Volume 656 Week 20 - Thursday 6 August 2009 
Volume 656 Week 20 - Thursday 6 August 2009 
[Volume:656;Page:5527] 
Thursday 6 August 2009 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Visitors 
Malaysia Federation—Parliamentary Delegation House of Representatives 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have much pleasure in informing the House that a parliamentary delegation from the House of Representatives of the Federation of Malaysia led by the Hon Datuk Ronald Kiandee Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives is present in the gallery. I am sure members would wish that the delegation be welcomed. 
Business Statement 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 At the conclusion of business today the House will adjourn for 1 week. When we resume on Tuesday 18 August it is the Government’s intention to complete the estimates debate and make progress on the first readings of bills on the Order Paper. Wednesday 19 August will be a members’ day. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I wonder whether the Leader of the House could let us know when he expects the Immigration Bill to actually be brought to the floor of the House. He has mentioned it in several business statements and has signalled that it was the Government’s intention to progress that legislation but it does not appear to have made its way here to the House. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 It is of course the Government’s intention to progress that bill. I did not mention it in today’s business statement but the Government as always is open to cooperation from the Opposition to advance these matters. If the shadow Leader of the House wishes to approach me to accommodate such a move then of course there will be discussions. 
Motions 
Tonga—Sinking of Ferry  
Princess Ashika 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) 
: 
 I seek leave to move a motion without notice relating to the tragedy in Tonga. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection to that course being followed? There is none. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I move  
That this Parliament express its sympathy and concern to the people of Tonga as search and rescue efforts continue following an overnight ferry sinking. 
 The ferry the  
Princess Ashika 
 was sailing for the Ha‘apai group of islands in northern Tonga when it sank earlier today. An estimated 82 passengers and crew were on board. The cause of the sinking is not yet known. Rescuers so far have found 56 survivors. Two Orions a Tongan Navy vessel and other ships are searching the area for those missing although the exact number of people on the ferry has not been confirmed. 
New Zealand shares a close and longstanding relationship with Tonga and a delegation of New Zealanders led by the Prime Minister visited Tonga only last month. We are offering our full support to Tonga following this tragic event. Two RNZAF Orions are assisting with the search for survivors and the New Zealand authorities are in close touch with Tongan officials in case further support can be provided. New Zealand’s Rescue Coordination Centre in Wellington is coordinating the search which is centred about 86 kilometres off Tonga’s capital Nuku‘alofa. New Zealand officials will also help provide any support that may be required to maintain interim services following the loss of the vessel. 
We are deeply concerned about those still missing but we are informed that the rescue conditions are good and our hopes remain high that more survivors will be found. At this difficult time our hearts go out to those in Tonga dealing directly with this tragedy but also to the members of our own large and respected Tongan community in New Zealand who will be deeply concerned. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 On behalf of the Labour Party I rise to support the Government’s motion that the hearts minds and the helping hands of New Zealanders go out to Tonga at this difficult time. We in the Labour Party are delighted that the Government has sent two Orion search aircraft to the area of northern Tonga near Nomuka Island where the 26 people who are still missing are being searched for. We are delighted that New Zealand is able to also assist through the Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand here in Wellington which is coordinating the search for those missing people. We are also very pleased that Prime Minister Key spoke to Hon Dr Fred Sevele the Tongan Prime Minister in Cairns just a short time ago expressing the sympathy and support of all New Zealanders. 
We have a large and very respected Tongan community in New Zealand and there will be Tongan Kiwis who have family connections to some of the people who are missing at the moment lost at sea. They have been lost at sea for over 14 hours now so this is an extraordinarily concerning time for the families and friends of those who are still missing. I am sure I speak on behalf of all New Zealanders when I say ‘oku faka folau atu ‘emau lotu mo ‘emau ‘ofa lolotonga ‘a e taimi faingata‘a ko eni.” In the Tongan language that means: “Our hearts are with you at this difficult time.” 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I stand on behalf of the Green Party. The Green Party wishes to express its sorrow for those who may have lost their lives. We wish to express our sympathy to their families and to the extended Tongan community in New Zealand whose members are no doubt feeling strongly about the tragedy. We also wish to express our hope—our hope that those who are still missing are found and rescued quickly. 
Hon HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I stand on behalf of the ACT Party to support the Government’s motion and along with other parties to express our concern about this tragedy that has taken place and to extend it to those who are involved in the sinking of the  
Princess Ashika 
 off the coast of Tonga just before 11 o’clock last night. Twenty-six people I understand are still unaccounted for with around 42 people having been rescued from life rafts. The New Zealand Maritime Operations Centre picked up the mayday call late last night soon after it was released and the New Zealand Defence Force has sent two Orions as has been mentioned. The first was deployed from Whenuapai just after 2.30 a.m. this morning after a request from the Rescue Coordination Centre and the second Orion departed early this morning to relieve the first Orion’s efforts. New Zealand’s search and rescue obligations cover a huge part of the South Pacific and Tonga is of course part of the area that we are responsible for. The ACT Party joins other parties in this House in saying our hearts thoughts and prayers go out to the Tongans and to the Tongan community here in New Zealand. 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 ‘Oku oatu ‘ku ‘ofa ki he kakai tonga kotoa pe he faingata‘a kuo hoko. I greet the people of Tonga on this sad day. Kei te pouri te ngakau i tenei wa. The Maori Party stands with all other parties to express our sympathies for the families who are grieving today after the tragedy that took place last night in the waters of the Pacific. Our connections as tangata w’enua with the peoples of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa bind us together in times of happiness and in times of sadness. We think of those families with loved ones still missing and we offer our prayers. We also acknowledge the efforts of the New Zealand Rescue Coordination Centre the Royal New Zealand Air Force and the maritime radio team who have worked so valiantly to restore calm in this time of distress. Your courage in times of crisis will be remembered. May God bless you all. 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 Yesterday a ferry that had recently been refitted set sail on a routine voyage between two of the islands in Tonga. Today we woke to the news of that ferry’s sinking with some 82 people on board and already 26 unaccounted for. The enormity of that potential tragedy comes home to us when we reflect on how mundane the circumstances were—a routine journey with those adverse consequences. Like others my heart goes out to the people of Tonga and to the Tongan community in New Zealand as they come to grips with the loss and the awful period of anxiety as they wait for the news of loved ones who may be at risk. My hope is that the good news of the fact that no corpses or wreckage have yet been found bodes well in terms of the survivors who are still unaccounted for. I acknowledge the work of our defence forces and the Rescue Coordination Centre in overseeing this exercise and I hope it comes to a successful conclusion for the benefit of all concerned. 
Motion agreed to. 
Questions to Ministers 
Economy—Reports 
1. 
 AARON GILMORE (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What recent reports has he received on the economy? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I have seen today’s household labour force survey which puts our unemployment rate at 6 percent. This represents a 1 percent rise from 30 March and is the largest quarterly rise since 1988. It is slightly higher than predicted but not a surprise given that we are in the midst of the largest global recession since the 1930s. One of the reasons for the higher than expected figure is the larger than usual number of people who joined the workforce in the June quarter. These figures should make it clear there can be no complacency about what will be required to turn this economy round to provide new jobs for all those people who have lost jobs. 
Aaron Gilmore 
: What reports has the Minister seen on business and consumer confidence? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The best thing for people who have lost a job is the hope they can get another one. As it happens forward-looking indicators such as business and consumer confidence have improved over the last 6 months. The basic picture is that the economy shows signs of stabilising and we are hoping that it will start to grow again towards the end of this year and into the beginning of next year after a recession that has lasted about 18 months. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Can the Minister tell the House which other countries have recently recorded the highest quarterly increase in unemployment in 21 years and can he now confirm that New Zealand’s unemployment rate has skyrocketed to exceed that of Australia’s? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I cannot actually tell the member which other countries. It is unlikely there will be many because New Zealand is the only country that was already in a recession caused by the economic mismanagement of his Government followed by a global recession. That is why we are doing everything we can to turn the economy round after a decade of mismanagement so that people who lost their jobs can get another job. 
