5 which requires a child regardless of age to express a view on whom they might like to live with and the requirement of the court to take this into account reflects an impractical obsession with the rights of the child not with the well-being of the child. We see no need to move from the current law that conditions this with the age and maturity of the child. We also believe there are some real risks in opening up the court to so many more parties—aunties uncles stepbrothers stepsisters grandparents. The more parties that are involved the more difficult it is to get resolution and in many cases it will make worse the work of the Family Court in resolving such issues. National comes from the perspective that the Family Court is a far from ideal environment in which to resolve family disputes and that as much as possible issues should be resolved outside of that legalistic environment. 
I want to say what is missing from this bill. It is noteworthy to look at the equivalent Australian law which recognises the rights that parents have. It recognises that children’s most important players in their lives are the family around them. They almost do not exist in this particular bill. We note that the Australian law specifically connects responsibilities with rights so that those parents who pay child support have rights of access. The Australian law also makes it plain that it is in the child’s best interests to have ongoing and regular contact with both parents whether or not they are living with each other and we should adopt those same sorts of principles in our law. 
The last point I want to make is in respect of the secrecy of the Family Court. The Family Court needs to be opened up to the disinfectant of sunlight. Our present closed-court environment does not work in the best interests of children or our country as a whole. Again I look to the Australian model which provides for confidentiality of the parties but provides for an open court. We are far more likely to have successful outcomes in a Family Court environment in which there is openness. 
This bill is a politically correct job of social engineering and this Parliament should reject it. We need to go back to the drawing board and concentrate on a bill that puts the family at the centre around the child. 
JANET MACKEY (NZ Labour—East Coast) 
: 
 I look forward to National supporting the bill in the interests of increased transparency of the Family Court. One thing this bill sets out to do is to seek increased transparency. Anyone who does constituency clinics will know that Family Court matters and matters of custody in families are some of the most difficult most complex and saddest cases that come before us. 
This bill responds to the rights of children to have access to both parents and the responsibility of parents to ensure that in the breakdown of a marriage the needs of the children continue to be met. The bill also deals with the issue of the privacy and secrecy of the Family Court which at the present time is causing grief to so many families. I support the bill and I look forward to National doing the same. 
DARREN HUGHES (NZ Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 I rise to join my colleague the member for East Coast—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That person in the gallery is a stranger in the gallery and has no part in this House. I ask the Serjeant-at-Arms to take remedial action. 
A disturbance took place in the gallery and a member of the public was removed on the instruction of the Assistant Speaker. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: I rise to join my colleague the member for East Coast Janet Mackey in supporting the first reading of this bill. It updates and replaces the Guardianship Act from 1968 and moves to recognise the changes that have happened in the 35 years since that Act was written. Of course it also builds on the principles behind the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act which puts the child first in terms of how the State deals with these issues. I believe that that is an important shift in looking after the children of New Zealand. I support the bill. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 Like many other people in New Zealand I am a believer in the institution of the family in whatever form it takes because the family is and will remain the seedbed of love trust and security. Whatever we might think about how the world has changed in 35 years we know that most children are still brought up in families. Most of those families have two parents even if there is some shuffling around among those parents. It is still a minority of children who are raised in families of one parent and it is a very small proportion of our children who are raised in families after having been conceived by artificial means of human reproduction or in families where they have same-sex parents. 
This is not just a matter of looking at the statistics although the statistics bear out what I have said; it is also the experience of parents. If one spends one’s time around schools and sports grounds one does not find a huge variety in the living arrangements of children. One finds that children and parents tend to seek long-term stable relationships—parents seeking them for themselves and also seeking them as the best atmosphere in which to bring up their children. So I do not fear in any way that ill-judged legislation will undermine the institution of the family. It is after all the custom and the practice of the people. The institution of the family will persist no matter what. 
But this bill shows that this particular Government has a stunningly vacuous neutrality about how human relationships work in our community. It is one of three pieces of similar legislation. It is no wonder that my colleague says it does not place the family as the important framework for a child because— 
Government Members 
: It puts the children first. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Just hear me out. The reason this legislation does not place the family as the institution in which the child will have the best framework is that the Families Commission Bill according to this Government defines a family as a group of people with a psychological attachment. That is a bizarre definition of everything from a nation State to a “bikie” gang. If the Government feels that it has to go to the extent of defining a family as if it matters what the Government thinks a family is and if it feels that it has to put that definition in legislation as if that will make any difference to how people behave in reality there is no doubt that it is unable to put the family into legislation as part of the Care of Children Bill. 
This bill like the others—the property relationship bill and the Families Commission Bill—is completely devoid of support encouragement or recognition for the family. In fact all that legislation bears a deep ideological imprint of a group of people in a Government who want to go as far as they believe is politically feasible to eradicate the words “family” “parents” “husband” and “wife” from legislation. But as I said it is the custom and the practice of the people to live this way. 
I come to the bill itself. The Associate Minister of Justice and the Government are in an interesting situation. They are interested in everyone’s rights—except the rights of parents. We spend all our time acknowledging the rights of almost anyone else in the community except parents. This is what the Minister has to say about parents: “This legislation is getting away from the language of parents having rights.” And so it should. Let me say that again: “This legislation is getting away from the language of parents having rights.” And so it should. 
Darren Hughes 
: What’s the name of the bill? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: —Lianne Dalziel is the name of the Minister—“Parents have responsibilities towards their children.” Well they do and they do not need the Associate Minister of Justice to tell them that. Parents face their responsibilities to their children every day. What backs this bill is a philosophy that goes like this: the first relationship of a child is with the State. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Nonsense! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is. The State determines the parents’ responsibilities then puts in place a mechanism to ensure those responsibilities are carried out. [ 
Interruption 
] Well Government members can wobble their heads but that is absolutely the corollary of what the Minister said—that parents do not have rights; they have responsibilities. Then it can only be the State that defines those responsibilities. I say it is wrong. I say the family and the rights of parents exist prior to separate from and despite the State and the State performs a secondary not a primary role in looking after our children—the children of parents. So parents do have rights. 
It is precisely the problem with the Family Court that it has trouble recognising those rights. At times it has to make difficult decisions about distributing parental rights. We accept that that is part of its job and there are provisions in this bill that will certainly improve procedures that constituents of mine have had to deal with—and improve them quite considerably. But it is not up to the Family Court to decide who is a good parent. It is not up to the Family Court to hear from anyone with a connection to the child who might want to question the parenting that is occurring. I have looked through this bill to try to find the trigger or threshold that brings these provisions into effect and I cannot find one. The threshold— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: It’s called a relationship breakdown. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: So where is that in the bill? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Oh for goodness’ sake! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Actually a colleague of mine is in trouble with the Solicitor-General because he is dealing with a case where there is not a marital breakdown and where the Family Court has simply decided that the parents do not have the choice of raising their own child. 
We ought to be very suspicious as parents and as parliamentarians of the agents of the State that this bill gives greater power to. The counsel for the child and the cultural adviser are already there—we know that. It is not my experience that they always have good judgment about the conditions that children need. We should be careful that the bill does not give them much more power than they have. 
As Nick Smith has pointed out the Australian legislation is much more practical and much less ideological. This bill is the ideological child of the Labour Government and the Family Court industry. The Australian legislation reflects much more the reality of how people live their lives. For instance it acknowledges families the important role that families fulfil in raising children and the job of the Family Court to ensure that it supports and strengthens the family around the child. This legislation is based on the presumption that we remove the family; that it is just a wider pool of applicants for parenting orders and that the child is there wholly and solely on its own with its rights. That is not how people live and that is why this bill will certainly need to change. It has to change in some quite obvious ways such as the female fathers issue. Some people say it is a trivial point but I say it shows an attitude. Even the Prime Minister has now acknowledged that it was unfortunately drafted. That needs to change. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Care of Children Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 61 
Labour 52; Green Party 9. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8. 
Bill read a first time. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Care of Children Bill be referred to the Government Administration Committee 
. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: An amendment has been received from Metiria Turei to omit the words “Government Administration” and substitute the words “Justice and Electoral”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 109 
Labour 52; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Green Party 9. 
Noes 8 
United Future 8. 
Amendment agreed to. 
Motion as amended agreed to. referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee 
Urgency 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That urgency be accorded the introduction and first reading of the Immigration Amendment Bill the introduction and passing of the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) the first reading of the Border Security Bill; and the passing through their remaining stages of the Fair Trading Amendment Bill (No 3) the Consumer Protection (Definitions of Goods and Services) Bill the Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill and of any bills into which those bills may be divided; the second reading of the Retirement Villages Bill; and the passing through their remaining stages of the Biosecurity Amendment Bill the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6) the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill and the Wool Industry Restructuring Bill and of any bills into which those bills may be divided 
. 
The motion is moved first of all in order to enable the Immigration Amendment Bill to proceed to its first reading and a select committee without the standard 3-day separation—I think members who have been briefed on this will understand the reasons for that—and because of administrative reasons that arise out of the first bill to enable the passing through all its stages of the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2). In relation to the remainder of the bills the motion is moved in order to gain extra sitting hours to enable the House to consider those bills which members of this House and others have indicated they are keen to see passed as rapidly as possible. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That urgency be accorded. 
Ayes 60 
Labour 52; United Future 8. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Green Party 9. 
Motion agreed to. 
Immigration Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I move  
That the Immigration Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 It is my intention to move that the bill be referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee and that the committee have authority to meet on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during an evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 193 and 196(1)(b) and (c); and that the committee report back to the House on or before 25 August 2003. 
This bill will allow the Government to deliver on its commitment made at the last election to shift New Zealand from being a passive recipient of skilled migrants to a country that assesses what our needs are and goes out to the world to actively recruit those who meet those needs. This bill does that by setting up a much more flexible legislative framework around which skilled immigration policy is established. This means moving away from the Immigration Act’s current entitlement model where applicants who meet set criteria must be approved residence towards a model where New Zealand’s needs are paramount. This is what the skilled stream was always designed to do. However it has failed at the implementation stage to achieve that goal. 
Prior to the 1991 points-based general category being introduced the focus was on occupational priorities so this stream of migrants was intended to ensure that migrants matched New Zealand’s skill shortages. Unfortunately the shift to the points system moved the emphasis from New Zealand’s actual priorities in terms of skill shortages to the assumed employability and potential contribution of the migrant. This was the policy that gave us the doctors driving taxis scenario—something the Government of the day took 4 years to address. Other policy changes in the 1990s and the unwillingness of the Government of the day to focus on settlement outcomes meant skilled migrants came to New Zealand without a glimmer of hope of ever finding opportunities to match their skills their talent and their experience. 
Some of those very people who came in under other Governments are struggling today. In fact the  
Sunday Star-Times  
on 22 June just 2 weeks ago ran a story about Jeffrey Zhang and Helen He Chinese immigrants to New Zealand 48 and 45 years of age. I quote Mr Zhang: “When we came here it was a new beginning. We had to struggle for life. We didn’t have high ambition for a luxurious life.” The article goes on to state: “Just as well. He has more tertiary qualifications than you’ll likely find in an average Kiwi street but can find work only as a kitchen or factory hand. … Zhang has six tertiary qualifications if you count three years’ PhD study in Sweden. He’s switched from social sciences to business studies to make him more employable—an MBA from Canberra and since immigrating here 3 years ago management and accounting qualifications from Massey University and Auckland University of Technology. Zhang has done the rounds of universities (he was an associate professor at a Shanghai university and is the author of six academic books) and banks. All without luck. The longest jobs he’s had were for a company making kitchens and as a salesman of timeshares. The former went broke after six months and the latter turned out to be shonky. His wife a university lecturer in China is studying early childhood education. She wants to work as a kindergarten teacher. She and their son work part-time in restaurants.” 
That is what the skilled immigration policy of the 1990s did to migrants and that is what it offered New Zealand. This policy is about addressing that for the sake of the migrants and for the sake of New Zealand. The Immigration Amendment Bill is about turning the policy around so that we get the best of both worlds. We retain the points system but we now have bonus points that emphasise New Zealand’s needs and we prioritise potential migrants with the greatest potential to meet those needs. 
This bill is not about immigration numbers. The Government is committed to an ongoing and stable immigration programme now and into the future and has recently decided to maintain the annual programme at 45000 places for 2003-04. This bill is about skilled migrants who make up 60 percent of the programme—and I know that the National Party wants to increase that to 70 percent of the programme which may be something that we can look at in the future—because of the changes this Government brought in. There was no such emphasis under the National Government. It is important that those who come under this category are selected by us on their ability to settle well and to make a contribution to New Zealand. The bill allows New Zealand to manage immigration applications effectively by providing that residence applications from skilled migrants can be by way of invitation only. Currently all applications must be accepted and when the pass mark is met we have to grant residence. We do not have any choice in the matter even when we have very good reason to believe that there will not be a good settlement outcome. We will now be able to recruit and select migrants whom we need and whom we know will settle well here. 
Additionally the bill establishes the concept of expressions of interest as a preliminary step for skilled people interested in applying for residence. Only those who meet a minimum threshold will be able to register an expression of interest which is much preferable to the changing pass mark that manages numbers at the moment. It has gone from the early 20s to the early 30s over a decade. What sort of stability is that? We have a set pass mark that people will have to surpass. That is the threshold for registering the expression of interest and I am glad that New Zealand First is supportive of that. Those expressing interest will be ranked and those with the best ability in terms of employability and capacity building—we will be looking at the effects on the regions as well—will be invited to apply. There will be bonus points in the system for people who have job offers outside Auckland and for people who are meeting New Zealand’s skill shortage needs. 
Under the provisions of the bill the Residence Appeal Authority is renamed the Residence Review Board and new review procedures are established for some people whose applications are declined. Specifically it restricts reviews to the Residence Review Board to applications that are lodged in New Zealand unless offshore applicants have a New Zealand employer or family sponsor who agrees to support the review. It is inconsistent with an immigration policy that focuses on New Zealand’s needs to allow individuals with no connection to New Zealand an opportunity to access a subsidised review system. It clarifies that only those skilled applicants invited to apply for residence can seek a review of a declined decision and it prevents those applicants who have submitted false or misleading information or who have withheld relevant information from seeking a review. 
This is the most significant change to skilled immigration policy in more than a decade and it will be welcomed by all sectors of the community. I know that it will be welcomed by the business community as it meets the objectives that community has established for innovation and growth. I know that it will be welcomed by the union movement as unions have been concerned about skilled migrants who are forced into unskilled and semi-skilled work undercutting wages and conditions of employment. It will be welcomed by well-settled ethnic communities who have seen newer members faced with insurmountable barriers. I know that it will be welcomed by the good immigration consultants who provide or have links with post-arrival settlement programmes because they are already working on an outcomes basis with a recruitment focus. The only people who will complain will be the other immigration consultants who think their job is done when the residence permit is stamped in the passport. Those people have nothing to offer New Zealand and what we are trying to achieve through this change in policy is ensuring that we have a win-win for skilled migrants and for New Zealand. I commend the bill to the House. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (NZ National—East Coast Bays) 
: 
 There are two different categories of legislation that this Government introduces into Parliament. There is the stuff that the Government thinks it has thought through and that it thinks will be popular and one can tell what that looks like because the Government leaks most of the details to the Sunday papers. The Prime Minister basks in the glory of it at her post-Cabinet press conference on a Monday afternoon then the bill is paraded before Parliament with great fanfare on Tuesday and Wednesday. But the Immigration Amendment Bill is not one of those bills. 
The second category of bill is one that the Minister knows is a damage control operation. The Minister knows that he or she has not done the homework that it will not be popular and that he or she does not know the answer to many of the important questions. There is no mention of those sorts of bills in the Sunday papers. There is no mention of them at the Prime Minister’s press conference on Monday and on Tuesday we find that the matter will be dealt with under an urgency motion because the Government knows that it wants to minimise the period of exposure of what will be an unpopular measure. 
The bill that is before us today and the bill that will be introduced tonight are very much part of that second category of legislation. They are introduced by a Minister who is not on top of the game who cannot answer the crucial questions and who does not want to be exposed to a grilling in the normal parliamentary environment. This is a bill that the Prime Minister did not want to talk about at her post-Cabinet press conference yesterday and that speaks volumes. This measure is a measure that the Prime Minister did not want to own at yesterday’s press conference. 
This is a very important measure and I am going to agree with the Minister in some important respects. It is a very important series of changes to immigration policy. I say at the outset that those changes deserve to be thoroughly inspected the select committee should be given the appropriate opportunity to do its job and members should be able to reflect on the importance of changes in relation to a subject that is profoundly important to our future. But let us also remember that in relation to the measures that the House is being invited to deal with tonight under an urgency motion this is the result of a series of ministerial blunders. This measure and its companion measure is the culmination of a series of ministerial stuff-ups. Having failed to address the policy issues that the Minister was told she had to address and having left it far too late to address the setting of criteria prospectively the Minister had to make some decisions retrospectively. She made a hash of it so she got taken to the courts by some of those citizens who were affected by the measure and the courts found against her. 
Mr Justice Randerson of the High Court of New Zealand decided in a judgment that some of the decisions that the Minister made were wrong in law and that she could not make them. So the Government went away into its corner and thought about its position and we saw the Minister responsible produce a press release on 17 June 2003 with great fanfare: “Government to appeal immigration case”. Only a couple of weeks ago we were told that the Minister thought she had grounds for appeal against the decision of Mr Justice Randerson in the High Court. 
The Minister has such confidence in the position she has adopted in relation to that appeal that she is blowing the appeal process out of the water by asking the Parliament to do tonight and tomorrow what she knows the Court of Appeal will not do. She has read page 31 of Justice Randerson’s decision and she now knows that what she did was wrong in law and that there is no hope in hell that the Court of Appeal will come to her rescue. What she was really saying behind all the ministerial political flannel in the speech we have just heard was: “Look I’m desperate. I’ve made a hash of it. I did it too late. I did it retrospectively and the courts found me out. I know the Court of Appeal which I said on 17 June I was going to appeal to is going to blow me out of the water so please Parliament do what the Court of Appeal will not do get me out of a fix. Bail me out.” I am saying to that Minister that she will have to come clean if she wants to be helped out of the hash she has made of things by having this Parliament come to her rescue. She will have to come clean and admit that that is what she is asking us to do. Anybody who listened to the Minister’s speech would be excused for failing to understand that that is the import of the measures she brings to the House tonight. 
I think there are profoundly important questions that lie behind both of these bills and indeed any measure with a retrospective effect deserves to have the tyres kicked very hard by this legislature on the way the way through. It deserves to have a doubly hard tyre-kicking when the Government is asking for it to be done in urgency which is the case in relation to the second part of this package that is before the House tonight. I say to the Minister that if she thinks she is going to get away with the loose and easy explanation she has given to the House tonight about where she is headed then she has got another think coming. 
First of all regarding the process I say that immigration policy and the way in which we make it is profoundly important. How we deal with this measure and with the second measure does matter because it does not just affect people’s lives and it is not just about the fact that people have applied in good faith under the rules as they were at the time expecting to be dealt with under those rules and that they are now being told by the Government that that will not be the case for the vast majority; it is also about the fact that we are sending a signal to everybody else whom we hope is going to consider making some contribution to the future of this country by applying under one of the immigration categories at some stage. It is a signal we send to all those people about how we are going to deal with them. 
I strongly believe that immigration policy should be predictable transparent certain and fair. The manner in which this Minister has dealt with the series of issues that has come before us which now sees her bringing this bill to the House has not been predictable—it has been anything but predictable: it has been completely incoherent. And it certainly has not been transparent. As I have said if it had been a popular well-thought-through measure then there would not have been a press conference and a briefing for parliamentarians at 4 o’clock this afternoon before dealing with the matter under urgency; there would have been a proper process by which to take the Minister’s case to Parliament to ask for its earnest and fair consideration. The process is wrong. It will be destructive of confidence as far as the public is concerned and there will be those whose hopes are dashed by the measure before the House today who deserve us to kick the tyres hard as we see this measure go through. 
Behind all this is the introduction of a new skilled migrant category which as the Minister has said will replace the points system. I say to the Minister that notwithstanding her bad faith in not consulting anyone before this measure was introduced under urgency and notwithstanding the discourtesy of a Minister not even being prepared to make a ministerial statement—as I think Mr Prebble has discussed in the House this afternoon—I will try to give this matter fair and courteous consideration because I think the issues are fair. But I will take some convincing that we should go back to the policy of the 1980s because a policy that involves continuous identification of the skill groups that are required relies on having politicians and bureaucrats who are good at picking those categories of need quickly enough. That was not the experience during the 1980s which was the reason that approach was abandoned. If the Minister is going to tell us that something is going to be different now then she needs to do a better job of that than she did in her introductory speech. There are many important questions and this Parliament will ask all of them of this Minister. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 United Future supports this bill— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. At the last election we came in third and United Future stumbled in at about sixth. What is the member doing speaking in this debate before I or a member of my party has had the call? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I have a list in front of me which is a list that has been adhered to for as long as I have been an Assistant Speaker in this House. I am now calling the honourable member Paul Adams. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I have already made a ruling— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I know you have made a ruling and you might have a list but can you please tell me when it was decided that under MMP a party with a bigger membership than another party ends up speaking second to that party? Pray tell me how that is fair. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The reason is that United Future supports the Government. 
Hon Murray McCully 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think we are in danger of setting an unfortunate precedent here. I am not going to question your ruling but I will invite you to give a considered ruling on this matter. Mr Peters properly makes the point that he is the leader of a significant political party. He has significant identification with this matter in the public mind and he is a parliamentarian of very considerable seniority. If you are making a ruling because United Future has made some commitment—which is not known to members of this House at this time—to vote for this bill then I think we are getting into territory that requires some further thought. I would have thought it was the position of most members that they wanted to hear the debate before giving a commitment as to which way they were going to vote on this matter. If you have some secret information on which you are basing your ruling then I think we are all entitled to hear it. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: On a proportionality basis the reality is that the call should go to Labour but Labour has made an agreement that it goes to its coalition partner United Future. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You see the difficulty you have got into here. You just described United Future as a coalition partner of the Government. That is the first time I have heard that and we have been going since the election in July 2002. The second point is that any position United Future might take—unlike the Progressives which Mr Anderton leads—is an artificial position and it changes depending on the issue. So when United Future is backing the Government it gets priority and if it is not backing the Government it does not get priority. I cannot see how that is fair. Frankly that is what worries me about this. You are saying that despite what the public said at the last election a party that has an artificial position will determine the speaking order. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I refer the member to Standing Order 84(3). Points of order are supposed to be terse and to the point. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The important point here is that first and foremost Speakers generally over many many years have attempted to keep the flow of debate going across the debate based on an understanding of where the support and the opposition to a particular measure before the House sits. That is what has been done in this case. Secondly particularly since the advent of MMP as members are well aware there has been increasing use of the speaking order generally to assist the flow of debate in the House and to assist the Speaker in the chair to give fair coverage to all the parties. Thirdly and perhaps most important the call has been given it cannot be withdrawn and it cannot be disputed by members from the floor of the House. It is clear and a matter of longstanding ruling both in the Standing Orders and in  
Speakers’ Rulings 
 that once the call is given it cannot be withdrawn. The debate should continue. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I thank you Mr Assistant Speaker for explaining the call you gave. It is parliamentary to alternate between those for and against and that is what we are doing. I have checked with the United Future members and they will vote for the measure and I understand that Mr Peters will vote against it. So it is very parliamentary: we have just had a speech made by the National Party against the bill and now we are to hear a speech in favour of it from United Future. We will then have Mr Peters who I am sure by that time will be ready to give us a rip-roaring speech. We should get on with it. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the honourable member. The point has been made that I have given the call to speak under Speaker’s ruling 23/3 and I cannot take it away. 
John Carter 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I have already ruled. Is this a fresh point of order? 
John Carter 
: Yes it is. The precedent of United Future being given the second Government speech has now been running since the election but it does raise an interesting point and you might like to give a view on this at some stage. In the way that Mr Prebble has just put it basically—and it is accepted that in this case United Future supports the bill—the call should be one for then one against. But we have occasions when United Future is opposed and the Greens are in support. Does that mean that sometimes the Greens will get the third speech so to speak? How is the Speaker to know whether someone will support something or not support it until the member actually takes the call? We could get ourselves into a difficulty. What has happened in the past is a precedent has been set because United Future while not in coalition has by agreement indicated— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Would the member come to the point? Standing Order 84(3) states that points of order should be terse and to the point. 
John Carter 
: That is true. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes I know; I was making that point. But if we are going to go any further then you run into the dilemma of trying to predict how members will vote. I say it would cause some difficulty. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am following the order of calls on the first readings of bills that was established by the Speaker and the Business Committee at the commencement of this Parliament. There is no reason to depart from it on this occasion. Other parties would find it unfair if the Speaker were to do so. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I want to record my party’s total disagreement with that ruling and to say that it is totally contrary to the election results. To have a party in Government that is not part of any coalition taking precedence over a party with more seats is wrong. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is a debating point. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: United Future supports this bill because it is not about reducing the number of immigrants as part of some knee-jerk response to the cultural insecurity of New Zealanders; rather it is all about the Government being a lot smarter about the people we accept as residents. The aim is to change from a passive receiver of anyone who wants to come to live here into an active recruiter of skills that the country needs. 
The bill should not be seen in isolation from the changes that the Government will make in immigration policy. The legislation introduces a two-tier system for general skills residence applications but is driven by a policy shift towards approving those who are most likely to make a positive contribution to the country and settle well here. Intending migrants will first submit an expression of interest and will assess their skills and attributes using a points system. The threshold of the current points system fluctuates depending on the number of applications. As the points go up it becomes more difficult for people with trade skills to qualify because those with higher qualifications get more points. However that may not take into account other factors such as whether the country is in need of people with those qualifications or whether they have a job offer relevant to their skills—hence the phenomenon of over-qualified taxi-drivers. Under the proposed scheme the same upper limit of immigrants will be rolled over but the points will reflect the country’s needs. In other words applicants will receive bonus points for holding a skill that is in demand here and for having a job offer that is relevant to that skill—particularly if it is located in a region that is experiencing shortages. Other standards such as health character and English language requirements will still need to be met. 
For those who meet the points threshold the Immigration Service will issue an invitation to apply. The invitation to apply allows for an opportunity to verify job offers—something that is not investigated as thoroughly as officials would like at the current time. Successful applicants at this stage follow one of two courses. They may qualify for residence if they have already demonstrated an ability to settle and contribute to New Zealand—for example if they have worked or studied here. Alternatively they may qualify for work-to-residence status for 2 years if they have the potential to settle and contribute to New Zealand—for example if they have not been here before but have received a job offer from a New Zealand employer. This means that if the migrant is unable to settle successfully here within that period then that failure does not have to be met by the welfare system beyond a limited period. 
Under the current system all applicants who meet the basic lodgment requirements must be accepted and processed and that has contributed to the large backlog that exists now. The inflexibility of those provisions in the Immigration Act are amended by this bill as those who do not receive within 3 months an invitation to apply will lapse from the system which means that some of the more intensive stages of the application process are avoided. The lapsed applicants are not able to seek a review of this decision as the bill also restricts access to a review to those applicants who are declined after they have been invited to apply. 
Ron Mark 
: Did Lianne write this? 
PAUL ADAMS 
: No she did not. The lapsing provision should be seen as a positive move for in many ways it is better to be cruel than to be kind—to let applicants know that they have failed the process at the earliest possible stage. Under the current system people are putting their lives on hold for up to 2 years but the change will mean that in the future applicants will know either way within 3 months. Of course if their circumstances change after their application has lapsed in a way that would increase their points value—such as an offer of relevant employment—then they are free to reapply. 
My hope is that this process will give applicants more accurate expectations about their chances of success and that in the course of assessing an applicant’s potential immigration officials will be able to ensure that applicants have realistic expectations about what to expect when they come here. As much as we think our country is the greatest in the world we need to dispel the misconceptions spread by some immigration consultants that the streets are paved with gold. 
The bill streamlines the review process because only those people who having been invited to apply for residence have their applications declined will have access to a review. Only those applications lodged in New Zealand may be reviewed unless offshore applicants have a New Zealand employer or family sponsor who supports the review. Those who have had their applications declined because they made a false declaration will not be eligible for a review of their case but the Immigration Service will be able to correct any errors without recourse to the review board. 
The invitation to apply requires legislation as do the provisions for lapsing residents’ applications. The bill on its own is simply the bones of the reform. This will be fleshed out later by policy—some of which I have discussed here—that will set the criteria for inviting applications and assessing them. But at this stage the bill can be viewed as an additional filter through which residency policy will be applied. The Government intends to work with employer and trade organisations to identify skills gaps and which regions are in need. We are also encouraged by suggestions that the Immigration Service will become more proactive in marketing New Zealand as a place to live and work for skilled migrants particularly in the virtually untapped North American markets. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Oh yeah? 
PAUL ADAMS 
: Is the member happy about that? United Future is in favour of immigration. We are pleased that the overall level of migrants will be sustained for the next 3 years. Those who want to cut drastically the number of immigrants do not recognise that we need to maintain a sizeable working population to fund State services in the light of the aging population and the slowing birth rate of the current adult population. This makes it all the more important to attract migrants who will be good for this country. Business and Economic Research Ltd reports that over the last year migrants had a positive net fiscal impact of $1.7 billion. With the right immigration programme in place this added value could be even higher. 
To United Future it makes so much sense to move from a system dictated by the first-come-first-served approach to one that puts the candidates who are more likely to integrate into New Zealand society at the head of the queue. Otherwise the people we want may be stuck at the back of the queue for 2 years and lose their job offers or they may go somewhere else that can offer quicker entry. At the same time we would be letting people at the front of the queue get in first when they might not have a relevant job offer and might be more likely to be a drain on the taxpayer through the benefit system when they cannot find work. To let people come here who then cannot find proper work is unfair to them as it makes it that much more difficult for them to integrate into New Zealand society. 
I ask those listening to look to this legislative framework for some very positive changes that are about to be made in residence policy and I trust that the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee will examine the bill with that in mind. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I have heard some naive speeches in this House but that would be the most naive I have heard in recent times. That member says that after 3 months this very efficient Immigration Service will lapse all applications. Do members feel safe about that? Do they feel good about that? There are 20000 illegal overstayers in this country today. No one knows who they are where they are or what they are but all of a sudden we can rely upon United Future’s Immigration Service to find them when their applications expire after 3 months. [ 
Interruption 
] “Solar dome” can make all the noise he likes—he is not putting me off. He can make all the noises of a walrus and the smells as well but he will not put us off. 
The reality is Waikato University’s leading professor of geography the deputy vice-chancellor presented a paper just last year in which he said: “In total 190000 people including international students were approved for permanent and temporary residence in the year ended June 2002 in New Zealand.” 
Dail Jones 
: How many? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It was 190000. “However only 52800 were in the immigration category but a further 3000 were admitted under temporary work policies and 73000 were covered by student visas and permits.” But the issue gets more complicated. On page 2 of his document he says: “In the year ended June 2002 for example almost two-thirds of New Zealand’s approvals for residence were granted to people who applied while they were in New Zealand on temporary work or student visas.” Almost two-thirds were here on work or student visas and permits. “Many of these people will be recorded in our stats as ‘short-term’ arrivals when in fact they become residents for 12 months or more as a result of changes in their residence status once they are in New Zealand.” What a sham! What a circus! 