Aaron Gilmore 
: What steps is the Government taking to support jobs? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The most direct impact is that the Government is over the next 4 years borrowing $40 billion to pump into the economy in the form of investment in infrastructure preserving existing entitlements and maintaining public services through the bottom of a recession. That $40 billion will also finance packages such as the $152 million youth unemployment package which will provide 17000 jobs and training opportunities for young people over the next 18 months. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Will the Minister now concede that his Government to use his own words “was too complacent;” “did not do enough early enough”; and “did not take the real sharp edges off unemployment”; if not when can New Zealanders expect to see this Government’s economic plan return New Zealand to growth? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No I do not accept that. The 2009 Budget as I have just said laid out a track whereby the Government is borrowing $40 billion over the next few years to pump into the economy— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: It’s 3.5 percent stimulus down from 5. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well it is one of the more significant stimulus packages in the developed world. Alongside that the Government has initiated a rolling maul of programmes that are supporting people who were made redundant and providing jobs for people through the insulation scheme and more recently the Job Ops scheme. 
Aaron Gilmore 
: What reports has he seen on business’s approach to employment during the recession? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: We have been pleased to see that the quarterly employment survey released this week backs up the anecdotal evidence that many employers are working as hard as they can to keep people on. For instance a survey released this week suggests that many employers are choosing to reduce employees’ work hours and keep wage rises static rather than lay off staff and the Government has supported this flexible approach through its innovative 9-day fortnight scheme. It is worth noting that even at the new level of unemployment announced today unemployment in New Zealand is lower than in the US Europe and the UK. 
Question No. 1 to Minister 4 August 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek your assistance with regard to a supplementary question I asked on Tuesday of the Minister for Climate Change Issues. His answer was that the figures I sought were to be found in the regulatory impact statement on the original emissions trading scheme legislation. I have looked carefully through that regulatory impact statement and I am unable to find such figures. I respectfully draw your attention to Speaker’s ruling 167/7 which as I read it states that if a Minister is in error he or she should correct that error at the earliest opportunity which should be at the beginning of question time. I wonder whether I have missed something or whether the Minister would like to comment. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have made it very clear to members that they should not litigate Ministers’ answers by way of points of order. If the member believes that the Minister was in error in that answer the member has the chance to ask further questions about it or to take it up directly with the Minister but he should not do it by way of a point of order. If he believes that the matter is serious enough if he believes that the Minister has misled the House he can write to me about it. But he should not try to litigate it by way of a point of order. 
Hon RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I accept your point but smaller parties like the Green Party the ACT Party and the Maori Party do not have the opportunity that other parties have to ask large numbers of questions. We have for example two questions today and if an answer is wrong we have only one or two opportunities to fix it. My understanding is that the Minister’s office accepts that the answer on Tuesday was not correct. We are asking for clear guidance so that we can ask a proper supplementary question today. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I am familiar with the documents to which the ACT member has referred. A reading of them makes it absolutely clear that the emissions trading scheme has significantly reduced deforestation already. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member must resume his seat! What does one do about that! The member knows that that was not a point of order and he is very lucky that I was preoccupied with thinking about the matter. Be that as it may let me come back to the fundamental issue raised. I accept the point the Hon Rodney Hide makes. It is more difficult for smaller parties because they have limited numbers of supplementary questions but the answer is a matter for the member and the Minister. If the Minister is in error then that is a matter for the Minister to rectify. The member can follow it up with the Minister but he should not seek to litigate the answer by way of a point of order. If there is a problem with the answer he can follow it up with the Minister. If in fact the Minister’s answer was in error I am sure the Minister would seek to correct it. 
Greenhouse Gas Reduction—2020 Target 
2.  
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Green) 
 to the  
Minister for Climate Change Issues 
: Will New Zealand’s climate change target take into account the call from Pacific Island leaders for a 45 percent cut by 2020? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Climate Change Issues) 
: 
 Yes. The Government recognises that climate change poses a particular threat to our Pacific Island neighbours. It is one of many factors that we will take into account in considering our 2020 commitment. I also note though that it is a lot easier for those countries to call for very large reductions when they are not proposing any binding commitments for reductions themselves. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: How will the Minister explain to Pacific Island people that we cannot help them to avoid a climate change catastrophe because we are not willing to save 4.25 million tonnes of emissions in 2020 by replacing two old coal and gas power plants with renewables that are cost-effective according to the Electricity Commission’s statement of opportunities? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I am advised that for New Zealand to move to 100 percent renewables those who are promoting minus 40 percent— 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Ninety percent. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: No the members interject but if they read the pamphlet that has been put out by the Sign On campaign they will see that it very specifically states that it is about a move to 100 percent renewables. My advice is that that move would cost $17.5 billion. It would require the building of the equivalent of seven Clyde Dams in just 10 years. I do not think that is achievable. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question was about two power stations. The Greens have no responsibility whatever for the Sign On campaign; we did not initiate it. I asked the Minister a question about two power stations for which substituting renewables is cost-effective and he has chosen not to answer that question in any way at all but to talk about a mythical 100 percent target which is nothing to do with us. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: My dilemma is that the Minister clearly interpreted the member’s question to mean what he included in his answer. The member has several more supplementary questions with which to chase up that matter with the Minister. I will listen very carefully to his answers to them. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: How will the Minister explain to Scotland which has offered a target of a 42 percent reduction that we cannot join it because we are not willing to save 3 million tonnes of emissions a year in 2020 by improving the fuel economy of our vehicles to something a bit more like Scotland’s? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The member needs to take care in mentioning countries like Scotland because the significance is that the Scottish Parliament itself has responsibility for only 30 percent of Scotland’s emissions. The bulk of Scotland’s emissions are actually reported as part of the overall United Kingdom’s. So when the Scots talk about a 42 percent reduction in emissions from Scotland that number is not for all of the emissions from Scotland but just a portion of them. 
Nicky Wagner 
: Is the Minister aware of the 2020 target announced this week by South Korea and what implications does it have for international negotiations? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: It is a positive development that South Korea has announced a 2020 emissions reduction target ranging from minus 4 percent to plus 8 percent relative to 2005 levels. The significance is that South Korea is one of the first non - annex 1 countries to indicate a willingness to take on commitments which is good news. I note however that the equivalent to those targets for New Zealand on a business-as-usual basis the same reduction would be plus 7 to plus 19 percent relative to 1990 levels for New Zealand. The New Zealand Government is not contemplating a target above the 1990 levels despite our GDP per capita being comparable to that of South Korea. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: How will the Minister explain to the UK which incorporates Scotland and has set a target of 34 percent that we cannot join it because the Government has created a policy framework so uncertain for forestry that it has stopped foresters from planting trees? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: A significant difference between New Zealand and the United Kingdom is that it currently has emissions that are 21 percent below its 1990 levels; New Zealand is starting from 24 percent above its 1990 levels. The question I have for the member who asked the question and who used to be the previous Government’s spokesperson on energy efficiency is why emissions went up so much when she held that spokespersonship. 
David Garrett 
: Does the Government have an estimate of by how much the emissions trading scheme as legislated will reduce emissions by 2020 or does the Minister not know that? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I do not have that information available to me in the House because it was not part of the base question. But I would be happy to check whether it was in the regulatory impact statement and to provide the member with an accurate figure. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Does the Minister think that a timid emissions target of between 5 to 15 percent would demonstrate to Pacific Islanders that New Zealand recognises the serious effects that climate change would have in the Pacific; and does he endorse John Key’s suggestion that if the worst comes to the worst we will just offer to resettle Pacific peoples? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The first thing we need to recognise is that with New Zealand’s emissions being just 0.2 percent of global emissions in terms of the future of the Pacific what the globe does will be critical. There is already an amount of climate change in the world’s climate systems so I think the Prime Minister is absolutely right in his remark. In respect of the size of New Zealand’s emissions target I remind the member opposite that when people say a 10 percent reduction below 1990 levels is easy we must remember that we are 24 percent behind to begin with which means it is really a 34 percent reduction in emissions. Compared with the previous decade in which emissions went up 14 percent that is a very tough and ambitious target for New Zealand to achieve. 
Charles Chauvel 
: To which parts of New Zealand does the Government plan to offer resettlement to Pacific peoples who are displaced by the adverse effects of climate change; if no thought has yet been given to this question is it not high time that thought is given to it since the present Government’s policies on climate change will not do anything else to help them to deal with those effects? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The current Government has given no more consideration to the issue of the resettlement of Pacific peoples in New Zealand and the long-term impacts of climate change than the previous Government did. In respect of sea-level rises we are talking about rates of 3 or 4 mm per year. 
Hon Annette King 
: It’s your policy to bring them to New Zealand. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The deputy leader of the Labour Party interjects. I remind her that during her period in Government emissions in New Zealand grew faster than those of any other country. She is the last person from whom I will take advice in terms of sensible climate change policy. 