Just last week as stated in the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 
72 percent of the New Zealand population said they were against this immigration policy yet the United Future party on its way to political oblivion comes out and backs it. It backs the policy of a Minister who repeats a lie. In today’s document she says we are going to have various categories making up 45000 people excepting that is what she said 2 years ago and what are coming are not 45000 but 72000-plus. If we look at the categories—skilled business the family-sponsored stream the international humanitarian stream—we see there used to be a minus next to them; they used to be give or take 10 percent plus or minus. There is no minus now. Now in June 2003 there go the minuses and we are going to have 75000-plus people coming to this country mainly to Auckland where the roads are gridlocked and everybody around the rest of New Zealand pays extra tax because of it. 
What did the United Future man say? He said that this is all good for our economy. It is just amazing how naive people can be. Let me ask him this question: if it is so good for our economy why are we denying ourselves greater benefits? Why do we not have 275000 immigrants? Why is Australia not doing that? Why is Australia growing much larger and faster than us? Why is it taking almost the same number of immigrants as us although it is seven times larger? Why does the United States not do this or Canada or the UK or Ireland? They do not do it because they are not stupid. They are not sell-out merchants that deal to their civilization their culture in the way that these people are doing in allowing foreigners to colonise us from without. That is what is going on here. People who are just absolute—I cannot use the word but Quisling is the name of that man from the Second World War. I cannot use the word in this House but it is a form of sell-out unlike any I have known. 
The member says this is good for the economy. Mr Maharey was written to by a woman from Birkenhead. She wanted to know how many immigrants are on sickness benefits unemployment benefits student allowances and work schemes. She also wanted to know how many were being serviced by educational services health services or accident compensation or were in State housing. She could not get one answer. This is what Mr Maharey said: “The Ministry of Social Development does not hold the information in a way that allows me to respond to your request.” So why on earth is Business and Economic Research Ltd saying there will be a net benefit? It does not have the facts either. The Minister will not give them to it. Statistics New Zealand does not keep records for example of criminality on the basis of country of origin. So how does Business and Economic Research Ltd know how many criminals are coming here? How does it know about Asian crime? It does not. 
Janet Mackey 
: Ha ha! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I know that member is embarrassed but let me tell the lady from Gisborne that in 2 years’ time when the election is over she will be gone; so will the United Future party. They will be gone on issues such as this. Although the bill says they have consulted all and sundry they never consulted the Maori people and they never consulted the New Zealand people. Poll after poll says they are wrong and they carry on regardless. In fact I would like to know where those Labour Party Maori members are today. They are always talking about their tino rangatiratanga their turangawaewae their land and their country. Every day those people sell it down the drain. Yes they want the foreshore and they want the seabed but there are no cockles at all in Cockle Bay today—not one. It is amazing. Do members know what people call that? 
David Benson-Pope 
: Luigi the Chinese member! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I say to “Solar Dome” that they call it treason. No amount of bluster on the part of the member from Dunedin is going to keep his job in Government. He will go within 2 years or whenever the Prime Minister flies the white flag. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Is the member suggesting that members of this House are guilty of treason? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes I do. That is what I said. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: That’s out of order. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No it is not out of order; it is totally appropriate and that is why they did not object. I say to Mr Prebble that if the glove fits they can wear it. Let me come to the point. In August last year after the election the Department of Labour— 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is absolutely out of order to suggest that an honourable member of this House is committing treason. I was not sure whether the right honourable gentleman was saying that but he told me that yes he was. I do not know which MPs he is saying were committing treason but whoever they are that is not in order and the member should be asked to withdraw and apologise 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I did not hear that comment but I take the member’s word. I now ask the Rt Hon Winston Peters to stand withdraw and apologise for the use of that word. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I withdraw and apologise. Last August the Department of Labour—the Minister’s own officials—presented her with an incoming briefing paper after the election. By their own admission every category of the immigration policy is a failure. Members should not believe New Zealand First; they should believe their own officials who were moved to say that every category was a failure. Now 300000 New Zealanders in this country or people who call themselves New Zealanders or pose as New Zealanders cannot speak English. The United Future party man said that this policy is great for New Zealand. I have asked him some fundamental questions. If the policy is so good why not make it so much better by bringing in 275000 people per year? The reality is that policy is nonsense. No other First World country pursues it. No other First World country would even entertain it. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Why is the member allowing anyone if this is such a bad place? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Every wise country has immigration policy designed around bringing in people the country needs not those who need the country. A country should bring in skilled people and it should make sure that immigration is not used to cover for it having failed to train skill and employ its own people first. It is that simple. A hundred thousand New Zealanders are out of work yet we are bringing in tens of thousands of immigrants. Now we are heading towards probably 800000 to a million within 20 years. We will have transformed this country in a way that no one would have contemplated all because this Government and others could not run a sound policy to keep New Zealanders here and were not concerned to train and employ their own people first. It is that simple. 
I want to make it very clear that we will oppose this bill because it carries on the same immigration policy and failure that that woman Lianne Dalziel is infamous for. If members watch the  
Holmes 
 show tonight they will see a “possum in the headlights” show. She will be on the show and members will see how pathetic she is when trying to defend herself against any reasonable debate. But she has parties like the United Future party in particular that for what reason I cannot explain back this policy even though the people who voted for United Future are opposed as much as any New Zealand First voter is to this sort of immigration mayhem going on in this country. I cannot understand it but of course I can tell those members that when the next election is held they will be gone. 
 I seek leave to table the  
New Zealand Journal of Geography 
 April 2003 which shows a dramatic drop in immigration in 1997-98 under New Zealand First. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is. 
JANET MACKEY (NZ Labour—East Coast) 
: 
 Given that the member who has just resumed his seat was the Deputy Prime Minister in a Government that did bring immigrants into New Zealand and that failed to address the needs of many of those immigrants and to bring in immigrants who had the skills to match the skills shortages identified in this country I would have thought he would be very pleased to support legislation targeted towards doing just that so that New Zealand businesses have access to the skills they have identified they require and so that those people who come to New Zealand have the opportunity to settle and live here and enjoy a decent standard of living. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT NZ) 
: 
 We have two immigration bills before the House. This one is the first of them and I understand it is to go through the House under urgency. The way the Government is treating the House in respect of this bill is very unparliamentary. It is treating Parliament with contempt. There is no reason that the Minister could not have raised a ministerial statement. Indeed she has waited until after question time to hold a meeting. I thought I was being summonsed to a meeting at the Immigration Service but I found out that it was with the Associate Minister of Immigration. Meanwhile the Minister went off to talk to the media. That shows that this Government’s priorities are all about spin and media management rather than about speaking to the House in a correct way. 
I shall deal with the first bill. No one has told us why it has to go through under urgency. I think the reason is that the service is saying it might be flooded with applications. Of course every parliamentarian knows that that is a rubbish argument. All that the bill needed to do was include a clause stating that as from today the bill would take effect. That would mean that people filing an application would be told they were wasting their time because it was the new rules that would apply. However this Government does not want the House to examine even that measure. Why should we? The Minister says that 20000 people are in the queue. Actually another statement further on gives a number larger than that and there might be some 40000 people in the general-skills category. Those people may not be New Zealanders but they have considered this country seriously enough to have gone to an immigration office to obtain forms and fill them out pay money and put their lives on hold intending to come to New Zealand. 
How is this Government treating those people? It is treating them with absolute contempt. Members should make no mistake about that. The bill that is going through the House now will turn thousands of people’s lives upside down. Can the Minister assure us she is doing that in a fair way? She has actually given us an assurance that she is not. If we read this measure properly we see that those people who have paid their money cannot even appeal. Under the Fair Trading Actone would be done for doing that. If people in business did what the Minister is about to do they would be hauled in front of the courts. Indeed because of the way those people have been treated they might even go to jail. Have we been told that this legislation is so urgent that it has to be done that way? I have not heard that argument. New Zealand has a points system. Suddenly we are told by the Minister who has been a Minister for 4 years that she has discovered that the points system is a complete and utter mess. That is very interesting. It has been going since 1991. She has been a Minister for 4 years before suddenly discovering that fact. 
John Carter 
: What’s changed? 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Yes what has changed? I make this point to the Minister as well. I looked up the  
Hansard 
 debates of when the points system was introduced by Bill Birch. But before we blame the National Party I point out that David Caygill—a Labour member then—got up and said he supported the points system. The Minister and other Government members might have been gracious enough to acknowledge that the National Government devised the points system. I do not say it invented it; it has been in place for many years in Australia and Canada. The points system is still in place in Australia and Canada. Suddenly we are told that it does not work in New Zealand. Where is the real evidence? Yes we find immigrants who do not fit in. However hard cases do not make good law. We are to go back to an occupational system. 
I have been in this House long enough to remember that system and I shall quote what a distinguished member of this House said about that. Let us take one example: the need for skilled labour. “The reality is that New Zealand wants and needs skilled and trades people to fill skills shortages in New Zealand.” Even Winston Peters agrees with that statement. “Those shortages exist in spite of record unemployment and if they could be filled would create jobs and productivity. The policy in its broadest sense does recognise that.” He is talking about the old skills system that we will go back to. “But in practice employers’ efforts to recruit such people are hampered by a labyrinth of petty bureaucratic procedures. They have to face an occupational priority list that is often irrelevant always out of date and fundamentally unable to respond to the complexities of the marketplace.” I would like to talk to Aussie Malcolm. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Before the dinner break I made a number of points to the House. The first was to express my anger that the Government has treated the House so cavalierly. Over the dinner break I was talking with representatives of Business New Zealand and found out that they had been briefed well before MPs were so had the media. Members of Parliament were briefed last and then it was at a time when we could not ask any questions. Secondly I expressed anger that this bill was going through under urgency. There is no validity to that argument. All it needs—and any constitutional lawyer can tell members this—is a clause saying that after 4 o’clock today no applications will be considered under the old rules and that is not retrospective. 
We are pushing through a bill without giving it proper scrutiny. I object to that. I point out that the Minister says that at least 20000 people are affected by it. I think the figure is really 46000. These are people who have paid their money and are interested enough in this country to have made an application to come here. Some have put their lives on hold for 2 years only to have their applications cavalierly dismissed by this House. I am not convinced that they should not have been treated a great deal better but I make this point to the House: those who do not know their history have to repeat it. The Minister has not given us anything like enough information on the questions. The form she has put out asks about relevant job offers. I ask her what that means. What is a relevant job? That means there must be irrelevant jobs. Who is to decide what a relevant job is? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: The policy has the answer to that. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Oh the policy is to be the answer. Obviously the Minister has taken lessons from Parekura Horomia. What a nonsense! What is a policy? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: It’s already in the policy. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Well it sounds very much like an occupational priority list. That is what we used to have—occupational priority lists. It was complete bureaucracy. One would find that a job out in the community was so extremely important that the Immigration Service officials had never heard of it. The Minister said that we want to stop consultants in this area. Well the consultants just loved that. We also used to have people who went out and found jobs for new immigrants who would then apply for the jobs and be given them. It used to be a racket and we are to have that racket brought back by this Minister. She ought to stop and think about why both Labour and National decided against what she is now going to do. Why did Australia decide against it? Why did Canada decide against it? We will find out. But if the Minister thinks that the proposal is so good why can we not send the bill to a select committee? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: We are sending it to a select committee. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Is it the next immigration bill that is coming in under urgency? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: The next one is coming in under urgency. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: OK that is fair enough. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I said that right at the start. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: I missed that because the Minister did not give us notice of when she was going to introduce it. It is part of the arrogance of the show. I went off to a meeting at 4 o’clock and then found that the Minister was speaking in the House. Again that is treating the Opposition with contempt. So we are sending this immigration bill to the select committee but not the next one. Why are we not sending both bills to the select committee? Why can the House not look at the legislation? This is an issue that affects the make-up of this country. Both bills should be going to a select committee. Instead the Minister is treating us with contempt. 
DIANNE YATES (NZ Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I wish to support the first reading of the Immigration Amendment Bill and its referral to the select committee. 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 The Greens are very concerned about the Immigration Amendment Bill which amends the process in the general skills category. However we will support it to the select committee so that our concerns can be worked through in the appropriate forum. 
The current Immigration Service in general has some very serious problems. It has absolutely no reference to or consideration of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the concerns of Maori as tangata whenua in this country. Nor does the immigration system take into account in any way the ecological constraints of the natural environment of this country—issues such as the ideal ecological footprint population protections or policy. Those issues are crucial to the development of an immigration policy and process that is just to those who want to come to live here meets the varied needs of the New Zealand population both now and in the future and does not compromise ecological sustainability. 
The current system is entirely demand driven based on economic drivers and not on the social and cultural needs of the whole New Zealand community. This new bill takes a “by invite only” approach rather than an approach entirely driven by demand. We can see at first instance how this new approach seems attractive. Greater emphasis on prioritisation of skill shortages is essential to make sure that we do not elevate applicants’ expectations and that we are clear about the sorts of skills that are valuable to the country at any particular point in time. 
A focus on regional employment is vital to encourage regional and community development away from the big city centres. It is also crucial that serious considerations are given to the conditions within which an immigrant and his or her family are to settle into community life what personal resources are needed by them and what other resources need to be provided to make the transition from one country to another a successful transition. 
However the bill does not interpret these issues into an immigration framework that we consider appropriate. The Greens oppose a process by which some applicants are considered more worthy by a faceless nameless official and then shoulder-tapped to apply for residency. Under this bill once a person meets the threshold he or she is eligible to be invited. It is an invitation issued entirely at the discretion of the Immigration Service using criteria that are determined solely by it. Those criteria are not open to public scrutiny or assessment. 
The bill sets out only the very bare bones of the framework on which the criteria for the process will be hung. The community has absolutely no say on what those criteria are or on how they are to be applied. There is no transparency or accountability to the New Zealand public and of course Maori remain completely excluded from any input. It is this sort of secrecy in the immigration process that leads to ethnic conflict in our community. The failure to provide the public with any information about the process heightens uncertainty and even fear. This in turn can lead to prejudice and a breakdown in community relationships. 
An immigration policy that is kept from the public and for which there is no public accountability is not conducive to healthy ethnic relations in the country or to the ready settlement of immigrants in the community. Similarly the lack of accountability opens further the opportunity for corruption and discrimination in the process of deciding who is to be invited to reside here and who is not. This is a very real concern. 
There is a history in this country of treating immigrants particularly those of colour with racist disdain. We need look only at the Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act under which contrary to human rights Western Samoans many who came here initially at the behest of various Governments to work in unskilled menial jobs were stripped of their citizenship. Of course many members will remember more clearly than I the dawn raids of the 1970s. 
Nothing in this bill provides any protection to those applicants who may have been denied an invitation to apply because of some discriminatory view by the Immigration Service and its officials. I am not necessarily either talking about individuals but of the institutional racism that is both pervasive and hidden throughout a wide variety of institutions in this country. In the past the Greens have criticised the raising of the English language level test out of a very real concern that the test selects for native English-language speakers thereby limiting the range of countries from which immigrants are deemed eligible. There is also the real concern in this bill about immigrants being discriminated against because of their country of origin and their political social or religious beliefs. There is no protection against those concerns. The bill goes even further towards restricting the rights of applicants to appeal the decisions of the Immigration Service. 
The Greens can appreciate the drive to change the general business skills category and the problems that this legislation is intended to address but there are serious flaws that undermine the opportunity for a just and transparent process in which the New Zealand public can have confidence. We will support the bill to the select committee in order to raise these and other issues and then we will see how far we can get. 
NANAIA MAHUTA (NZ Labour—Tainui) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the first reading of the Immigration Amendment Bill which seeks to reflect the Government’s commitment to an ongoing and stable immigration programme. I commend the bill to the House. 