Urgent Question to Minister 
Hon RODNEY HIDE (Minister of Local Government) 
: I seek leave of the House to answer an urgent question put down to me by Phil Twyford MP because answering his questions is always so much fun. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The dilemma I have as Speaker is that a member cannot seek leave to answer a question. Only the member wishing to ask the question can seek leave to ask it. 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: I seek leave to ask a question of the Minister of Local Government. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought by Phil Twyford to ask an urgent question of the Minister of Local Government. Is there any objection? There appears to be no objection. 
Urgent Questions 
Local Government (Tamaki Makaurau Reorganisation) Act—Release of Information 
1. 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Local Government 
: 
Has he received any reports of the release of sensitive personal information from Metro Water Ltd to Watercare Ltd as part of the transitional arrangements under the Local Government (Tamaki Makaurau Reorganisation) Act 2009? 
Hon RODNEY HIDE (Minister of Local Government) 
: 
 No. 
Phil Twyford 
: Has the Minister received advice on whether that is a breach of the Privacy Act; if so is he concerned— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The House has indulged Mr Twyford by allowing him to ask an urgent question. He asked his question and he got the answer “No.” Having got the answer “No.” he now wants to know whether the matter that he was expecting a yes answer to is a breach of the Privacy Act. That is way outside the Standing Orders. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I think this goes to the order in which mail has been opened and read in the Minister of Local Government’s office. Mr Speaker it is not for you to predetermine that the member cannot ask a question about whether the Minister has read a report just because he has not read another one. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I appreciate the member’s contribution to the point of order but I believe that it is not for me to rule out such a question because then I would be getting involved in answers already given. I believe that the Minister of Local Government is perfectly capable of answering such a question and I invite Phil Twyford to ask his supplementary question. 
Phil Twyford 
: Let me rephrase the question. Is the Minister concerned that this action follows controversy over Watercare demanding that Auckland councils sign blanket confidentiality agreements in relation to the transition and requesting dossiers of personal information on council water staff including age sex length of service and whether they are members of the union? 
Hon RODNEY HIDE 
: Thank you Mr Speaker for that very urgent question from the “Minister for Auckland Issues”. I have to say that it would be helpful if Mr Phil Twyford listened to the— 
Hon David Parker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Mr Twyford is not the Minister for Auckland issues. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think it would be helpful if we heard the answer from the Minister. 
Hon RODNEY HIDE 
: I said he was the spokesperson for Auckland issues from the Labour Party. It would be helpful if the “member for Auckland issues” actually listened to the answer I gave which was that I have had no such reports and I am afraid I have no idea what he is talking about—a bit like the rest of Auckland. 
Phil Twyford 
: Supplementary question— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There are no further supplementary questions to an urgent question. 
Questions to Ministers 
Unemployment—Current Rate 
3.  
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: What reports if any has he received on New Zealand’s current unemployment rate? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister) 
: 
 I have seen a number of reports. One of those states that unemployment rises during a recession. Another states that the rise in the last quarter was around 1 percent. The last time that it was 1 percent was in 1988 when Phil Goff and Annette King were the Ministers of Employment. 
Hon Annette King 
: Does he stand by his statement that the Government’s policies are taking the sharp edges off the recession when the figures released today from the household labour force survey show that unemployment is now 6 percent which is higher than Australia’s unemployment rate; that it is the biggest quarterly jump in 21 years up by 20.6 percent; that it is the highest unemployment rate in 10 years; and that the number of long-term unemployed has more than doubled and does that not show that rather than taking the sharp edge off the recession this Government’s inaction is slicing through families through its lack of policies around unemployment? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No I do not agree with any of that. I would point out to the questioner that the rate of unemployment now is the same as it was in 2005 when Labour said that the economy was booming. 
Hon Annette King 
: Is his Government’s policy taking the sharp edges off the recession when the number of people accessing the much-trumpeted ReStart package has gone down each week this month at the same time as unemployment is rapidly rising and does it not show that the Government’s policies are all about puffery and slogans rather than real solutions for real people? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: There are no puffery and slogans about a $10 billion infrastructure investment programme. There is no puffery about a $323 million insulation programme that is benefiting people all over the country. The member may think that it is puffery and sloganism for 17-year-olds to be able to get jobs under the new Job Ops programme but we think it is important to them and important to the country. 
Chris Tremain 
: How does unemployment in the current recession compare with unemployment in previous recessions? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: There are some remarkable similarities and some differences. Every job lost in this recession is a concern to the Government but it is not as bad as in previous downturns. For example the number of people currently receiving the unemployment benefit is under half the number who were on it when Labour left office in 1990. As I pointed out before the registered unemployment level today is the same as it was in 2005 when that party claimed it had beaten the cycle of boom and bust and everything was going fantastically. 
Hon Annette King 
: Is his Government’s policy taking the sharp edges off the recession when a mere 33 applications have been made by businesses to sign up to his 9-day fortnight creating around 400 temporary jobs in 5 months when at the same time 20000 Kiwis are being thrown out of work each week? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Government has provided a range of employment programmes ranging from ReStart to the 9-day fortnight and the youth unemployment package. Alongside that the Government is out in the market borrowing billions of dollars to pump into the economy and it is protecting many people from the sharp edges of recession. 
Chris Tremain 
: Has the Prime Minister seen reports of alternative policies to deal with unemployment? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I have seen reports of politicians trying to trivialise the problem of unemployment but more important I have seen reports that leading indicators of the economy are beginning to pick up. I have also seen a number of reports of people who are very pleased with the Government’s infrastructure investment because it is providing jobs. 
Hon Annette King 
: Is his Government being successful in taking the sharp edges off the recession when we now have 24000 more people unemployed than in the last quarter 40 new households a week seeking food parcels to feed their families and 1240 families reaching out to the Salvation Army for clothing bedding furniture and other practical assistance? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: All of those figures are signs of an economy under stress and I feel sorry for those people who relied on the economic management of the previous Labour Government because they have found out that their jobs were built on sand. Those people are paying the price for 10 years of mismanagement too much borrowing and reckless Government spending. 
Chris Tremain 
: Has the Prime Minister seen reports of alternative policies to deal with unemployment? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I keep hearing reports that there are alternative policies but I have not seen policies that will roll back a global recession. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: What advice would the Prime Minister give to the 10000 Pacific people who are now unemployed and what is he doing to address Pacific job losses in New Zealand? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Government is setting about changing the economic direction so we can strengthen this economy to provide those people with new jobs. Unfortunately they relied on the previous Labour Government which told them they had secure jobs. It turns out that in the face of a recession they should not have trusted Labour the way they did. 
Kelvin Davis 
: What new initiatives will the Government introduce to address the skyrocketing Maori unemployment rate which has increased from 8.1 percent to 12.6 percent in the last year? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I am pleased the member asked that question because the House was told earlier this week that Maori and iwi organisations will be supported by the Government to create opportunities under the Community Max scheme and the Job Ops scheme which are focused particularly on young unemployed Maori who are overrepresented among the unemployment statistics. I know that that member is a good local member and I hope that he will help organisations to access that scheme which he can do right now. 
Hon Annette King 
: I seek leave to release the weekly ReStart figures for July which show that the numbers of people on ReStart have gone down each week for July. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Greenhouse Gas Reduction—2020 Target 
4.  
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
 to the  
Minister for Climate Change Issues 
: What advice has he received from the national hui held by the Climate Change Iwi Leadership Group and the Maori reference group executive on the Government’s climate change emissions target for 2020? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Climate Change Issues) 
: 
 A hui was held on the 2020 target at Hopuhopu in July at which I appreciated the Maori Party’s presence and support. A further hui was held this week in Wellington. The advice I have received from the Climate Change Iwi Leadership Group and the Maori reference group executive has been very constructive. Whereas environmental groups have promoted very ambitious targets and business groups very cautious ones Maori have a strong environmental and economic interest and like the Government are seeking a balanced outcome. I will be reporting their recommendations to Cabinet. 
Rahui Katene 
: What has been the feedback from Maori about the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that to avoid dangerous climate change developed countries need to meet at least a 25 percent reduction by 2020 and how will he ensure there is continued consultation and representation with Maori on emissions reductions? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The feedback I have had from Maori has been very balanced. They recognise the seriousness of climate change as well as the difficulty of reducing emissions when such a large proportion of New Zealand’s emissions come from agriculture. I think we also have to recognise that the Maori economy is very strongly focused around forestry around fishing and around agriculture and that poses some quite unique challenges not just for Maori but for New Zealand. 