PANSY WONG (NZ National) 
: 
 The only cold comfort to the Hon Richard Prebble and myself is that there are MPs who are treated even worse than Opposition MPs—and they are Government back-benchers. That fact has been demonstrated by the last two Labour MPs who stood up. They know absolutely nothing about the bill and therefore had nothing to say. I know why the Labour Government decided to— 
David Benson-Pope 
: Oh! 
PANSY WONG 
: That member should take a call. The senior whip always chips away but he never takes a call to say anything worthwhile. If he has anything worthy to say we will listen to him. 
I know why the Labour Government rushed this bill which is going to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee under urgency. The bill was brought in to take all the attention away from the second piece of legislation which the Government wants to pass through all stages to legislate away the New Zealand Immigration Association’s victory. The association took the Government to court and won the case so the Government is going to legislate away the fruits of victory. This bill was introduced to take attention away from that second piece of legislation. 
The Minister wanted to tell the public that she had consulted and that all groups were happy with the bill. Well I talked to the chairman of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment and members might be interested to know how the Minister’s consultation process actually works. Last night at 7.30 the chairman of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment was rung by the manager of the New Zealand Immigration Service who asked to meet him at the airport at 3.30 p.m. the next day to discuss some general immigration policy issues. That is the type of consultation that the Labour Government finds satisfactory. I think it falls well short of what people would consider good consultation. 
I was surprised. Three years ago I thought that the Minister of Immigration enjoyed a good relationship with the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment. She promised the association that she would work with it on a partnership basis and have open dialogue. I wonder when the relationship went sour. I wonder whether it had anything to do with the fact that the association actually dared to take the Minister to court and won the case. I think the Labour Government has demonstrated that it will only look after those who never speak or vote against it. 
Of course it is well known now that Opposition MPs were briefed at 4.15 p.m.—at the same time that the Minister of Immigration was fronting up to the media conference and that the poor Associate Minister the Hon Damien O’Connor was given the hard task of explaining to the Opposition MP what this legislation was all about. I asked him a very simple question. I said: “Minister can you explain to us what you mean when you say that the Government will invite potential migrants to apply. Are you actually going to disclose in total how those migrants who end up in the pool are actually invited to apply?” He looked across to his advisors and said: “I think it is up to the discretion of the Minister and the immigration officials.” That is true. When I looked through the bill it said that the question of whether to issue or revoke such an invitation once issued was at the discretion of the Minister or subject to any special direction given under the Act. 
For once—and it is a rare occasion—I agree with the Green Party. This change will open the door to corruption. Let us make no mistake about it—this bill is opening the door for groups that would have the ear of the Labour Minister of Immigration and immigration officials because there is no transparency in the process. Who are the lucky ones who are invited to apply? I have looked through this legislation carefully. [ 
Interruption 
] If that member would stop chipping away and listen he might actually learn something. He should stop being a doormat and examine his party’s legislation. There is a serious issue at stake. This legislation opens the door to corruption. 
When I look at this bill I see that the wording used is that the legislation will be flexible and effective. Under the current immigration points system two other words appear: transparent and objective. Under the current points system the criteria are transparent and objective. Under this so-called migration policy transparency and objectivity go out the door. I challenge the members of the Green Party to vote like the National Party and vote against this first bill. They should vote against it because of the process. I think it is an absolute disgrace to introduce a bill without giving members of Parliament including Labour members themselves any notice so that they can come to grips with it. This policy will totally bury those criteria of objectivity and transparency. 
I want to ask a question because the Hon Damien O’Connor failed to answer it during the briefing session. The Hon Richard Prebble raised the issue of relevant jobs. Let us reflect on one example. If there is a need for builders one could argue that builders who might not have a tertiary education but who are on the priority list might be invited to apply. Let us consider that a builder from Britain or South Africa would be able to apply just on the priority of a relevant job offer but a builder from a non-English speaking country like China Malaysia or even India would have to pass 6.5 points of English language requirement. In 1987 the once-proud Labour Party claimed that it had legislated away immigration policy based on race. Today is a day of shame because the Labour Government has introduced legislation that states that job requirements are the top priority but boy it wants to see job applicants only from English-speaking countries. 
For generations Chinese and other ethnic communities have come here worked hard and continued to put up with Labour Ministers and MPs going to functions and saying: “You are the type of migrant we want.” In effect the Hon Chris Carter would bring along a translator to translate those welcoming speeches into Chinese—then go into the House and put up the English language requirement! National will not support race-based legislation that is lacking in transparency. 
DARREN HUGHES (NZ Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 After that speech it is not hard to see why 26 members of the National Party found it necessary to be at a caucus committee meeting somewhere else. 
I believe that this piece of legislation is a very good move on behalf of the Government to take a comprehensive look at immigration policy for the first time in about 10 years. The aim is to get some meaningful match-up between people who want to make New Zealand their home and also make sure that there is a win-win for both the migrant coming into New Zealand and what we are trying to do against the growth and innovation framework. It is a very good move and I support the bill. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
:  
During all the months that I have been in this House—almost a year again now—New Zealand First has been saying that this Government’s immigration policy is in absolute disarray and that it does not know what it is doing. We have put forward to the Government cases of corruption. We have said that the whole system needs to be reorganised and that the Minister does not know what she is doing and she ought to resign. 
This bill is clear evidence that everything we have been saying is right. All that is left is for the Minister to go. Of course one cannot get a word in when the Minister is in the House on television or anywhere. She tries to run roughshod over everybody’s right of speech. She can go elsewhere and talk over everybody else she likes but as far as New Zealand First is concerned she will not do it in this House while New Zealand First members are speaking. 
The failure that is inherent in the bill before us is the fact that the Government wants to move away from the very basic structure from a points system to an occupation-based system. Government members want to rush the bill through the House under urgency without laying it on the Table for 3 days which is usual and without members being able to have a better look at it. That is a totally unconstitutional way of handling this matter and I join with other members of Parliament who take that view. 
Of course it is a great shame but not a surprise that United Future joins the Labour Party in this way. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
DAIL JONES 
: It is no problem to me I cannot hear the member anyway because I am talking so loudly. 
As far as United Future is concerned it is disappointing that all its members did in this debate was read out speeches prepared on their behalf by someone in the spin doctor’s office and they read them very well. It took exactly 10 minutes as was planned but I do not think they fully understood what they were doing. But clearly as part of the coalition they are willing to see the New Zealand system falling apart under this dreadful Minister of Immigration. 
It does not come as a surprise of course to anyone in New Zealand to find the Labour Party introducing this legislation. We know from so much experience that the Labour Party spends tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands on getting various research polls undertaken. When Labour members see a poll that shows their policy is not right what do they do? They bring in new legislation. They bring in a bill change the policy say that they will legislate in one particular way or another and if that does not work they change their policy once more. That is what they have done here. 
It was very very clear when McCann-Erickson did the poll for the Human Rights Commission. It showed the Labour Party’s immigration policy in absolute disarray—it was an absolute failure. What did Labour members do? They had a knee-jerk reaction and brought this legislation into the House not just in an ordinary way but under urgency. It is good that the bill is going to a select committee and of course New Zealand First voted to make sure it will go to a select committee. The next bill the Immigration Amendment Bill (No. 2) will not have that luxury of course but it is good that this bill is going to a select committee. 
One of the greatest problems with this legislation will be the issue of corruption. The Green Party member said that as did the National Party speaker. Those of us who are familiar with the way in which corruption works—and I am an immigrant from Asia—know that bribing officials to have one’s case moved up the list is the classic example of corruption working. There was an instance many years ago in the land titles office in Auckland where someone tried to beat the system and have the deposit of a land title given priority. The land titles office squashed that and made sure they were done on a first come first served basis. If one tries to juggle a system by juggling people’s priorities the obvious complaint made of the Government department will be that X’s case was moved to the top of the list because X knew the Minister or even worse. 
One of the best things about being in New Zealand—and I think every immigrant to New Zealand would appreciate this especially if he or she comes from a country such as Pakistan which must be one of the most corrupt countries in the world—is that there is no corruption in New Zealand and no possibility of corruption. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Use Tuariki John Delamere’s corruption! 
DAIL JONES 
: If the Minister would repeat that statement about Tuariki John Delamere outside this House instead of hiding under parliamentary privilege which she has done up till now maybe it would be a different story. What she has done is an example of corruption in the sense that having made that statement she is hiding in the House. She will not repeat it elsewhere free from parliamentary privilege. She may well duck her head now. I have no time for what Mr Delamere is doing. But if the Minister is going to make a complaint about him she should do it free from parliamentary privilege and not hide and skulk in a select committee and try to get a cheap jibe at somebody who is only doing something that may be legal; even if it is broadly speaking referred to as a scam. 
One of the reasons New Zealand First is opposing this legislation is that it does nothing for the massive increase in immigration to New Zealand. As I said to the Minister—and I had to explain this to her more than once at the Finance and Expenditure Committee the other day—on the question of immigration to New Zealand the report in the April 2003 edition of the  
New Zealand Journal of Geography 
 prepared by very eminent professors from Waikato University made the clear point that: “In total 190000 people including international students were approved for permanent and temporary residence in the year ended June 30th  2002.” 
The Labour Minister of Immigration now bandies about the figure of 52000 as the immigration figure. But on the figures of the New Zealand Immigration Service in this report the number of people we had to bear in 2002 as people living in this country in any one year—and next year up it will go again—was 190000. Of those 63500 were admitted under temporary work policies 73800 were admitted on student visas and permits and the balance was in the immigrant category. There are more people coming into New Zealand outside the immigrant category than there are within the immigrant category. They tend to stay here and as the report states they are hardly here. 
The next section of the report states that in the year ended 30th June 2002 for example: “Almost two-thirds of New Zealand’s approvals for residence were granted to people who applied while they were in New Zealand”—part of this another 140000—“on temporary work or student visas and permits.” 
Of course on top of all of this we will have people invited here. If one starts inviting people to New Zealand does one get a little card? How does it happen? “The Honourable Minister Lianne Dalziel hereby invites you to come to New Zealand.” How do these people get chosen? Well those were the Minister’s words and those were United Future’s words. These people will be invited to New Zealand. How does it work? It is wide open to corruption. The numbers that we are concerned about are still going up. There is no suggestion on the Minister’s part that the numbers will decrease. 
We have seen from the recent Business and Economic Research Ltd report and in particular from the regional dimension—and I speak as an Auckland list member of Parliament who stood in Helensville and who has had 9 years as a constituency MP—that the regional dimension of the impact of immigrants is overwhelmingly dominated by the impact on Auckland defined as the four territorial local authorities. The overseas border counts for 34 percent of Auckland’s resident population compared with 20 percent for the whole of New Zealand. Auckland has to bear the brunt of all these immigrants. When I came back to Wellington last year and walked down Lambton Quay I felt that very little had changed. It was much the same Lambton Quay as it was in 1984. I invite those people who are in Wellington to come to Auckland and walk up and down Queen Street and they will certainly get a different view of Auckland from what it was in 1984. 
The problem is that so many people are being let into the country and they come here not knowing that they will have to face criticism. They have to bear the responsibility and blame for the excessive problems of motorways. I see that the Labour Government and its supporter Transit New Zealand has cut the grant for motorways in Auckland. The region has gone down in the list from where it was before and only three of the top 10 projects in Auckland will be worked on. We have seen a roading cut in Auckland despite the fact that immigrants overwhelmingly dominate the Auckland area. We saw on tonight’s television programme the effects of overcrowding and delays in the hospital system. In Auckland we see a never-ending delay for State houses and we get complaints that all the waiting lists are dominated by immigrants. That is very unfair on immigrants. These are people who effectively are invited here as one might say in a broad way. They come to New Zealand and then find they are blamed by political parties for the vast problems they create but these problems can be laid at the feet of this Labour Minister of Immigration. We oppose this bill. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Immigration Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 69 
Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future; 8. 
Noes 46 
New Zealand National 26; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7. 
Bill read a first time. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I move  
That the Immigration Amendment Bill be referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee and that the committee have authority to meet on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during an evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 193 and 196(1)(b) and (c) and that the committee report back to the House on or before 25 August 2003 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 69 
Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 46 
New Zealand National 26; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7. 
Motion agreed to. 
Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) 
First Reading 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I move  
That the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. 
 This bill will not be referred to a select committee as it is my intention to move its passage through all stages under urgency. This bill amends the Immigration Act to make it clear that the New Zealand Immigration Service can prioritise the order in which immigration applications are decided and it contains provisions for lapsing the lower-ranking general skills category applications that are currently awaiting decisions. This bill will help to ensure that the Government’s immigration outcome objectives are met by prioritising applicants with the best prospects of making a positive contribution to New Zealand and settling well. The provisions in this bill support and complement changes to the legislative framework for Government residence policy contained in the Immigration Amendment Bill which we have just referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. 
Global prioritisation will enable residence applicants with for example high contribution and settlement potential to be given early consideration. This will help New Zealand to maximise the outcomes that can be achieved from immigration policy in what is the interim period by prioritising on a global basis applications from those most likely to contribute to New Zealand and settle well. They will be decided first rather than those who have lodged their application in a particular branch that may have more capacity or residence approval places available. 
These provisions are needed because of the high number of general skills category residence applications that are currently on hand waiting to be decided including many applicants who are unlikely to succeed here. Many of the applicants—up to 3000 of them—are in the country at the moment. Many of them have relevant job offers under existing policy. This means that their applications for residence can be dealt with now—immediately—rather than having to wait for applications that have been in the pipeline for a very long period of time. 
The reality is that this is the section of the bill that does have retrospective impact. The retrospective impact deals with the lapsing provisions. These lapsing provisions relate to certain applications made under the general skills category that are on hand awaiting consideration. The policy itself sets out very clearly which of the applicants will in fact be lapsed. Applications made before 20 November 2002 which have low settlement and contribution potential and made by applicants with relevant job offers and high point-scores will still be considered for approval. So this is certainly not a case of disposing of all of the applications that have been received under this category. In fact it is about prioritising those that meet the intent of our immigration policy and of our skilled migration policy. It is about prioritising those with the rest being lapsed. 
High demand for residence over and above the number of places available in the New Zealand immigration programme has resulted in a queue of general skills category applications and without a mechanism to lapse some of those applications the positive impact of skilled immigration policy changes designed to improve immigration outcomes—both for New Zealand and for new migrants—would be delayed for at least 2 years. Lapsing some lower-ranking applications currently queued will enable the remainder of applications with high contribution and settlement potential to be decided as a priority. This includes those applications involving opportunities in New Zealand that are available for a limited time. For example when an employer has offered a position that must be taken up by a certain date it is important that those applications are considered quickly. 
The bill clarifies that lapsed applicants off shore will not have a right to seek a judicial review of the lapsing decision. It is common practice for access to judicial review not to be available to people who are outside the country. All lapsed applicants will receive a refund of the application fee paid and I think that people need to understand that that was the basis for the appropriation that has been made to support this legislation. Just over $9 million has been set aside for the return of application fees. 
I know that many of the lapsed applicants will be disappointed but the question that I had to ask myself was this: what is better—lapsing the application and giving applicants back the money they had paid or inviting them to travel all the way to New Zealand to find when they got here that they had nothing to offer New Zealand and New Zealand had nothing to offer them? That is the reality of the previous general skills category which gave a right to residence based on a set number of points. 
In addition the bill addresses the distinction between Government immigration policy and Government residence policy. That has arisen as a result of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment court case but does not overrule the decision of the court in terms of retrospective application. I want to be clear about that. It is a provision that is forward looking and enables me to cancel the job-search visa provisions which as a result of the High Court decision have been caught up in Government residence policy. 