Hon Nanaia Mahuta 
: Can the Minister confirm that the Maori reference group has expressed concern about the Government’s economic modelling and that it will be commissioning another more comprehensive report for release before the end of the year; if so what does this say about the level of confidence that Maori can have in the Government’s understanding of how climate change measures will affect them? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I met with the Maori iwi leaders’ reference group on climate change. They expressed to me strong support for the Government’s approach around that difficult issue. They expressed no concern to me about the quality of the economic analysis that they themselves commissioned from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research. It might be helpful too for me to table for members that economic analysis of the effects of climate change on Maori and I would be happy to do that. 
Rahui Katene 
: Has the Minister seen any reports on the likely impacts of different 2020 emission reduction scenarios on the Maori economy; if so what were the main findings? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Yes; I have seen the report that was jointly commissioned by the iwi leaders’ reference group and the Government. It does rightly identify in respect of the Maori economy and the large investment by Maori in agriculture in forestry and in fishing that the economic impacts for them are significant. I also note that the report’s overall conclusion is that the impacts of climate change policy and an emissions trading scheme are very similar for Maori and for other New Zealanders. 
Hekia Parata 
: E te Mana Whakawa tena tatou e te Whare. How significant to Maori are the international rules around carbon embedded in timber products and those in respect of flexible land use and given their significance to Maori is the Minister considering a senior Maori representative being part of the delegation to Copenhagen? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The rules around forestry are of huge significance to Maori particularly since the Central North Island Iwi Collective settlement which involved the largest plantation forest in the southern hemisphere. The conversion of pre-1990 forestry under current rates which are about 800 tonnes per hectare would mean that across the 439000 hectares of trees owned by Maori this issue amounts to a question of over $9 billion. An agreement that allowed offset planting would hugely reduce that liability. The rules around embedded carbon in timber products are also very significant in that they would recognise the 25 percent of wood that goes into timber products. That further provides opportunities for Maori and substantial players in the forestry sector. I am favourably disposed to the request for Maori senior representation at the climate conference in Copenhagen but Cabinet has not decided the make-up of the New Zealand delegation. 
Charles Chauvel 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am really just seeking your guidance. The Minister offered to table the economic analysis which certainly members on this side of the House would like to see. Is there a— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If he quoted from an official document members can seek leave to have him table it but I suspect that the Minister will seek leave. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I formally seek leave to table the report from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research on the effects of 2020 targets on the Maori economy. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is none. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Urgent Question to Minister 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 I seek leave to table a letter received today from Metro Water employees expressing concern about the release of their personal information to Watercare Services as part of the transition to the new water monopoly in Auckland. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. [ 
Interruption 
] I will put the question again. Leave is sought to table that document. Please make your objection loudly. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Recession—Minister’s Statement 
5.  
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does he stand by his statement that “For most people the measure of a recession is whether they have a job”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Yes. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Does the Minister consider that the 6 percent unemployment recorded in today’s household labour force survey is acceptable; if so why; if not why does he not have a credible plan to manage the economy through the recession? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No it is not acceptable. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: If that is not acceptable what does the Minister consider has caused New Zealand’s unemployment rate to leapfrog that of Australia; does he consider that Australia faces it as well and does he consider it relevant that the Australian stimulus package exceeds 5 percent of GDP and that his Government’s package is only 3.5 percent now less— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I apologise for interrupting the honourable member but I say to both sides of the House that the level of interjection has become totally unacceptable. I could not hear. I invite the member to repeat his question—but please do not make it too long. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I will repeat it without addition. What does the Minister consider has caused New Zealand’s unemployment rate to leapfrog that of Australia and does he consider it relevant that the Australian stimulus package exceeds 5 percent of GDP and that his Government’s is now only 3.5 percent less than the 4.5 percent put in place by the outgoing Labour Government? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The biggest difference is that the Australian economy has basically kept going while New Zealand has had 18 months of recession. It would be severely delusional on his part to believe that the previous Labour Government had put in place a stimulus package before it left. It left a whole lot of unfunded promises and a stack of press releases that it called an economic programme. 
Amy Adams 
: What are the main causes of the current rise in unemployment? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: One of the reasons New Zealand is in a different situation from Australia is that the New Zealand recession began in January 2008 as a result of 7 or 8 years of economic mismanagement by the previous Government. Then the global recession hit in October last year and the combination of the two has unfortunately meant that people were relying on jobs that they thought were sustainable but they have turned out not to be. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Will he guarantee that no young New Zealander will be denied access to the unemployment benefit until he or she is supported into full-time work or training given that youth unemployment has not been as high as this since 1994 and his youth jobs package will help only 14 percent of unemployed young people? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The youth unemployment package is pretty extensive; it is going to help well over 10000 young people to keep in connection with the world of work and skills. We believe that it reflects the right balance of fiscal cost and short-term assistance for young people who need work. 
Sue Moroney 
: How will women measure the performance of his Government given that 15000 out of the 24000 people thrown out of work in the June quarter were women—that is 62.5 percent of those who have lost jobs are women—and that his Government has no plans for job creation in the areas of the economy where women work? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: They will judge the Government by our efforts to rebuild our economic strength so that they can get their jobs back. That is how they will judge it and that is why we are pressing on with urgency to undo the damage done by the last Government and get this economy back on its feet. 
Unemployment—Reports 
6.  
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: What reports has she received on unemployment? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 Today’s latest figures are a concern but not a huge surprise. That is why we announced the Youth Opportunities package for 16900 young people just this week. 
Hon Member 
: 14 percent of them! 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: We have just heard “14 percent” from the other side which is actually not the correct figure. Let us be clear that we have 17000 young people on the unemployment benefit right now. We understand that it is our young people trying to enter the workforce who are finding it hard to get a foot in the door. That is why we are doing something about it. All Labour members can think about is welfare; we are working on jobs. 
Todd McClay 
: What measures is the Government taking to help young people get connected to the workforce in these difficult economic times? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Young New Zealanders who cannot get started in employment face the prospect of becoming disassociated from the workforce long term. We have to act now to protect them during the global recession. That is why this Government is spending some $150 million on the Youth Opportunities package which the Prime Minister announced just on Sunday creating jobs and opportunities for 16900 young people during this worst recession. 
Hon Annette King 
: Are the people who have been made unemployed in the last quarter as announced in the household labour force survey today just “predictions” of unemployment as she claimed in the House on Tuesday or are they real Kiwis without a job who are hurting desperately at this time—24000 of them; about the size of the population of Taupo? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I think we need to be careful when we talk about those 24000 people who have been made unemployed and about those 15000 women who I have just heard someone yell have been thrown out of their jobs. Actually of those 24000 people 10000 were in employment and are now in unemployment so yes they did lost their jobs; but 14000 of them are new to the labour force so they are quite a different group of people who need our help. We recognise every single one of them as individuals; their households are being affected and they are affected individually and that is why we are stepping up and doing what we can. 
Hon Annette King 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question was very specific. I asked it in response to an answer the Minister gave earlier in the week. I asked whether those who were made unemployed and named in the household labour force survey today were “predictions” as she said in the House or were real people who were unemployed. She did not answer that. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: My dilemma in trying to assist the member there is that the Minister gave some very good information on the information released today. I am not sure how the member is expecting her to answer that question because clearly the information released today is actual information. 
Hon Annette King 
: The household labour force survey is not a prediction Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think the member has made her point and we can move on to further supplementary questions. 
Todd McClay 
: Has the Minister seen any reports on the value of encouraging unemployed people to do voluntary work in communities? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Yes I have seen a report that said “Communities should be able to create new real jobs by allowing the unemployment benefit to be a wage subsidy. Voluntary work is a worthwhile activity to be undertaken while people are looking for work. The Government could contribute to the expenses of voluntary agencies taking on unemployed people.” That was in 1997 and it was from the Hon Annette King. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: What percentage of young unemployed people will benefit from the jobs element of the Government’s package if it is not 14 percent as she has stated? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I am pleased to have the opportunity to clear this up for the member because she clearly does not understand what the household labour force survey is. We have seen that the percentage of 15 to 19-year-olds looking for work under the household labour force survey has gone up to 22.9 percent. That is a concern but some of those 15-year-olds are looking for an hour’s work a week at the local supermarket. Some of them are just looking but they fit in with the household labour force survey for which one must be looking at least for 1 hour’s work a week. Those young people are very different from those who are going on to the unemployment benefit and are struggling and it is those young people we are putting our attention to first and whom we are going to help. There are 17000 young people on the unemployment benefit but 16900 jobs are being offered. I think that is pretty impressive. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I quite clearly asked the Minister simply for the percentage of young unemployed people who would benefit from the Government’s job creation package. Because she clearly believes that 14 percent is not the number then I assume she has a percentage she does believe this package will help. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: In fairness to Jacinda Ardern I believe that the question she asked appeared to be a perfectly fair question. I must say that in responding to it the Minister did not help the situation—and one saw the reaction to that. I would now ask the Minister if she has the information to actually answer the question asked by Jacinda Ardern. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I clearly said that 17000 young people are on the unemployment benefit at the moment. In the last week we have said we are creating 16900 opportunities for those young people—that is nearly 100 percent. 
Health—Front-line Services 
7.  
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Does he stand by his commitment to move health resources to the front line? 
Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health) 
: 
 Yes especially so when the outgoing Labour Government slashed $150 million out of health just before the election. It left district health boards on a track towards financial crisis with around $160 million of deepening deficits. But the good news is that the new Government— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The question asked was actually a very simple question Mr Ryall and I think that you answered it fairly early on. 
Su’a William Sio 
: Does the Minister agree with front-line staff at the Counties Manukau District Health Board who warn that health cuts will reduce participation in health programmes by most at-risk groups? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: The Counties Manukau District Health Board has carried out a major review of all its contracts using a systematic approach that aims to put funds closest to the front line and reduce duplication. I am advised for example that in a number of Maori provision programmes the service contracts have increased by an overall 42 percent this year and one of the reasons that the board has been able to do that is a Government funding increase of $66 million or 7 percent despite the fact that the previous Government cut $113 million from programmes last year. 
Su’a William Sio 
: Did the Minister sign his name to slashing $4.8 million for diabetes checks before or after he posed for photographs with front-line diabetes and renal services staff at Counties Manukau District Health Board? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: That member might not realise this but his party quietly before the last election cut over $3 million from diabetes programmes and $10 million from chronic care. I tell the member that the saving he refers to did not affect any front-line service at all. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The issue is whether the supplementary question was addressed and I give a little reminder that the question was phrased about timing: whether the Minister had cut funding before or after a certain event. The Minister has to address that issue of timing or his alternative is to say that the question is wrong in its construction. He has done neither of those things and I think he should be invited to do so. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will see that in two recent answers I have stopped the Minister because I believed he was going over the top and I asked another Minister to answer a question. If the Minister believes that that part of that question was crucial in terms of the public interest then forgive me; I must be in the wrong place. As far as I was concerned the Minister answered the question in a reasonable manner. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Does the Minister understand that thousands of undiagnosed diabetics will stay unaware of their condition unless they are checked by front-line health workers or will he rely on the emergency front-line health workers to treat them when their condition overtakes them? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: I think that is a very relevant question and that condition is a matter that the Government is putting resources into. It is a shame that the member did not ask those questions when the colleague who is sitting near her cut $3.3 million from the “Get Checked” Diabetes Aotearoa programme; cut $17.5 million from primary health organisation performance programmes which encouraged that diabetes work; and cut $10 million from a funding pool for people with disabling medical conditions. It is all very well for members opposite to take about what may or may not happen under National but they do not want to talk about what the previous Government got up to. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Does the Minister share the concern of senior doctors that his insistence on moving some hospital services to primary care has serious risks of clinically inappropriate transfers being made? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: This Government is seeking to implement the Primary Health Care Strategy which members opposite think is so fantastic. Fundamental to that strategy is that there should be more hospital-based services in the community. Of course there are always issues of clinical sustainability and those are what this Government is tackling. For example we are tackling the problems we have inherited at the Whanganui District Health Board where we have real problems with maintaining our workforce and maintaining services. But at least this Government is prepared to deal with them. 
Jo Goodhew 
: What significant announcements is the Minister able to make that support front-line services in public hospitals? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Junior doctors are important members of the team that delivers front-line services in our hospitals. This afternoon I will be releasing the report of the RMO (Resident Medical Officer) Commission chaired by a former State Services Commissioner Don Hunn. The commission’s report paints quite a grim picture of junior doctors’ experience in our public health system and calls for immediate change. Some research for example suggests that junior doctors spend 80 percent of their day doing work for which a medical degree is not necessary. The report calls for urgent improvements to the apprenticeship model and calls for a single national training body to ensure the training and apprenticeship model drives junior doctor experience. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Does the Minister believe that patients of the MidCentral District Health Board Whanganui District Health Board Taranaki District Health Board South Canterbury District Health Board Tairawhiti District Health Board Counties Manukau District Health Board Otago District Health Board and Southland District Health Board as well as those patients who are affected by the Minister’s cuts to mental health services and diabetes and cardiovascular services are receiving the “more convenient health service” he promised? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: This Government is tackling incredibly big problems that were inherited from the previous Government. That Government cut $150 million from the health budget very quietly before the last election. It cut over $110 million of programmes last year and members opposite do not want New Zealanders to know that this Government has to deal with Labour’s legacy of mismanagement of the New Zealand public health service. 
Jo Goodhew 
: What action is the Government taking to respond to concerns about the front-line health services that are detailed in the report of the RMO (Resident Medical Officer) Commission given that endless reports have called for the rationalisation of the funding and planning of health workforce training and for focusing resources on the front line? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: It is correct that we have inherited a disjointed and uncoordinated set of resources to deal with the serious and longstanding health workforce crisis. Over the years a raft of reports has been critical of this duplication. The Government is responding to these calls by establishing a Clinical Training Agency board to unify workforce planning in New Zealand. The purpose of the board is to work with the Government to rationalise the myriad of committees structures and work groups involved in the funding and planning of health workforce training to improve front-line services. That training will ultimately be consolidated within the Clinical Training Agency. The Medical Training Board has been disestablished. 
Jo Goodhew 
: What reports has the Minister seen about district health boards and their decisions about how they allocate their funds in relation to services? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: I have seen a range of reports about the need for district health boards to live within their means. Some of those reports are from Michael Cullen the previous Minister of Finance and some are from Annette King the previous Minister of Health. But probably the most interesting report is one by an Associate Minister who in July 2004 was defending claims of negligence by the Wellington City Mission relating to the funding for aged care. The then Associate Minister said the way that district health boards allocated funding was not her responsibility. That Associate Minister was Ruth Dyson yet she stands up every day in this House to ask the Government to take responsibility when she never would. 
Police Staffing—Counties-Manukau 
8.  
JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) 
 to the  
Minister of Police 
: Has she received any progress reports on the Government’s promise to provide 300 extra police for Counties-Manukau? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Police) 
: 
 Yes. I am pleased to advise that the number of front-line police in the Counties-Manukau Police District has increased by 66 since 30 November 2008. In addition 41 of the 80 recruits due to graduate on 20 August will go to Counties-Manukau. The Government provided $182.5 million in Budget 2009 for extra police and I am pleased with the progress to date. 
Jonathan Young 
: Has she received any reports regarding the recruitment of extra police for Counties-Manukau? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: Yes. The New Zealand Police advises that recruitment marketing statistics indicate that the level of interest in policing in Counties-Manukau has never been higher. During the latest Counties-Manukau recruitment campaign 1940 people registered for recruitment seminars. This was 77 percent higher than the number of seminar registrations during the same period in 2008. That is a fantastic result. 
Jonathan Young 
: Has she received any information about the people who are expressing an interest in a career with the New Zealand Police? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: Yes. The New Zealand Police is receiving expressions of interest from a wide range of people. For example the number of people aged 25 and under who have registered for recruitment seminars in Counties-Manukau in the last 2 months stands at 721 which is up from 426 for the same period last year. The number of Maori registrations is 179. That number is up from 73. Pasifika registrations are 387 up from 211. Asian registrations have increased from 103 to 162. Another very good result! 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Is she aware that other police districts around New Zealand are concerned about having to cope with increasing pressure on staff numbers thanks to this Government’s directive to send most of the new police officers promised and funded by the Labour Government to Counties-Manukau leaving only about 75 additional police per year to cover the rest of New Zealand? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: That is why this Government is delivering another 300 police for the rest of New Zealand as well. Well done! 