Having read the Cabinet paper that guided the National Party when it introduced the policy in respect of job-search visas and the advice that I received in confirming that policy when I became the Minister I can assure the House that the use of the job-search visa for people to take up residence on the basis of unskilled and semi-skilled jobs was never intended. The Cabinet paper is explicit in that regard. Nor was it ever seen or intended to be seen as an integral part of residence policy. The ability to decline an application for a job-search visa matched temporary entry policy not Government residence policy which is why it was non-transferable and non-renewable. There was a 6-month period of an open work permit to look for the points required for residence under a system that automatically approved residence on the passing of an ever-changing level of points. It was more like a limited purpose visa because it could not be translated into anything other than the residence permit if a job offer was able to be obtained yet it has become entangled in Government residence policy. 
The bill does three things: it confirms the global prioritisation approach to considering applications it lapses those that do not meet the priority criteria and it confirms the distinction between Government immigration policy and Government residence policy. I do want to make a point in respect of those who say that they speak on behalf of immigration consultants in this country. I have just received an email from somebody who describes himself as being the director of the largest immigration firm handling migration to New Zealand or Australia from Europe. He states: “From an initial perusal of the information I can confirm that due to our company’s very strong in-house settlement and recruitment programme we foresee little effect on the majority of our clients’ overall eligibility to emigrate to New Zealand and we shall start tomorrow to incorporate the changes into our firm’s procedure and advice. Such changes to regulation and statute have little negative consequence for applicants who are in a strong position to start a new life in New Zealand. Our 25 staff in Christchurch five staff in London six staff in Amsterdam and five staff in Australia will commence work tomorrow on placing into effect the Government’s changes.” 
A number of people have spoken out in favour of the changes we are making and I can certainly tell the House that I agree with this statement: “We insist on a clean and well-defined system of immigration which is beneficial to New Zealand and New Zealanders not the kind of policy that looks at quantity and not quality. We really don’t care where the immigrants come from so long as they are able to integrate into our society be gainfully employed and contribute to economic development.” So said Mr Winston Peters and I support that. This legislation makes that happen. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (NZ National—East Coast Bays) 
: 
 The question that will be on the lips of those who have listened to the Minister’s introductory comments and also listened to the earlier debate is what is the Government trying to hide here? What is the Government trying to pull the wool over the eyes of Parliament and the public about with this measure? As I said in relation to the earlier bill this is not a measure that has been paraded with great fanfare by the Prime Minister and other Ministers through the normal routes prior to it coming to the House. This is a measure that the Government has snuck into the House under urgency and that it now expects the House to deal with through all stages. I ask the Minister what the justification for that urgency for all stages of this bill was in her speech. There was none. What we got was a decent load of political flannel from a Minister who is essentially trying to do a retrospective tidying-up after many months of neglect and incompetence in the management of her portfolio. [ 
Interruption 
] The chief Government whip might well say why he was complicit in this cover-up as well. He was the one who was trying to shepherd politicians from other political parties to go to some trumped-up briefing being held by officials from the Immigration Service over in the Minister’s suite this afternoon. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: They never asked us. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: They did not invite Mr Peters? That was a very serious oversight. Mr Benson-Pope should take note that the Rt Hon Winston Peters should be on his invitation list next time he is going to hold a briefing of this sort. 
I want to say to that chief Government whip—who is a smart alec beyond all smart alecs in the House—that that member had better get used to the fact that if he is going to try those sorts of cheap political tricks as he introduces legislation into this House under urgency expecting it to go through all stages he will find he will have to work a lot harder for his money than he has so far. 
The concern I have about this legislation is that it is fundamentally challenging the expectations that people are entitled to have when they do a deal with the New Zealand Government and the Minister did not give us good and sufficient reason—and she has plenty more stages of the bill to go through to try to earn her keep—for the retrospective legislation that is currently before the House. 
I want to put it to the House that it is pretty simple. The Minister had some months. She had a briefing document when she was appointed Minister she was given some advice by her officials she had plenty of opportunity to change the criteria at that stage and she did nothing. She did nothing and much later in the piece—I give credit to Mr Peters here; one might regard his motives as good or bad but he put the blowtorch on her—the Minister engaged in a panic reaction. I have seen the paperwork that went to the Cabinet which she delayed releasing under the Official Information Act as long as she possibly could. It demonstrated that there was not a good and proper analysis and a good and proper process around the changes that were made. It showed me quite clearly that it was simply a panic reaction because Mr Peters put the blowtorch on her. 
Whether Mr Peters was right or wrong I say to the Minister that it was quite wrong for her to embark on major changes to the immigration policy of New Zealand affecting the future make-up of our country our growth prospects and everything else on the basis of a knee-jerk panic reaction. And now we have a Minister who was taken to the High Court by one of the interested groups involved and had Justice Randerson deliver a judgment of some 64 pages which I have had a look at. I refer the Minister in particular to page 31 in which he basically says the Minister had no legal authority for what she did. Not only was she engaging in a panic political reaction because Mr Peters put the blowtorch on her but also she got it wrong in law. She did not actually do her homework about what her legal authority was and she did not take any decent advice. Members just have to read page 31 of Justice Randerson’s judgment to see that. 
The Minister thought “Oh well there is a bit of a problem here.” so she announced on 17 June 2003 that she was going to appeal this case to the Court of Appeal. 
 I have a copy of that press release here which states: “Government to appeal immigration case”. The Minister called a press conference put out a press statement and told the nation’s media and the public that Justice Randerson was wrong and that the Government was going along to the Court of Appeal which would put it right. The Court of Appeal would prove the Government and the Minister right. Today under cover of urgency and a last-minute briefing of some political parties—but not others—we have a bill introduced to the House that is designed to do what Justice Randerson would not do in the High Court and what the Court of Appeal most assuredly would not have done on the basis of the shonky case that that Minister would have taken to the Court of Appeal. 
I say to members of the public who are tuned in to this and those who are interested in immigration policy generally that we should cut through the political flannel and all the weasel words of the Minister in charge of the bill Lianne Dalziel and just focus on a couple of things here. The Minister has engaged in an accumulating series of political bungles. She finally got caught out and had to make some retrospective changes and finally had the High Court say that she could not do legally what she wanted to do. She said that she would appeal to the Court of Appeal and now knows that she has not got a hope in hell of winning in that court so she is here tonight asking nicely whether Parliament will kindly pass this bill through all its stages under urgency. I say to the Minister that that is sheer cheek and if she had any good faith in this matter she would have approached the Opposition parties and told us that she knew she had made a mess but New Zealand would suffer unless we do something to tidy up the mistakes she had made and that she was asking for our indulgence. 
If she had done that I would have had a look at it. I am sure Mr Peters if he had been invited to the briefing and if he had had an opportunity to indulge the Minister in that way would have given it very careful and thoughtful consideration; and that Mr Prebble who is known as one of the most reasonable members of the House and a man who brings a fine legal mind to these matters would have weighed up the political embarrassment of the Minister on the one hand and the need to tidy up the affairs of New Zealand’s important immigration policy on the other. I am sure that sheer sweet reason would have appealed to his judgment in this matter as well. 
But that is not what the Minister has done. The Minister has gone along behind closed doors and done some shabby little deal with the United Future party which has somehow managed to find its way to the presiding officers of Parliament but nowhere else. That party is now being cut in on the Government’s speaking time on this legislation under urgency while we shamelessly try to rectify the foolish mistakes that this Minister has made. 
I say to United Future that this will not be forgotten if those members want to cooperate with such a stupid shameless exercise in covering up for the incompetence of that Minister. This is a measure that that Minister will need to justify clause by clause to the House and to the Committee of the whole House as she insists on taking this legislation through all its stages over the next day or two. 
I say that these are important matters of principle. The principle of not passing retrospective legislation is an important one. It is overridden by Parliament from time to time for good reasons and the Minister needs to front up with those reasons. If she wants to plead good reason on this occasion she also needs to apologise. She needs to come clean with the House about the mistakes and the foolish errors she made that got her ruled against by the High Court. She needs to apologise for telling the country the media and Parliament on 17 June that she had a solution to her woes that was to be found in the Court of Appeal and that she has now had some advice that proves that that is not the case. I say that that Minister will have to do a good deal better if she wants us to pass over that principle of not passing retrospective legislation on this occasion. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I was becoming a little worried after my last speech when Winston Peters climbed into me so I thought I had better check New Zealand First’s immigration policy. I was most surprised when I saw that it states: “To give greater priority to immigrants who have the skills and qualifications necessary to further regional economic and social goals.” I thought that was what we were doing here: developing a population policy that integrates immigration policy and economic policy. Here I am a poor new MP getting climbed into and wondering what the problem is here. Winston Peters complains that the current immigration policy is not working. I thought that if something did not work we were supposed to fix it. Winston Peters admitted in the debate on the first reading of the Immigration Amendment Bill that we need to bring in skilled migrants to meet the needs of the country. I agree with that; I am short of mechanics myself. 
The first thing tonight about the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) is that it must be viewed in conjunction with the Immigration Amendment Bill that we debated earlier today. This bill is the first practical stage in the Government’s new policy for skilled migrants. The bill covers two groups of migrants. To start with the bill aims to prioritise the general skills category applications that are currently in the system of which there are about 20000 representing approximately 46000 people. As soon as the bill is passed those with a job offer relevant to their skills or with high points will be prioritised in the queue. The applications currently in the system of those who do not have a relevant job offer or sufficient points will lapse and their fee will be refunded. That will not affect those who already have a job search visa or those whose residence decision is imminent although the Immigration Service will no longer invite people to apply for a job search visa in order to get a relevant offer of employment in New Zealand. 
The current backlog represents almost 2 years of potential approvals under the general skills category and although many of those applications meet the minimum points requirement only 57 percent had relevant job offers in the last year. Many of those who have applied are already in New Zealand on work permits or came here to look for work before they applied. I underline the point that people will still be free to do that. In fact their experience in New Zealand would count in their favour should they subsequently receive a job offer and apply for residency. I see that Mr Peters is now starting to recognise how great this bill is. Sixty-two percent of the principal applicants approved for residence in 2002-03 have previously held a student work or visitor permit at some stage. 
The bill is also intended to manage the number of general skills applications that the Immigration Service is bound to receive between the introduction of the bill today and the implementation of the new policy. Every time immigration policy changes a flood of applications is immediately lodged in an effort to be considered under the old policy before the new one comes into full effect. From 1 July principal applicants must have a job offer relevant to their skills or qualifications. That is entirely consistent with the intent of the Immigration Amendment Bill we debated earlier and ensures that everyone will be treated in the same way. It is also the reason that this bill must go through all stages today: to stop one group of applicants from using the window of opportunity presented by the normal legislative process to submit their applications under the old rules. 
This bill is about prioritisation but the side effect of that will be to let the applications of those who do not have a job offer lapse. The Immigration Service cannot take the top candidates at the bottom of the pile without letting lapse the applications of those who have no immediate prospect of getting a job. We do not want to miss out on the opportunity to bring in qualified and experienced migrants who already have a skilled job to come to. The number of applications on hand has to be managed so that there is no danger of exceeding the places available in the programme. Expressions of interest will lapse on a regular basis—probably quarterly—to ensure that the pool of applicants does not become a queue. 
Previous speakers have already argued against the rapid nature of this change and the introduction of these two bills under urgency but it must be remembered that the Immigration Amendment Bill has passed its first reading only. It will go through the normal select committee process at the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee and there will be further opportunities to debate it in the House. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: No it will not. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: That is correct. As for the interim bill that we are currently debating— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: It is not going to a select committee. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: As for the interim bill we are currently debating I say to Mr Peters given its alignment with the primary bill I think the experience of the next few months will greatly inform the select committee about how the shift in policy will work in practice. For example the select committee may want to look at whether the idea of lapsing unsuccessful applicants after 3 months is workable and fair. 
Another point to reiterate is that there will be no significant change in the number of people who gain residency here. There is essentially a new filter in the application process because the Government is inviting people to apply. But only the number of applications provided for in the New Zealand Immigration Programme will be considered. That number remains at 45000 with 60 percent of it set aside for skilled migrants and that will continue for the next 3 years. If anything the approval process should be much faster than it is now but the total number will remain stable and predictable. 
To conclude this bill prioritises those currently on the list who already have job offers rather than those who do not have a job and could end up on the dole. I think that most New Zealanders would find that pretty hard to argue against but I guess we will find out shortly whether that is the case. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 That was a very interesting speech—I thought so when the member made the same speech on the other bill before teatime and I still think so but it was on the wrong bill. I tell Mr Adams that the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) is not going to a select committee; it will be rammed through all its stages tonight with United Future’s help. Here we are in the dead of night with no forewarning at all—no notice whatsoever—with the Government ramming retrospective legislation through this House without any recourse whatsoever to a select committee or to the public of this country. Mr Adams and—[ 
Interruption 
] What are they called? United Future members? I thought they were called lapdogs but let us not mind that. The United Future party will back this bill. 
Did anybody see the  
Holmes 
 show tonight? What a joke it was. There was bluster bluff and blarney with everybody trying to talk over everybody else and Mr Milnes said we have had 15 months of mess. Those are not my words or the words of New Zealand First but the words of an immigration expert. Then came the big you-know-what—then came the big porky. 
David Benson-Pope 
: Porky isn’t here. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I am talking about another porky not the member. The reality is this— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The word “porky” has been ruled out of order by Mr Speaker. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: OK. Then came another you-know-what meaning that what was said was at variance with the truth. The interviewer asked the Minister whether she was bringing in this bill because she had lost a court case and do members know what the Minister said? On national television she said no when everybody here in this House knows that this bill is here because she lost the court case. She said in mid-June that she would go to a higher court and appeal the decision. Then of course somebody with decent qualifications came along and told the Minister her understanding of the law was slightly wrong and she would waste the taxpayers’ money if she went to the Court of Appeal or the Privy Council. The Minister was told that she would lose all the way. That is why we have this retrospective bill—and this comes from the party that went around saying New Zealand First was a terrible party because it was saying awful things about immigrants. 
I will tell the Government what New Zealand First would not do: we would not go and take away people’s legal rights—that is the first thing we would not do—unlike the embarrassed Minister. [ 
Interruption 
] I tell her that there is no use in getting nervous with that high-pitched laugh. It states in the explanatory note of the bill that clause 5 “ensures that past prioritisation of the processing of applications for visas and permits cannot be challenged in the courts.”—she hopes! The Minister has no idea but she hopes that it cannot be challenged in the courts. How many Ministers of Immigration have been along to the High Court in such a spectacular way? Then she became vindictive and retrospectively moved against not one but 20000 people of whom she had said she was the great defender. And 20000 is a stab in the dark as well. Now she has the classic provision whereby she will have decisions made by her discretion or by that of an appropriately delegated immigration or visa officer. If ever I saw an invitation for corruption to occur that is it. 
Do members know what clause 3 of the bill states? Members will love that clause. It states that in no circumstances does a decision on the issue or grant of a temporary or a limited purpose visa or permit constitute a decision under Government residence policy. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: That is right. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: That is what she says. I ask the Minister why if this is the way it should be she did not tell us 2 years ago that we would have 45000 people coming here—and 2 months ago it was 72800. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: It was not 72800. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes it was and there is no use in getting hysterical about that because the figures are all out there from the Department of Statistics. They were gleaned by a professor from Waikato University and no one has disputed them before. 
My real question is to the Maori members—those tigers on the marae. 
Pansy Wong 
: Where? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: That is a good question. They are always talking tino rangatiratanga and say the party listens to the Maori caucus. They have a Minister and a party that is bringing in more people from Asia than the Maori population in the next 10 years alone. The Government will bring in more Asians than the Maori population which has been here for 1000 years in just 10 years and those Maori members over there on the Government benches will back that. So I ask them please not to talk to me about tino rangatiratanga and the foreshore and land rights when they know full well that if they go to Cockle Bay today they will not get one cockle whatsoever. 
Dail Jones 
: What do they call the beach? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Do members know what it is called now? It used to be called Cockle Beach but is now called “China Beach”. At one time we could all go down to get a feed of cockles at any time but now we cannot get one. 