Contaminated Sites—National Register 
9.  
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
 to the  
Minister for the Environment 
: Will he support a publicly accessible national register of contaminated sites; if not why not? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 That question is identical to the one from the member on 18 June and my answer is the same. The Resource Management Act makes it plain that regional councils have responsibility for monitoring contaminated sites. I see no point in this being duplicated at a national level. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Does the Ministry for the Environment have a register of contaminated sites; if so should this register not be made public? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The only records the Ministry for the Environment has on contaminated sites are those for which the ministry has provided funding. That is quite a small list and it is publicly available. It is not available as a published list but I would be more than happy to provide the member with the names of the sites we are aware of. I would say to the member in terms of some of the public discourse about this issue that there is a huge difference between a contaminated site and a potentially contaminated site. Along with my assistance in the release of the information publicly I urge her to be careful about that differentiation because there is the potential to do considerable damage to people’s property values by confusing the two. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: What lessons has the new Government taken from the ministry’s experience with the Mapua contaminated site? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I was pleased last week to attend with the member for West Coast - Tasman a meeting he chaired to release the site auditor’s report on Mapua which was New Zealand’s worst-contaminated site. The report confirmed that the site is now fit for use and announced further funding of $455000 for ongoing monitoring. But there are some stiff lessons from Mapua in the critical report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment released last year. Firstly containment should be considered because in some cases it is a better option than clean-up. Secondly the Ministry for the Environment should not have got itself into an operational role with clean-ups as that is not its core area of expertise. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Does the Minister agree that having around 14 different regional registers around the country is confusing and would it not be fairer on the public if there was one national register? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: It depends on what the interest of the public is. If the interest of the public—which I think is important—is for people in their lone area to know which sites are contaminated I would put it to the member that it would be far more useful to have that information at a regional council level. The idea of a national register may help the Greens to create a massive scare story about contaminated sites but I am not sure how that serves the public interest. 
Prime Minister—Statement 
10.  
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he stand by his statement “We may not always agree with what you say but we will always listen”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister) 
: Yes. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Does the Prime Minister agree with Keisha Castle-Hughes that telling her to “stick to acting” is really odd given that he had previously encouraged her to make a submission to the Minister for Climate Change Issues on New Zealand’s pollution reduction target? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Prime Minister wholeheartedly supports Ms Castle-Hughes’ right to have a view about New Zealand’s climate change policy and her right to publicise that view. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Does the Prime Minister think that actors Lucy Lawless Robyn Malcolm and Cliff Curtis who are also participating in the Sign On campaign should “stick to acting” and has he advised Michael Jones to stick to rugby and keep out of politics or do different rules apply to potential National Party recruits? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: They are all eminent New Zealand actors and sticking to acting may well be a recipe for further success for them. However an advertising campaign is not a replacement for serious analysis of the impact of a 40 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020. Any serious analysis would tell us that such a reduction would have a very negative impact on our economy and on people’s livelihoods. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Should New Zealanders now assume from the Prime Minister’s put-down of Keisha Castle-Hughes and from Paula Bennett’s release of private information about two sole parents that it is OK for Ministers to attack people who disagree with them and is that what he meant when he said he would set high standards for himself and his Ministers? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I would have thought that that member would know as much as anyone about the bullying shut-down tactics of his colleagues given that he announced his promotion to Parliamentary Under-Secretary only to find it pulled back the next day. 
John Boscawen 
: Will the Prime Minister listen to the people of New Zealand and adopt my member’s bill which introduces the Chester Borrows amendment as a Government bill; if not why not? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Prime Minister is a very good listener to the New Zealand people. 
Greenhouse Gas Emissions—Agricultural Sector Research 
11.  
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
 to the  
Minister of Agriculture 
: What steps has the Government recently taken to boost research into agricultural emissions? 
Hon DAVID CARTER (Minister of Agriculture) 
: 
 This week the Government announced a $10 million 3-year partnership between the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the dairy and fertiliser industries in order to research the effectiveness of nitrification inhibitors in reducing agricultural emissions. This vital work 50 percent of which is funded by the Government is a significant step towards developing practical tools to aid farmers to reduce their emissions. I commend industry for coming on board and for providing its support for the research work. 
Louise Upston 
: Why has the Government decided to support the partnership? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: The Government is committed to finding ways to help farmers reduce their emissions without destocking and destroying the economy. Nitrification inhibitors offer some potential in this regard but more detailed work is needed to measure their effectiveness and to ensure farmer buy-in. The work will deliver that information and will help our farmers meet the challenges they face around climate change. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Does the Minister stand by his comments that farmers are on board and are prepared to face the challenges presented by climate change; if so how does he reconcile those comments with continued statements from farming lobby groups such as Federated Farmers that the emissions trading scheme should be scrapped the agriculture sector should be exempt and the Government should set no targets for 2020 carbon pollution reduction? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: I stand by my comments. The majority of farmers I meet are well and truly on board and willing to face the challenges. We need assistance and to work with industry to find solutions for how to do it without adopting the Greens’ policy of simply destocking livestock from New Zealand. 
Charles Chauvel 
: I seek leave to table a speech made by Don Nicholson at the recent ACT Party conference making the statements I referred to in my question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Louise Upston 
: What other work does the Government have going on in this area? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: A huge amount of work is going on and it is an absolute priority of the National Government. We have recently announced the domestic Centre for Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research and my colleague Tim Groser and I are now working very hard to build support for a global alliance on agricultural greenhouse gas research. On top of that the Primary Growth Partnership Sustainable Farming Fund Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium and Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change Plan of Action are all provided with funding for this vital research. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Does the Minister accept DairyNZ’s published conclusion from its research that at a milk payout of less than $5.50 a kilo “increasing the stocking rate and feed supply was no advantage for operating profit.”? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: The basis on which farmers make a decision on increasing production is made individually. I cannot accept a generalised statement like the one the member gave. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: What implications does the Minister see for New Zealand’s greenhouse policy for the finding of AgResearch scientists that cows on low-intensity farms produce more milk per cow than those on high-intensity farms at much lower cost to the farmer and much lower emissions for New Zealand? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: I am not familiar with the research to which the member refers but I have absolute confidence that New Zealanders will produce their product in a greenhouse-efficient manner more than comparable with that of producers anywhere else in the world. That is the important factor we have to realise. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: I seek leave to table three documents that include the reference for the points the Minister said he was not familiar with. The first is a paper by DairyNZ “Milksolids Production per Ha ? Profit per Ha”. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is none. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: I seek leave to table a publication in  
Ecological Economics  
this year 
by scientists from AgResearch which shows that milk production per cow is higher at lower stocking rates. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is none. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: I seek leave to table a document called  
Getting There 
 which was published on Tuesday by the Green Party and which documents emissions reduction possibilities in a range of areas including agriculture. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is none. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Roading—Roads of National Significance 
12.  
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: What factors were used to determine which highways would be fast tracked as the Government’s roads of national significance? 
Hon NATHAN GUY (Associate Minister of Transport) 
on behalf of the  
Minister of Transport 
: The initial list of roads of national significance identified seven of our most essential routes that have high traffic volumes and that require work to reduce congestion improve safety and support economic growth. Those roads are very important in their respective regions; they rank close to the top of the regions’ priority lists and are within or adjacent to our five largest centres in terms of population and growth. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: If the priority for roads of national significance is economic development then why has Taranaki with its substantial dairy industry missed out on upgrades to State Highway 3 between Mokau and Piopio? 
Hon NATHAN GUY 
: That member will be pleased to know—showing a little bit of interest in the Taranaki region because she will no doubt be heading there with the Labour caucus next week—that a working party was set up in 2003 led by the Taranaki Regional Council and the three Taranaki district councils. I am ashamed that each year since 2003 the previous Labour Government spent on average only $2 million to $4 million on State Highway 3. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member was just going to ask a further supplementary question but I feel that the Minister could do a little better than that in answering that question. It was a reasonable question asking about why a certain State highway was not included and about what the Government plans to do about that highway. I think a little more than we received would be appropriate. 
Hon NATHAN GUY 
: Speaking to the point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I just asked the Associate Minister to answer the question. Had the Associate Minister not been critical of the Labour Party I might have been more forgiving of the way he answered. But if he will not answer the question at all I would advise him not to get stuck into another party. 