Meanwhile what is Mr Tamihere—who by his own definition is a giant in the Maori world—doing about the situation? He says: “Yes Helen yes Helen three bags full.” or “How high do you want me to jump?” and then he goes public in the newspapers and writes an article. But when the heat goes on we do not have a warrior; we have a worrier. Mr Tamihere is really powerful on the marae but when he gets inside the Cabinet room and Helen has a word to him he begins to understand what people say about those men who hide behind the skirts of women. 
Hon John Tamihere 
: Are you jealous? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No no. I do not think that someone who is prepared to see the Maori population superseded by immigrants not once but twice within 20 years is doing anything for Maoridom for this country for Auckland or for our hospitals our schools our jobs or our welfare system. 
The Minister in charge of social services and employment was asked how many immigrants are on the sickness benefit the unemployment benefit the student allowance and the subsidised work schemes. Other Ministers were asked how many immigrants are accessing our education services health services accident compensation and State housing and at what cost. Do members know what the Ministers said? They said they could not tell me because they do not keep those figures. Yet they keep on going around the country saying that immigration is good for New Zealand. That is as shallow and superficial as it ever gets. Those Ministers have no idea why immigration is good but apparently it is like Epsom salts—if a person takes it that will somehow be good for him or her. It tastes like crap but we are told it will be good for us. That is the problem. 
Steve Chadwick 
: That’s a bit old-fashioned. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I want to ask “Stevie Nicks” from Rotorua this simple question: how many people in Rotorua support this policy? There is not a word a syllable a mutter or a sound now. 
Do members know what happened? The party over there in Government—the “finger in the wind” party—that does everything on the basis of the polls and the views of its focus groups found out in the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 that its contention that immigration was good for New Zealanders and was supported by them was wrong. The  
Sunday Star-Times  
pointed out that less than 16 percent of New Zealanders supports the Government’s policy. That is panic station - time for that party. Those members know full well that in the last pre-election campaign we promised three things and we will fix them up. First of all we will fix the Minister. We will make sure that on this policy we fix her good and proper. We will fix her mind so that she understands what is going on. I hear those Labour members over there on the Government side of the House cheering—members like the senior Government whip. How did he get that job? It must have been in a raffle because it cannot be on the basis of talent leadership ability or respect as some sort of leader in the caucus. 
One of the reasons that Labour will lose the 2005 election—or whenever it flies the white flag—is that it has a totally stupid fatalist immigration policy. That is a fact. There are other reasons as well. But Labour will lose when the crunch goes on as it did in the last campaign and Labour went down 14 percent in 4 weeks flat. If the New Zealand media got off its backside and was halfway towards being impartial Labour would go down by twice that figure because the media knows the Labour Party’s support is as soft as hell on this issue. I warn Labour to draw back now before it is too late. 
GEORGINA BEYER (NZ Labour—Wairarapa) 
: 
 I rise to take a brief call in support of the first reading of this bill. One can be surprised that Mr Peters supports the consideration of over 10000 applications even when we know they are from people who will not get proposed or skilled jobs. The bill enables the lapsing of applications so that we can protect those skilled applicants who have offers of skilled jobs and who will do very well here. May I just finally add as a parting comment that with the collective IQ of the Labour caucus we know having tested the nation that we are right. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I must have been terribly busy but that speech went by so fast I want an extension of time. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is not a point of order. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I want to move an extension of time. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No the member cannot do that. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes I can. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No I am sorry Mr Peters. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I seek leave to move an extension of time. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member cannot seek leave on behalf of someone else. There is a Speaker’s ruling and a Standing Order as well. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask that you pause and reflect on what you just said. It is my understanding that any member can seek leave for anything. The decision is then placed in the hands of the House. The Rt Hon Winston Peters sought the leave of the House to move for an extension of time. My understanding of the Standing Orders is that you are required to put that leave. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 1/5 and Speaker’s ruling 1/1 (Supplement). A member cannot actually seek leave for someone else. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT NZ) 
: 
 I say to the member who has just made a contribution that she was obliged to give the House a decent speech on this matter. We are debating a very serious matter. This bill is being passed under urgency and therefore cannot be referred to the public. 
The bill does two things. It not only lapses applications as the member said—and I will come back to that later—but also overturns a High Court decision. That High Court decision was not an idle one. It was made by Justice Randerson. I have a copy of it. Members can get it from the library. I would like to think that Labour Party members all got a copy of it before they decided to agree with the Minister cavalierly telling us that a High Court judge is wrong. I found that extremely arrogant. The judge made a 60-page decision which the Minister publicly said she would take to the Court of Appeal and now has decided not to. I ask whether United Future members have read that decision. Before United Future decided to allow this Parliament to overturn a court decision did anyone of its members read the decision? 
An Hon Member 
: No! 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: No they did not. 
Ron Mark 
: They’re just poodles. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: They are absolute poodles. This bill not only overturns that decision but also does something else that this House never does. When we decide to change the law we normally say that those who have had their day in court will not have the fruits of their victory taken away from them. In this case the Government has decided to do that as well. What does that say about the rule of law? I know that the Government is suddenly going in for doing that and saying to people that they cannot bring property claims any more. In this case the Government has picked on a group of people who have hired lawyers gone to court and found out that they were right. This Government has not only changed the law but also has said that those people who went to court are to have their rights taken away. I can see why the Minister wants to do that under urgency. There is such a thing as fair play and a having fair go but the Government has taken no notice of either of those. Since when has the law been as the Minister told us: “Oh I’ve got a Cabinet paper that says I meant it to be something different.”? That is not the law of the land. Police States do that sort of thing. It is the statutes passed by this House that count. 
Members should know what this case is all about. I will read from the judgment: It starts off: “With effect from midnight on 19 November 2002 the Minister of Immigration introduced significant changes to immigration policy under the Immigration Act 1987. For present purposes the relevant changes fall into two broad categories. First for people applying for residence in the general skills category there was a tightening of the English language standard and for those who later made an associated application for a job search visa there was a requirement that the applicant have qualifications to obtain employment in New Zealand in an area of occupational shortage.” The applicants went to court and said: “I’ve come to New Zealand. I’m seeking a job. Basically I did it under a contract from the Government that if I found a job offer I would have a job made available to me.” This Government is saying to that group of people—people who have spent many times their life savings—that we will overturn that decision. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Not one in New Zealand. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: I see. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Not of the ones who were seeking job search visas. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: None of those are in New Zealand. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: The 20000 in New Zealand will get residence. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: They will get residence? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Yes they will. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Then why is the Minister passing this legislation? Who are the people affected? [ 
Interruption 
] I asked the Minister a straight-out question under urgency. She has interrupted me. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I’ve already answered it. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: She has already answered it. If we are allowed to have a media press conference and be prepared to go out and talk to every group in the country about the bill why can the Minister not talk to an elected member of Parliament? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: The member should do his homework. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Now I am told to do my homework. I was only told about this bill at 4.15 p.m. today. In fact I went to three different offices in the building to try to find out where the briefing was. Mr Peters did not even find it. The Minister did not even tell him. Now I am trying to ask her questions across the House. 
I ask United Future members who support this bill what sort of legislative procedure this is. I did do some homework. I had a look at this decision and on page 31 I read the statement by the judge. It seemed to me to be pretty straightforward. He said that the purpose of section C was undoubtedly to give an applicant and his family or her family an assurance that their residence application would be processed on the basis of policies existing at the date of their application. That is what he said the law is. I asked the Minister where her moral authority is to change that decision. She said her moral authority is that her statement of the law is correct. If that is so the Minister should go to the Court of Appeal. She should have the Court of Appeal uphold her. We all know that her own legal advisers have told her that when she made her decision at midnight on 19 November she was wrong. She was wrong legally and she has stripped away those peoples’ rights. She now tells us not to worry about those people as they are not in New Zealand. Well I say to the Minister what about the honour and integrity of New Zealand? What about the honour and integrity of the New Zealand Government? 
This Government accepted money. It accepted people’s applications. People put their lives on hold to come to this country thinking that this was a Government that was committed to the rule of law and that the United Future party was bringing decency into public life that they were going to do their research and that they would not be doormats. Those people thought they would be able to come to a land of opportunity. Instead they found that we have a Minister of Immigration who is prepared under urgency to try to get what she cannot get in the courts and then go one stage further and take away from them—from people who do believe in the rule of law—the benefits of their court victory. 
Maybe we have done that before. I do not know. I ask Mr Peters whether he can remember when we have reversed a court case and taken the victory away from those who had won. I cannot think of one. Perhaps members opposite who have done their research can think of a case where the New Zealand Parliament has not only reversed a case but also then taken away the victory of those who went to court. If members opposite can think of such a case—I am sure they debated it in their caucus—then when was it? When did it happen? When have we had a Government that has acted in this way? Or do they say that it does not matter as none of them are voters? That appears to be the standard Ms Dalziel is following. 
I say to the House that this is an outrage. It is absolutely wrong. It is an abuse of our powers. We do not have a written constitution. We depend upon members of Parliament to uphold what is right and decent. We depend upon people like the last speaker to read the bill and to decide to do justice and to do justice to everyone—not just to New Zealand citizens but to people who trusted this Government and who trusted New Zealand enough to give us some money fill out application forms and put their lives on hold to come here only to be treated by the Labour Party and the United Future party in this contemptible fashion. I will vote against this measure. 
STEVE CHADWICK (NZ Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 This is a technical bill that I am proud to support. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. We have the  
Hansard 
 record but I could not hear that speech because of the degree of laughter around me at the time. I wonder whether the member could repeat her speech. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I said that I could not hear the member’s speech because of the noise in the House. That is a point of order with respect. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member’s speech was able to be heard. 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 The Greens have some sympathy for the Immigration Service and the difficulties it faces with the backlog of applications—20000 applications which will take 2 years to process is a very sorry state indeed. Clearly the measures that the Government has taken to attempt to deal with them have not been sufficient. 
The Greens will certainly not be supporting this bill because we do not support a bill that arbitrarily deprives people of their just process. We accept that applicants who apply for residency in this country through various processes do have a limited expectation. A country must retain the ability to make policy appropriate in the circumstances surrounding immigration but surely not in such a way as to eliminate completely a just process—to take that process from those who in good faith have met the Government’s requirements and have been waiting some for up to 2 years for their application to proceed. 
We could consider supporting this bill if it were the case that the backlog—that is those applications that have been lodged up until today—was dealt with under the old rules as set out by the High Court which are the rules that applied at the time the application was made and that any application lodged as of today was to be dealt with under any new rules that arise out of the select committee process in relation to the later bill. That would ensure a just process for those already in the system but would also avoid a rush of applications that could undermine the efficacy of the new set of rules that is likely to come into force at some point. But the bill does not do this. Instead applicants who have met the Government’s requirements paid their money and have waited and waited will be punished because the Government could not provide the resources to enable the Immigration Service to deal with applications in a timely fashion. 
This bill is a breach of natural justice. Applicants should not be arbitrarily deprived of a just process. The bill overrides a decision of the court depriving those people of their right to access and to receive justice in that forum. The process by which this House is dealing with this bill is a disgrace and the Greens will oppose it. 
LYNNE PILLAY (NZ Labour—Waitakere) 
: 
 I rise in support of the bill. It is yet another example of the common-sense approach of this Government. I am proud to support it. 
PANSY WONG (NZ National) 
: 
 This is getting bizarre. We have Labour back-benchers. At least the Labour Maori caucus will take a stand. The other Labour back-benchers simply fall over. Why can they not just admit that they do not receive briefings from their Minister? Why do they just stand and say nothing? It is embarrassing. I could not understand why the Rt Hon Winston Peters was not happy this evening. At least Mr Paul Adams of United Future came out at long last and admitted that Labour and United Future have been studying New Zealand First’s immigration policy. Therefore they were doing quite well in copying New Zealand First’s immigration policy yet obviously they still fall far short. I can look forward to a lot more legislation coming from Labour and United Future modelled on New Zealand First’s immigration policy. At least we got that much truth out of this need for the House to sit under urgency. If it were not such a serious issue it would be almost quite comical. 
There are two parts to this legislation. I was saddened to hear Mr Paul Adams of United Future and of Christian beliefs say that the applications of 10000 people lapsed but that it is better for them even though they paid the money. They were led down the garden path. Why not? How Christian can one be? It is just 10000 people. Hey who cares? What is the big deal? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: They get the money back. 
PANSY WONG 
: The Minister says their money is refunded. They have been waiting for 2 years putting their life on hold. But she says: “Big deal the people get the fees back.” Let me tease out some logic in the debate from this Minister of Immigration and Mr Paul Adams. They stood up just now on the Immigration Amendment Bill and said that immigration was good and that there is a research paper that shows there is a $1.7 billion net benefit so why complain? They also talked about wanting potential migrants who would contribute. What happened to the resources to process those migrants in the pool? 
There is another point that the Minister of Immigration may want to answer. It is quite interesting. She lowered the passing mark just at the beginning of this year from 30 to 29 and then she complained that there is a growing list of people wanting to come to New Zealand. The Labour Government needs to come clean and accept that it has simply lost the plot. The Minister was never on top of her job. At least we were told by Prime Minister Helen Clark and by Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen that the only reason the Minister of Immigration should keep her job is that at least she is a hard-working Minister—not competent but hard-working. Now we know she is not even hard-working. There is a 2½ year backlog of applications. How can that Minister be described as hard-working? At least the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister come out with this truth. They say that they know the Minister of Immigration is not competent but she is hard-working. Now we know that even that was not true. 
The second part is about overriding a court case. On page 33 of the judgment the judge says that he is satisfied that the immigration policy effective from 20 November 2002 is invalid because of a breach of section 13C of the Immigration Act. The judgment is very clear. Let us spare a thought for the plaintiff that brought the case to court. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Who was it? 
PANSY WONG 
: The New Zealand Association for Migration and Investments Incorporated. It spent $100000. It used to be mates with the Minister of Immigration. Members can see how fast the Labour Government can get upset. Just now the Minister was reading out an immigration consultant’s letter and because the consultant praises the Minister it is the good guy. If one challenges the Labour Government boy one will get it. 
The immigration association spent $100000 and obviously the Minister of Immigration spent the same amount of taxpayers’ money—wasted—to defend a case that if she had worked hard and sought good advice could have avoided that legal fee being funded by taxpayers. Then she bluffed to the public and said that the judge was wrong and she would appeal. Tonight I think it has been proved categorically that the judgment delivered was correct. What did the Government do? It rushed through legislation in the middle of the night that totally went against the principle that people who won their case should keep the fruits of victory. 
I thought that the Minister of Immigration wanting the cooperation of the Opposition parties could learn to be a bit humble and modest and at least accept that she got it wrong. We will never get that from an arrogant Minster and an arrogant Government. She will not get any cooperation. We will ask all the hard questions and she had better be prepared to come up with some good answers. She should not hide away. She did not come to the briefing session with the Opposition MPs. Instead she fronted up to Television One but she did not talk about this legislation. She talked only about the legislation that was going to a select committee. She did not mention this bill but was caught out by people reminding her of the court case. 
Why is the Minister rushing through this legislation? She built into the legislation the discretionary power to lapse of immigration applications. She has the legislative power to impose that measure any time. There was really no reason for her to try to rush through the first part of this legislation. That is the only way that we can assess her desire to legislate away a victory by the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investments Incorporated. If that is the only good question a Deputy Prime Minister can ask we are a bit concerned. I wish the Deputy Prime Minister were in charge of the Immigration Service. I bet he would do a slightly better job. It would not be much better but it would be slightly better. 