Hon NATHAN GUY 
: In my primary answer I alluded to the reasons that the Government decided to use a particular decision-making process in respect of the roads of national significance. One particular parameter relates to high vehicle volumes and about 3000 vehicles travel on that particular route north of Waitara each day. There are also parameters relating to congestion and safety and to supporting economic growth. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: Why did the Government decide to bring forward Labour’s Kopu Bridge replacement project by 1 year given that it is not a road of national significance and the bridge’s carriage of primary products for export is insignificant compared with Taranaki’s State Highway 3? 
Hon NATHAN GUY 
: It is a significant investment for the Coromandel region. There is huge economic development. Fifty jobs will be created to work on this bridge with flow-on benefits of 100 jobs. This Government is getting on with building infrastructure and is improving the economic development of this country. 
David Bennett 
: What progress can the Minister report on accelerating State highway projects? 
Hon NATHAN GUY 
: In addition to the recent announcements about the Victoria Park tunnel and the exciting Kopu Bridge replacement the Minister of Transport is in Tauranga today to announce the start of consultation on tolling as a possible means of bringing forward the Tauranga eastern link road. This new road will boost productivity improve access to the Port of Tauranga and greatly enhance safety. The important point is that it will reduce travel time by 24 minutes on a return journey. 
Tobacco Point-of-sale Advertising—Effect on Adolescents 
13.  
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Health 
: Has she received any evidence that point-of-sale tobacco advertising increases the likelihood that adolescents will start smoking? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 Yes. 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: Does she agree with the Minister of Health’s statement that there is no international evidence that shows a clear link between banning tobacco displays and reducing smoking rates? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: I am not responsible for the answers that the Minister of Health gives in the House. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We have been through this on a previous occasion whereby the Associate Minister of Health has clear delegated responsibility for tobacco policy. This question is about the views of somebody else on tobacco policy. It does not matter that it happens to be the Minister of Health. It could be any person commenting on tobacco policy. For some inexplicable reason the Associate Minister will not answer these questions that are being put down to her about tobacco policy. There is no reason for her not to comment on this matter. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Further to the member’s point of order I think there is even more reason for her to comment on this statement than if it was from any other person with due respect to my colleague. The Associate Minister is responsible for the collective views of the Government on this issue. If those views are not the same if there is differentiation between the Minister of Health and the Associate Minister of Health then it is the direct responsibility of the Associate Minister of Health in this particular area to get the person who must represent her views in Cabinet on side. I have had complicated relationships with associates myself in the past and it is very important for the coherence of government for those things to be resolved. In the end the responsibility rests with the person to whom that delegation has been given. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I thank honourable members. [ 
Interruption 
] I am still dealing with this point of order. I accept that the honourable member is responding to an interjection from the Hon Gerry Brownlee while I am dealing with this point of order. It is an interesting point of order. The dilemma I have slightly is that an opinion was sought and therefore the nature of the answer cannot be precise. But I think the Minister should have endeavoured to give a reply to the question even though an opinion was being sought. It is valid to seek an opinion but as to whether the Minister does not have any responsibility I think there is some merit in the points that have been made that the Associate Minister has delegations in this area and therefore does have responsibility in this area. I invite the member to repeat his question and we will listen to the Minister’s answer. 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: Does the Associate Minister agree with the Minister of Health’s statement that there is no international evidence that shows a clear link between banning tobacco displays and reducing smoking rates? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: I repeat my answer from before because I do not take responsibility for others who make comments in this portfolio. I am very clear that yes I agree with the previous question and that is what I am responsible for—not for anybody else. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You asked the Minister to address the question. In her answer she got up and said that she is not planning on doing that because she has no responsibility for it and she sat down again. We are no clearer about what the Associate Minister with delegated responsibility for tobacco policy thinks about this comment. 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: I am very happy to take responsibility for the portfolio that I have and to answer on behalf of that responsibility. I am not prepared to be responsible for the answers that others give. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If members had listened to the answer that the Associate Minister gave I think it was pretty clear as to what she was telling the questioner in her answer. It may not have been quite as precise as the member might have wished but it was very clear to me what the Minister was saying. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I was also listening to it very carefully. The Associate Minister actually said that she agreed with the question. That is capable of a lot of interpretation— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have heard sufficient on this matter. I do not know what trouble members are having but it was very clear to me what the Minister was saying and which view she was expressing. 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I find myself in a very difficult situation now and I seek your guidance. I attempted to submit a written question to the Minister of Health on this matter and on statements that he has made. The Clerk’s Office responded to me to say that I was not able to do that and in fact the wording I used in this question is precisely the wording that it recommended I use to the Associate Minister. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: A simple way of dealing with this would be for the member to ask a question of the Minister of Health rather than doing this—[ 
Interruption 
] They know— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There is no excuse just because those members have breached the Standing Orders for the Minister to do so. I am listening. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I am making the point that the member should simply set down a question asking the Minister of Health what he thinks about it if it is of such great concern to him. I think that the Associate Minister of Health has made her position abundantly clear. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: The Leader of the House has been helpful because it goes to the exact problem we have. The member concerned put down an oral question to the Associate Minister of Health asking about whether she agreed with the view of another Government Minister. The Minister refused to answer the question using the same excuse that she has used today. My colleague put down a written question to the Minister of Health who refused to answer the question and sent it back because he does not have delegated responsibility for tobacco policy. So today we put the question to the Associate Minister again and we are in the same dilemma. The tobacco question of course is important but the secondary issue here for you is how the Opposition can question the Government when different positions are expressed and Ministers say that they simply refuse to comment on what their ministerial colleagues are saying. We have this specific problem plus I think there is a wider issue here as well for you. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I would simply refer the shadow Leader of the House to many Speakers’ rulings that were made during the period of 2002-05 that dealt with the extraordinary situation we had then when we had members of the Alliance parading in the House as being part of some other party but holding ministerial warrants with not one Minister wanting to answer any question that might offend the other. In this case it is quite simple: the Associate Minister of Health has responsibility in this area and has made her views very very clear to the House today. I ask how any further questions on what Government policy might be can be solicited from any other member given that other members do not have the responsibility that she has. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Speaking further to the point of order— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will hear the Hon Darren Hughes only a little bit further then I will rule on the matter. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: First of all the Alliance party left Parliament in 2002 so I am not quite sure why checking the  
Hansard  
from 2002-05 would help in the way that the Leader of the House says it will. Secondly those were questions about the administration of political parties and they are not allowed regardless of whether or not a Government is cohesive. But this matter is about Government policy. Further it is about an area where there is delegated responsibility from one Minister to another. The point we are making is that both Ministers are refusing to answer questions or are creating difficulty about answering questions in this particular respect and that is where we need your assistance. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not need any further assistance on this matter. The primary question asked whether the Associate Minister had received any evidence that point-of-sale tobacco advertising increases the likelihood that adolescents will start smoking. If I recollect correctly I think that the Minister replied “Yes.” to that. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Yes. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister replied “Yes.” OK that clears that up. Then the member who had asked the primary question by way of a supplementary question sought an opinion. We know that members cannot expect a yes or no answer on an opinion but the Minister made it abundantly clear I thought to the House what her view was. Members cannot expect a yes or no answer but in terms of the substantive issue that was laid down as a primary question the House knows the answer to it. The Minister has been commendably clear and could not have been more clear. If all questions were as simple and answers were as clear then it would be very helpful. The Minister was commendably clear in her answer. One could argue therefore that there is not even any need for further supplementary questions because supplementary questions are meant to elucidate primary questions. The member asking the question then went on to seek an opinion. The Minister was not quite so clear in answering on that opinion although I think it was very clear what the Minister was actually saying. The member has a further supplementary question to ask and I will not hear further points of order on the matter. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I respect what you just said about not hearing further points of order on the matter but you have explained and we have been consulting here on the exact meaning of “I agree with the question”. You said that that is absolutely clear but we do not understand what that means. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If the member does not understand what the Minister is saying then I cannot help him. It was abundantly clear to me and I do not intend to litigate the matter further. The Minister was obviously confirming what she said before that in respect of the substantive question she had evidence of that and that is what she confirmed. Does the member wish to ask a further supplementary question? 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: Has the Minister of Health changed his position on tobacco displays since stating in the House on 4 March that “there is no international evidence that shows a clear link between banning tobacco displays and reducing smoking rates.”; if so what is his current stance? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not know how the Minister can be expected to answer that because the supplementary question was directed to the Minister of Health and the substantive question was directed to the Associate Minister of Health. The member asked whether the Minister of Health has changed his opinion. I do not believe the member can ask the Associate Minister that. Rather than penalise the member a supplementary question I am very happy for him to rephrase it. [ 
Interruption 
] I am trying to deal with a difficult issue. Because this matter is not an easy one to deal with I do not want to penalise the member a supplementary question and I am very happy for him to rephrase his supplementary question. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am sorry to relitigate matters. It is my submission to you that the Associate Minister responsible for this area in the delegated responsibilities could answer that supplementary question. If the Minister has changed his view and she is aware of that she can say yes or she can say no— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not want to take more of the House’s time. If the member had asked “Has the Associate Minister been advised …” then that would be fine because it would then be a matter of whether she had received such advice. But to ask her point-blank about a matter relating specifically to the Minister of Health is clearly not something she can answer. The member can rephrase his supplementary question. 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: Does the Minister currently support a ban on point-of-sale tobacco advertising; if so has she prepared any Cabinet papers or draft legislation to advance her policy position? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: Yes I agree with the question. I have been opposed to tobacco sales in the shops and I have been discussing this matter with the Minister and also with the Prime Minister. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. How are the supplementary questions for this being allocated? Can you assure us that they were held back from the quota that Labour used yesterday? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I can assure the honourable Minister that I am following the number of supplementary questions very carefully. At this point I believe that the Labour Party has used 31 out of a possible 33 supplementary questions. 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: Does the Associate Minister expect a Government bill to be introduced that would bring about the ban on tobacco displays? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: Certainly that is an option. 