The sad part is that in the last term of the Labour Government the Government sent the Immigration Service to India and all sorts of places to encourage people to apply to migrate to New Zealand. When people listened and accepted that there might be a welcome mat in New Zealand what did the Government do? On 19 November 2002 at 12 a.m. it brought in legislation changed the rules and pulled the mat from under their feet. Then when it lost a case it got even worse. It rushed through legislation and tried to bluff by saying it would appeal the court case. Yet it has tried to abuse the process of Parliament by not briefing Opposition MPs properly by not letting the public have a say by not going through the select committee process. I think that tonight is a very very sad day for principles. There has been a lack of transparency and abuse of process. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 It is appropriate that one of the other immigrants in this House also gets to speak in this debate. I could never understand why the National Party gets so worked up on immigration but of course we raised the level for the English language test. Suddenly it struck me that if National Party members had to sit the English-language test over half of them would have to leave the country. They would certainly be led by Dr Nick Smith who has only a passing acquaintance with the English language and is now known on this side of the House as the “Eternal Corporal”. 
I shall take the member who has just spoken through the issue of fruits of litigation. It is a bit rich from a party that abolished area health boards overnight under urgency with nobody knowing what was coming; a bit rich from a party that passed legislation in relation to the Whangarei dispute in 1984; and a bit rich from a party that got the Clyde Dam built only because it overrode litigation that had succeeded against that measure. But never mind that the member has not been here long enough to know the history of her own party is all one can assume from the kind of speech she gives in this House. 
She says that it is wrong to take away the fruits of litigation. Who litigated in this case? It was the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investments Incorporated a highly worthy group of people some of who are somewhat less worthy than others it has to be said to be fair. There are some fairly dodgy characters around there drawn from former members of Parliament of the least worthy variety in many instances. However in legislating tonight what single immigrant has lost the fruit of his or her litigation? This is not like the Western Samoan Citizenship Act where there was a litigant whose rights had to be preserved. There is not a single litigant who is affected by this legislation who was a litigant in the case. The litigants are the people who make the money out of the business of immigration. All the bill does is restore what successive Governments had assumed to be the policy that some judge decided was not. 
At some point under our system we have to assert parliamentary sovereignty against judicial activism. We have heard from members opposite that we should not have a Supreme Court in New Zealand because we might have judicial activism. But lo and behold when they are faced with an occasional Tory on the High Court bench waking up long enough to be active they say: “Oh we must abide by that. It would be totally wrong for Her Majesty’s sovereign Parliament; the Crown in Parliament to decide what the policy should be.” I tell Ms Wong that that is what Parliament is for. That is what she does in the 3 days 32 weeks a year that she works as a back-bench Opposition list MP. What she gets paid roughly a thousand bucks a day to do in this particular Chamber is in the end to decide what the policy is. I know that it is hard work I know that it is tough and I know that she has to take responsibility for it but hard cheese some day who knows eventually in 15 years’ time she might even have to do it from this side of the House but do not bet on that after the way things went this afternoon with the Leader of the Opposition. I think would be better to stick to Sheba rather than Solomon going by the speech he gave this afternoon. 
I come back to the first part of the bill and I shall read what it says in the note: “By prioritising on a global basis applications from those most likely to contribute to New Zealand and settle well in New Zealand will be decided first rather than those who have lodged their application in a particular branch that may have more capacity or residence approval places available.” What does the member not understand about that? What does the member disagree with that about? Or does she think we should decide basically on the basis of which office had the most places available and what the queuing was at that point rather than on who is best suited to come to this country? What other country in the world would not assert its sovereign right to decide immigration on that basis? 
Ron Mark 
: New Zealand until today. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: It is all very well for Mr Mark. He did not have to apply to get into New Zealand. He was born here and unfortunately we are stuck with him. But some of us actually have to get into the country and we understand that those who do get chosen. Some of those who are here unfortunately we would prefer to get rid of if we could but nobody else would take them. I mean we have tried to sell New Zealand First as a job lot but nobody else in the world wanted to take it. Jorg Haider said: “I’ve already got that lot.” and Mr Le Penn said: “They’re a bunch of woolly-woofter sickly white liberals as far as I’m concerned.” So they were not very interested in New Zealand First. 
This bill is a good bill. It is a necessary bill and I have not yet heard a single argument from the serried ranks of National—all three of them. They have failed to put up a central argument yet against the bill. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 The deputy leader of the Labour Party is going to be terribly embarrassed because in this particular case the Government actually did decide its policy. The Government had a policy and the judge made the point that it did not carry it out properly. That was the fault of the case. The policy was there; it was clear but it was not administered properly. That is why we keep on saying that this Minister of Immigration must go. She does not know how to do her job. That is what it is all about. 
Mr Cullen has not understood the court case. Obviously he was not at the briefing and has not been in touch with the Minister of Immigration. He has not understood this bill. As Pansy Wong said we know what the Government’s policy was. It was clear and everyone lodged their applications based on the Government’s policy. All of those 20000 people whether they were from Taiwan China or goodness knows where were abused in an insulting way by this minority Labour Government in terms of their command of the English language. They filled out their applications properly using good English. They were carrying out the Government’s policy decisions just as the Labour Party absolutely messed it up. That is all that Justice Randerson was saying—that the Government did not do its job properly. The Government had all those cases that it was very embarrassed about. So what did it do? It decided it was not happy with the decision the High Court judge made and would break every constitutional precept by repealing it by legislation. Have we not heard that somewhere before? This time it is doing it. One just wonders what it is doing in the back rooms even today. What do the Maori members have to say about that? One just wonders what is going on behind closed doors. 
The deputy leader of the Labour Party Dr Michael Cullen would have assessed the situation as a history professor and in that fashion he got it wrong. But looking at it from a legal viewpoint Murray McCully in the very early party of this debate made the position clear as in her lucid fashion did Pansy Wong. We all understood her so clearly. She and I get on very well these days. One has to be very careful. We got close on the Business Law Reform Bill and we are getting close on this bill as well. Someone is going to start talking soon. I cannot always understand what she says which is perhaps a shame—or good for her I am never quite sure. But Pansy Wong was lucid on this bill she was clear and she got it right. It is just that Dr Michael Cullen got it absolutely wrong. The Labour Party was trying to carry its policy out but it did so ineffectually and badly. That is why New Zealand First has said time and time again that this Minister must go. 
What do we have here that is being rushed through under urgency? The whole situation is confused by there being two immigration bills one of which is to go to the select committee. As we all know with the first bill the Government is giving itself wide powers to do virtually what it likes. It is going to the select committee but it contains nothing specific. The Government talked about how it would use the first bill but it contains nothing specific. All we know about the Labour Party policy is what the geography professors at Waikato University indicated which is that to the year ended 2002 190000 people came into New Zealand as a result of Labour Party policies. Only 52000 of those migrated in the normal way; 75000 were students; and another 65000 or so were people looking for work permits. I presume that those 65000 would have been part of this potential group. The Labour Party has abused the plaintiffs in this action because it seems that all the applicants were overseas. Just because they were not in New Zealand the Labour Party has derided them making snide remarks about the fact that they were overseas. What does that do for New Zealand’s status in East Asia? What does it do for New Zealand and China? What does it do for New Zealand and Taiwan? 
At the last election New Zealand First said that far too many people were coming into New Zealand and now we discover that in the year ended 2002 190000 came here as immigrants one way or another. On almost the first day I was in Parliament which was in September last year there were cries about New Zealand First being racist. What do we have here today? We have a Labour Party that is denying about 46000 applicants—the figure seems to be somewhat confused but it is 20000 plus—the right they had and that the High Court judge said they had to apply to come to New Zealand. Is there something about those people that the Labour Party did not like? Is it the great example of the pot calling the kettle black? That seems to be what it boils down to. 
I get very disturbed and I think that all of us in New Zealand First are very annoyed that we should have borne all that criticism and now we are being proved right about the number of people coming into New Zealand about the pressure that is being placed on the northern and Auckland motorways about the fact that Auckland is falling further and further behind with its roading problems under this Labour Government and about the hospitals the schools and the like. Despite the fact that the Labour Government is cancelling these applications it still maintains that it is bringing in 55000 people although we know from the figures that that number is really 190000—and those are not New Zealand First figures; they are the figures of the professors of geography at Waikato University based on the statistics of the New Zealand Immigration Service. 
I remind the Minister of the question she was asked by the television interviewer this evening. As I recall it she was asked: “You’re bringing this bill in aren’t you because of the High Court decision?” And what did she say? I think she said “No”. Mind you she was so over the top of everybody else that it was hard to hear. But I think she said “No” and it confirms to me that she said that she did not bring in this legislation because of that decision. It is clear from everyone who has spoken in the House and who has read page 2 of the explanatory note of the bill that she misled the television interviewer and the country. If it had happened in the House I would have expected her to stand up and apologise. But one never holds one’s breath waiting for Labour Party Ministers to do that—that is if they understood what was actually being said which is also a difficult thing for them to grasp sometimes. 
The explanatory note very clearly states that “following the decision of the High Court in  
New Zealand Association for Migration and Investments Incorporated 
 v  
Attorney General ( 
unreported M1700/02) the issue and grant of temporary and limited purpose visas and permits may be required as a matter of Government residence policy.” It says they “may be required as a matter of Government residence policy”. I wish Dr Cullen had read the explanatory note. It is very very clear that what was being done was a matter of Government policy. The bill ensures—to put it in layman’s terms—that in no circumstances will this Labour Government support a decision by the High Court on the issue and grant of temporary and limited purpose visas. What sort of Governments do we have today when they will allow people to go to court? They contest the case in court then when they lose—and they are bad losers—they decide that the simplest thing to do is to pass a bill that cancels the court case. All this bill really does is cancel a court case. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: What about those guys? 
DAIL JONES 
: And of course there is United Future. I thank the member for reminding me—I was so away with my stream of thought. The only party supporting this minority Labour Government and allowing this legislation to go through is United Future. I am pleased to hear that the Greens have principles and will oppose this legislation. I give them full credit for that. I often give them something else but I give them full credit on this occasion. It is becoming quite common in this House for us to be critical of United Future. 
This legislation cancels constitutional rights and it cancels a High Court decision. This legislation allows this incompetent Minister of Immigration to continue in her office and it is being supported only by the minority Labour Government supported by United Future. That is all that is allowing this legislation to continue. It is a disgrace. When I get back and speak to some of those people in the Waitakere and Albany areas—people who might have supported United Future—boy oh boy are they going to be even more upset and the support for United Future will go down the tubes. 
New Zealand First wants to make sure that we do not have an overabundance of immigrants to the extent of the 50000 60000 and 190000 that we have today. This bill does not do anything to stop that. Under this bill we will still have the same rush of immigrants that we had before. We cannot support that and we oppose this legislation. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a first time. 
Ayes 60 
Labour 52; United Future 8. 
Noes 55 
New Zealand National 26; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; Green Party 9. 
Bill read a first time. 
Second Reading 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I move  
That the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time 
. I want to take members back to the Department of Labour’s 2002 briefing to incoming Ministers because it has been commented on in this debate. I want to read the opening statement in it— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: What page? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Page 125. The member might like to refer to it—I know he carries it around with him. 
Too often the success of the immigration programme has been primarily equated with quantity rather than with quality of outcome. The 1991 general category was initially perceived as a success because it attracted high numbers of migrants with high human capital. In practice outcomes were often poor because their capacity was not necessarily transferable. This bill the No. 2 bill is focused on ensuring that immigration policy is able to address the concerns that we are talking about. 
I heard New Zealand First members saying that— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The Minister referred us to page 125. I have a full copy of that briefing paper right here and there is no page 125 in it. [ 
Interruption 
] No here it is here. The Minister gave it to me. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: That is a debating point as the member knows. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: No it’s not. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Can I please have this matter addressed? It was page 125 of the Department of Labour’s compiled briefings to Ministers. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The briefing to the incoming Minister of Immigration by the Department of Labour Te Tari Mahi—everything has a Maori name these days—is that of August 2002. That is the briefing paper that was given to her and she gave to me so where is the page 125 she is talking about? 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: The Minister said she had the compiled ministerial briefings. The member does not have the whole lot; he has only one. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I heard New Zealand First members saying that we were denying people the right to residence and I want to say in this House that nobody has the “right” to residence in New Zealand. In fact under the skilled migration policy it is a privilege. That has been the fundamental problem with the legislation the policy since 1991. The year 1991 brought in a right to residence backed up by a Residence Appeal Authority. Who was the Minister of Immigration in 1991? It was the Hon Bill Birch. Who was in Cabinet in 1991? It was the Rt Hon Winston Peters. He was there in Cabinet when this policy was brought in; he absolutely was. It is a bit rich for anyone from New Zealand First or National to come into this House and criticise this Government for trying to address the problems that their policies created. 
This bill does three things. It allows for the global prioritisation of applications. That enables us to take those who have job offers relevant to their qualifications or experience and address their applications first. We are turning the general skills category around so that it works for New Zealand. It is supposed to be the category where skilled migrants come to New Zealand to make a contribution to this country to be part of this country and to be part of its economic development and its future. We are making the general skills category work in the way that it was originally intended to work but unfortunately the National Party—and New Zealand First in conjunction with the National Party—failed to address the fundamental flaw in the immigration system. 
This bill lapses certain applications. It lapses all general skills applications made before 20 November last year and not decided by the time this bill comes into effect—except where points have been claimed for a relevant offer of employment in New Zealand except where they have claimed 28 or more points or have been issued a job-search visa or permit or have been invited to apply for one or have been determined by the Immigration Service to meet the requirements for approval in principle. So people who have already been invited to apply for a job-search visa will continue to have that process. Where they have been issued with a job-search visa they will continue to have that process. If it has been determined that they meet the requirements for approval in principle they will still be processed. If they have claimed 28 points or more they will still be processed. If they have claimed points for a relevant offer of employment in New Zealand they will still be processed. Not one single person that Pansy Wong mentioned—namely people who claimed after 20 November last year—will be lapsed by this bill. Not one single one of them will be lapsed because they meet the new criteria as established by the policy. 
I believe it is better to lapse the applications when we know through evidence through research and through all of the examples that have been brought to our attention that those people are highly unlikely to succeed—even when members of New Zealand First raise time and time again the issue of highly skilled applicants doing unskilled work. We have been raising that matter since we became the Government and this is the way we are addressing it. When I became the Minister of Immigration I said that there were people in this country who had residence and who could not get work and that there were people in this country who had work but could not get residence. This is the Government that has been prepared to front up to both of those problems and this is the Government that is making a real difference. We want to address the issue of those who will not succeed in a New Zealand environment—to lapse their applications so that we can get on with the job of bringing in the people we know will succeed. 
The third thing this bill does is that it clarifies the distinction between Government immigration policy and Government residence policy which has been confused by the High Court decision. I want to ask the National Party—and it will be very interesting because it was its Cabinet that made the original decision to bring in the job-search visa—did it ever intend to include the job-search visa as part of Government residence policy? Of course not! Nobody seems to front up to that in the National Party. 
In 1998 the National Party made a fundamental change to the general skills category that recreated the era of 1991. In 1998 it delinked the requirement that the job offer be linked to the skills and the experience that the individual brought. It delinked the qualifications from the job offer which meant that that party was responsible for saying that if one is a scientist and gets a job offer to work in a laboratory doing original science one gets five points towards his or her residence. Under its amazing policy in 1998 it also said that if that same scientist gets a job offer as a hamburger bar cook or a cleaner then he or she gets five points towards residence. It was the National Party that brought professional migrants to this country and saw their hopes dashed because they were never going to have the opportunity to achieve those ends. 
I want finally to comment on the fruits of the case argument. The New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment took the case. It did not take the case with named individuals who were affected by it. I have to say in this House that there are two very distinct groups of immigration consultants in this country and the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment represents both sorts. Some want good settlement outcomes because they actually care what happens to New Zealand. Others do not care about settlement outcomes because all they want is a fee paid to them when they get a resident stamp in the passport. There are people in this country acting as immigration consultants who do not act in the interests of New Zealanders. The immigration consultants I support are the ones who believe that they have a role to play in actively recruiting the people that New Zealand needs and that is what this policy is all about. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (NZ National—East Coast Bays) 
: 
 The Minister who has just resumed her seat tells us that this bill is about better settlement outcomes for migrants to New Zealand. I want to invite members of the House this evening to reflect on precisely what the measure that we have before us would look like if indeed the Minister’s assertion were correct. If this bill were being promoted by a Minister who had spent 4 long years in office thinking about how the immigration policies of the previous decade could be improved is this the bill that the Minister would come to the House with tonight and would the Minister come along demanding that the House should pass it under urgency? 
It is self-evident that this is not a measure being promoted by a Minister with a determination to improve those settlement outcomes. Because the first thing that one would do if one were determined to improve settlement outcomes would be to ask oneself a very basic question about the immigration programme published by the Government that says that 60 percent of the migrants coming to New Zealand in the next 12 months will be in the skills or business category—that is the policy of the Government this year and it was last year. If we were determined to get people who were going to contribute to our economy and participate in our workforce would we have a figure as low as 60 percent identified alongside skills and business? If we were unashamedly in the market for providing net benefit to New Zealand as an objective of our immigration policy by having good settlement outcomes would we have a figure as low as 60 percent? 
I am on the record as saying that the figure should be 70 percent or higher. The Minister in the House tonight actually agreed that that might well be right. How is it that the Minister of Immigration who has spent 4 long years giving careful and earnest consideration to how we might get better settlement outcomes has not made up her mind whether the figure for business and skills in the Government’s published programme should be 60 percent 70 percent or higher? It is absolutely fundamental if that is the sort of objective one brings to this review that one would at least know the answer to that question and the Minister does not know. She concedes I might be right but she does not know. 
One of the other things that a Government and a Minister might do if they were intent on improving the settlement outcomes for new migrants in New Zealand is give some passing thought to the fact that there are three different agencies involved in this area. There is the Immigration Service which hangs over to one side with the Department of Labour; there is the Office of Ethnic Affairs which is supposed to be involved in settlement programmes; and there is the citizenship function which sits in the Department of Internal Affairs. I ask the House tonight how much sense does that make? 
Members opposite can make as much as they want of the fact that some of these structural deficiencies might have been around for some time. It does not make them right and it does not make it right that the Minister can come to the House with a so-called visionary piece of policy designed to improve settlement outcomes and not give even a passing thought to whether we might get better settlement outcomes by having the citizenship function the ethnic affairs resettlement function and the immigration function all parked in one place where maybe some people who talk to each other could actually make some decisions about these things. 
I would have thought that that was not rocket science. I have been promoting this as a policy initiative for a little while. If the Minister has not thought about it herself and if her officials were not smart enough to think about it she has certainly been quick to pounce on one or two other things that I might have said in this area. I want to know why she has not thought about that sort of structural change. It seems obvious to me that if we were to have an unashamed attempt to improve settlement outcomes then the resettlement machinery of the Government contained in the Office of Ethnic Affairs would be the first place one would look to see how we could improve the structure the governance and the service. It does not seem to have crossed the Minister’s mind that that might be the sort of thing that the House might want to include in legislation that purports to look at such a lofty and laudable objective as improved settlement outcomes for New Zealand’s migrants. 
I also ask the House to consider this. If the Government and the Minister did have firmly fixed in their minds an objective of improving settlement outcomes why have we been asked to pass this bill under urgency? Why was this measure not featured in the Prime Minister’s press conference yesterday afternoon? Why was word not carefully leaked out by the spin doctors from the ninth floor so that the media could get a foretaste of the wonderful policy that was about to be unveiled by the Minister this week? 
The answer to those questions is that the Government does not take any pride in this measure. The Government does not seriously believe for one minute that this is about improving settlement outcomes. This is not part of some bold new visionary policy—the result of a concerted and structured review over the 4 years the Government has had to give its attention to this matter. This is a tawdry piece of legislation to cut some people who have entitlements under the current law off the list because the Minister was too lazy and too incompetent to do a job in due time and because since she had messed it up with a retrospective component in what she did do because she waited too long to get around to it the High Court rolled her and she knows that the Court of Appeal will roll her as well. 
I say to the Minister that if that is the case—if indeed she is asking this Parliament to tidy up her mess—then she will have to show better grace than she has shown tonight. She will have to come along and tell the truth to this House about the nature of the High Court decision made by Justice Randerson. She will have to tell us what her officials have told her will happen when she gets along to the Court of Appeal. She was so keen to assert on 17 June that she was off to the court because that would be the way in which these minor technical difficulties would be overcome. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Carter asks what became of that initiative. I say to the Minister tonight that she cannot seriously expect the House to spend its time under urgency giving attention to this matter when she cannot even tell us what happened to the appeal. What has happened to the appeal? 
John Carter 
: Did they have one? 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: Well I ask the Associate Minister Mr O’Connor who is in the House tonight whether he would like to tell us what happened to the appeal that the Government announced on 17 June that it would lodge. The Government was so confident that Justice Randerson had got it wrong in the High Court decision. Does Mr O’Connor have an answer to that question? Does Mr O’Connor know about the High Court decision and about the decision of the Government to appeal? 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: No. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: Apparently not. I say to the Associate Minister that we will put up some more people to speak on the subject and to keep things moving while he is out the back with the officials and they tell him about the High Court decision—which found that his Minister acted unlawfully—and about the prospects that the Government has if it goes to the Court of Appeal. Then the Associate Minister can come back into the Chamber and do what the Minister did not do—which is to tell us the truth about this measure. Here tonight we are carving a whole bunch of people off a list on which they currently have some entitlements and by which unless the Court of Appeal decided to do something to uphold the Minister they would retain some entitlements. But we are cutting them off the list. Whether those people should be considered for residence in New Zealand is not really the point. The point is the way we do business. We tell people what our expectations are we invite them to put their hands up and then we deal with them fairly predictably and with certainty—except that this Government does not want to do that because the Minister got some things profoundly and fundamentally wrong. She dressed them up in not a very convincing fashion with some arguments which do not hold any water about improving settlement outcomes. 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Associate Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to get up and support my colleague Lianne Dalziel and congratulate her on her management of this legislation which is not driven as Mr McCully would claim by any High Court ruling. It is driven by something that he may lack—his party certainly does—and that is vision. This is legislation to drive— 
Ron Mark 
: Where was your vision during the election? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: —vision in this country where skills and industry are matched where immigration and industry are matched and where immigration and community are matched so that we achieve some positive outcomes for this country from immigration and where we match the aspirations of those coming into this country with the opportunities and needs of industry in New Zealand. It is as simple as that and this Government is prepared to make the calls that are necessary and to bring into this House legislation that achieves those visionary goals. I know that it is hard—if not impossible—for any of the parties on the other side of the House to understand that we can guide some vision for this country and put in place some legislation that helps achieve that and in the end produce a better country than when we started—because we took over from a miserable National Government supported by New Zealand First at one stage and then by ACT as well that had created policies that misled many immigrants to this country. They were brought into the country in the belief that they would walk right into jobs because they had skills. We are aligning their skills with job opportunities. I am happy to be part of a Government that has developed sound legislation and I look forward to its passage through the House. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 The Minister has just said he is happy to be part of a Government that introduces sound legislation. There could be no more unsound legislation than the bill before the House. I assume the Government hopes that through its actual effect it will be sound and that the immigration consultants who have wide resources do not inspect it very closely and discover there are loopholes in it. That would be very embarrassing for the Government and would completely destroy the Minister’s statement. But I expect people will be looking at this bill very closely overnight and informing various people as to how sound it is. They may even allow the bill to go through the House so they can then approve it or take some action subsequently. 
But to say that generally speaking this type of legislation could be sound is drawing a very long bow. This is retrospective legislation of the worst possible kind and no Parliament that properly supports the rule of law the Westminster system and all those things that we refer to from time to time should really be supporting this legislation. Governments sometimes have to admit they have made a mistake and did not carry out Government policy properly and that those people who have lodged applications are entitled to have their applications heard and if they do not succeed well the applications do not succeed. We are not suggesting—and no one would suggest—that all the applications that are before the Government would necessarily succeed. But all the Government is doing here is a wiping away of applications that it thinks will help it to reduce about 2 years of a backlog. 
It is the sort of thing one does when the health system has a very long waiting list. One way to end the waiting list is to cut it short or redesign it in some form or another. Or the same thing can be done to the State-house waiting list or suchlike—come up with some scheme whereby it is cut short. Any self-respecting Government would have accepted the High Court decision or would have brought in legislation that as from today would have brought the matter to an end and allowed those people who have lodged their applications to proceed with the applications and see whether they were successful. 
However this minority Labour Government supported by United Future does not want to take that view. All the other parties in this House that have voted tonight have opposed that view. Retrospective legislation is contrary to all our principles. I heard from Dr Cullen—and I did not touch on this—his accusation of judicial activism against Justice Randerson. He was making his speech at 9 o’clock at night and he thought he would take up some sort of line he had perhaps heard on the Supreme Court Bill where a criticism of judicial activism was made. To accuse the judge of judicial activism was quite— 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: It’s just statutory interpretation that’s all. 
DAIL JONES 
: It was very simple statutory interpretation—interpretation probably of an administrative law type of case where Justice Randerson just had to look to see on the facts whether the requirements of administrative law had been carried out. There was no statute to interpret really just the facts to see whether the policy had been carried out. To say that this was judicial activism and then to carry on in the way in which he did about the High Court Justice I thought came very close to a breach of parliamentary privilege in his attack on a member of the High Court of New Zealand. 
 That goes to show how hard the deputy leader of the Labour Party the Leader of the House was trying to draw attention away from the actual bill and to throw attention on to the personality of the judge concerned. If he says that no judge of the High Court is ever going to tell the Labour Party how it will run the country I say that in many respects that is what judges are for. Ultimately they are our last resort and we must never get to a situation in which we say that we will ignore what a judge says or do what we are doing here which is not just ignoring it but repealing everything that the judge has ruled on. Once we go down that path—we had a debate earlier today on the Solomon Islands and we are nowhere near that situation but we do just wonder where that road will take us. 
This legislation is making New Zealand a laughing stock overseas. We have always prided ourselves on the way in which we administer the law here. We are able to go overseas and say to people that if they do a deal with New Zealand on certain specified terms which are known to everybody we will make sure that we honour those arrangements and that they are properly carried out and we will not come down with some judicial type of guillotine and bring the whole process to an end. 
It is hard to understand precisely from this bill how many countries are involved but on page 3 of the explanatory note under the heading “Nature and magnitude of the problem” it states: “There are currently around 20000 general skills category (GSC) residence applications (involving approximately 46000 applicants) on hand waiting to be processed. This equates to around 2 years of potential GSC residence approvals.” In the time that one gets to try to follow this type of legislation that is being rushed through in this way one gets slightly confused about the size and the magnitude of the whole thing but perhaps the next Labour Party speaker can clarify whether there are in fact 46000 people who are involved under this legislation; that is as applicants only. Then one asks oneself whether those applicants have spouses children or other kin who might be coming along with them; and the mind boggles as to just how many people there are—throughout I assume east Asia mainly but also perhaps Africa and Europe—who in one way or another could be affected by the high-handed way the Government has dealt with this legislation. 
New Zealand First has made it clear that we want to reduce the number of immigrants coming to New Zealand who do not have skills and suchlike. Our policy is closer to a target of 10000 skilled immigrants to New Zealand so that we could assimilate those people and they could have a chance to make a good contribution. Is 10000 people right? 
R Doug Woolerton 
: That’s right. 
DAIL JONES 
: Mr Doug Woolerton confirms that it is 10000 people. I must be right. We want to see that number of people coming into New Zealand. We do not want to see the 190000 people that according to the geography department of the University of Waikato came in last year. I am referring to the report by Dr Richard Bedford the Professor of Geography and Deputy Vice-chancellor (Research) at the University of Waikato who convenes the Migration Research Group; Dr Jacquie Lidgard a Research Fellow; and Dr Elsie Ho. Is Dr Jacquie Lidgard a good lady? 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Absolutely. 
DAIL JONES 
: That is right. Doug Woolerton says so so she must be a good lady. Dr Elsie Ho is the Senior Research Fellow and I am sure she would be a “good fellow” as well as far as Mr Doug Woolerton is concerned. She is in the Migration Research Group. Those three people have gone to the trouble of collating all the New Zealand Immigration Service’s statistics to the end of 2002 and they have come up with a figure that floored me. Every time I touch immigration figures I am more and more staggered by the way in which the Labour Government is selling out New Zealand’s heritage. If we say that 6 percent of New Zealand’s immigrants come from east Asia and if we then swung the figures around and took 6 percent of China’s population—which is about 78 million people from 1.3 billion—and said that 78 million Europeans Africans or South Americans were living in Beijing I think that the people of Beijing would be a bit upset to have 78 million foreigners living in Beijing—or the equivalent say in New Delhi. India has a population of about 1.1 billion. If 66 million South Americans or Chinese or Europeans were living in New Delhi there would be hell to pay. There is no way they would tolerate that sort of takeover of their country but here we have this minority Labour Government doing that type of thing to New Zealand in the sense that in the last few years we have had 6 percent of our population coming in from overseas. In 1929 Auckland’s population was 2000000. Now every 10 years Auckland’s population grows by 200000 and the majority seem to be immigrants from east Asia. That is appalling. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of State) 
: 
 This is a very sensible bill. One could say it is a no-brainer. It allows the Immigration Service to prioritise applicants based on their contribution to New Zealand and how could any party possibly object to that? What did we learn from this debate? We learnt that Dail Jones does not like immigrants—sure he now has his New Zealand passport and tossed in his Pakistani one. We heard that Winston Peters does not like immigrants but I guess that makes sense: even though he reckons he is Chinese. He does not like Maori either. It is a good bill; let us get it passed. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The member cannot get up and claim that somebody said that he was from some other race when the person never made that claim at all. I tell that green-behind-the-ears lad that he cannot say that in the House otherwise he will get something back in the way of a personal response that he will not like. 
Hon Murray McCully 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I put it to you that some words were spoken over which offence was taken. I would have thought it was the practice of the House in such a circumstance that the member who has caused the offence should be invited to withdraw and apologise. I heard the words and I think Mr Peters was perfectly entitled to take offence. I put it to you that the proper course is for you to ask the member to take the normal steps. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: This is rather an interesting point. I am not sure that it is as easy to decide as it might be. We now have the race relations legislation so if one accuses somebody of being another race can that person take objection? Is that within the rules? I think what the member is really objecting to is that the honourable member who was just speaking whom I understand has just discovered he is Maori—and Christian Cullen is a Maori as well apparently— 
David Benson-Pope 
: Speak to the point of order. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I am speaking to the point of order. The point of order is whether the member should be required to withdraw and I think the real objection that Mr Peters was raising was that he never claimed he was Chinese. I was there and I do not think he did. What he said was that if one goes back far enough one finds that Maori came from China. Some people have said that that means Maori are Chinese but of course that is not so. There are many people in China who are not Chinese and so there are possibly Maori in China. I do not know whether that is right but I think the member was saying that if one goes back far enough— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Five and a half thousand years. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I am obliged to the member for that. I think that he is asking the member to withdraw because of his claim that Mr Peters had claimed to be Chinese. In fact Mr Peters did not say that he just said that some of his relatives came from China 5500 years ago. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I think the member is right. I just caution members about referring to race like that. Perhaps the member might like to stand up and withdraw and apologise. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I am delighted to do so. I withdraw and apologise. 
John Carter 
: I raise a point of order Madam Deputy Speaker. We have about 30 seconds to go before the House lifts and rather than having someone start and then have his or her speech interrupted— 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The time has come for me to leave the chair. 
Debate interrupted. 
Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. until 9 a.m. (Wednesday)