Question No. 3 to Minister 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 In answer to a supplementary question during question No. 3 the Acting Prime Minister advised the House that New Zealand’s unemployment rate in 2005 was as it is today—6 percent. I seek leave to table the household labour force survey for 2005. The survey shows that in the first quarter the unemployment rate was 4.3 percent in the second quarter it was 3.7 percent in the third quarter it was 3.7 percent and in the fourth quarter it was 3.6 percent. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I seek leave to table the household labour force survey from June 2000 which is the last time— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member should not go on for too long on these matters. She has sought leave to table the household labour force survey from June 2000. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I seek leave to table the household labour force survey for 2008 where for three consecutive quarters the unemployment rate rose under the previous Labour Government. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? I heard objection. There is objection to that document being tabled. 
Questions to Members 
Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill—Report Back 
1. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Law and Order Committee 
: When will the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill be reported back to the House? 
SANDRA GOUDIE (Chairperson of the Law and Order Committee): 
 The report-back date to the House is 26 September 2009. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Will the chairperson invite Ministry of Justice officials to appear before the Law and Order Committee before it reports back to explain their input into the departmental report on the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill; if not why not? 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: That will be a matter for the committee to determine. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: I seek leave to table my letter to you Mr Speaker outlining my concerns at the behaviour of ACT MP David Garrett at the Law and Order Committee yesterday. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection? 
Hon Member 
: Yes. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I beg your pardon? Point of order the Hon Clayton Cosgrove— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: We’re in the middle of a point of order. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: OK. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No I will hear the Hon Clayton Cosgrove. Does the Hon Clayton Cosgrove want to make a point of order? 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: Mr Speaker— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No I have said I will hear the Hon Clayton Cosgrove. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: Well you’re making up new rules. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Leader of the House will resume his seat right now. Thank you. I have said I will hear the Hon Clayton Cosgrove. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Just to be helpful you were very generous in asking whether there was objection to the leave and you gave an extended period of time for that. There was no objection. You were about to put that and an objection allegedly came from somewhere. I put it to you that you had already embarked on that course. There was no objection. The letter should be tabled. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Members might note that in fact I had not ruled one way or the other on the matter. The reason why I was hesitating was that I was a little uncertain about the procedures around the tabling of members’ letters to the Speaker. It is not a common request and the kinds of dangers that might be entered into were members to seek leave to table letters to the Speaker were going through my mind. I guess if it is the member’s own letter then that is a matter for the member to decide. Forgive me; I was not waiting for someone to object. I was pondering on the potential risks around putting such leave to the House. On reflection given that it is the member’s own letter and therefore I cannot see any particular— 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There was a lot of noise down this end of the Chamber and in fact right throughout the Chamber yet through it all came a very clear and loud negation from the chairperson of the committee indicating that she did not want the letter to be tabled. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I was not going to comment but the member’s recollection is clearly not the case for anyone sitting on this side of the Chamber. The House was absolutely silent. I was surprised at just how long you waited. You appeared to be looking around. You have explained what the reason was for that. But I think to try to argue that there was a lot of noise in the House and you could not hear Sandra Goudie interjecting is just not credible. You then started to say that the letter could be tabled. In fact so much time had elapsed that my colleague was able to deliver the letter to the Chamber officers for it to be tabled. I do not think that is correct at all. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: We are getting into some difficulty here. I will hear from the ACT Party which we have not heard from yet. 
John Boscawen 
: I heard Sandra Goudie say yes on at least two occasions and possibly on three. Although Mr Hughes may not have heard her I certainly did and I can attest to that fact. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not need to hear any further on this. The issues that I need to consider are clear. Let me make it very clear to the House that I was not waiting for anyone. I was trying to reflect because I think this is the first time that I have been asked to seek leave for a member’s letter to the Speaker to be tabled. That is something I was pondering on. I think the only way I can resolve this—and it is my fault we got into this by my pondering on the issue—is to ask the member who objected whether she objected promptly on my putting the leave to the House. I have to rely on a member’s word. I obviously did not hear the member immediately but members at the back of the House say that she did object. I believe that the only way I can handle the matter is to rely on the member’s goodwill. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have an alternative approach. Members over there have made it very clear that the member did object. I think we have to take their word. I think that if we have the precedent of asking for the word of other members then it will get pretty unhealthy. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: On that basis I invite the member to seek leave again. This time I ask if any member does object that it be dealt with promptly. Letters to the Speaker relating to matters of privilege cannot be referred to in debate but I do not see any procedural problem in this matter. I will hear from the Hon Gerry Brownlee having been pretty blunt with him previously. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I think the problem Mr Speaker is that you yourself have just said you hesitated because you were surprised that a member wanted to table a letter that had been sent to you. I presume that it is a matter of privilege that has been raised. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have to be honest with the member. I do not know whether it is. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: There is a procedure around that as you know. A member writes to the Speaker and provides a copy of the letter to the person who is the subject of the privileges complaint. If this is allowed to proceed then we destroy that whole process because people will simply come into the Chamber and table documents that outline an allegation against one member or another and therefore as a document tabled in Parliament it becomes completely public before members on the other side have any opportunity whatsoever to respond. I think it would be an appalling situation if the House allows this to happen today. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not need to hear any further on this issue. I believe the point raised by the Hon Gerry Brownlee is a very fair one. If members start using letters to the Speaker to try to make political points and if members publicise those letters prior to the ability of the Speaker to consider them the whole system will start to break down. I make it very clear to the House that as Speaker I take a very dim view of that. Members seeking the Speaker to give favourable consideration to an issue around a breach of privilege damage their case very seriously when they make the matter public before the Speaker has had the chance to deal with it. 
I think the point raised by the Hon Gerry Brownlee is a very valid one and that is why I hesitated as I put the leave that was being sought. I think this is a serious issue and I want the House to reflect on it. That is why I am prepared to have the member seek leave again. 
We have had this consideration under points of order which I think is a very fair consideration because it is a very important issue that we are dealing with. Matters of privilege are important matters. Communications with the Speaker are very important matters and they are not matters that should be used to score political points in the media prior to the Speaker’s consideration of them. Having had that consideration I think all members now have the chance to reflect on the matter and to deliberate on the leave that is being sought. Members have a perfect right to seek leave to table whatever documents they believe they wish to table. I think that is the best way to deal with the matter now. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With due respect I think the matter about whether a document a letter to you regarding privilege is released is a matter for the person who wrote the letter or even for the person who received it. I agree with you that it is unlikely to get favourable consideration from you or that it is likely to be a factor that you take into account when considering it. But there have been dozens of occasions over the years where a press statement has been around the gallery with a letter attached to it before the complaint has made it to the member who has been complained about. That tends to indicate that it is more political than something with a serious hope of succeeding at the Privileges Committee or something that is unlikely to even reach the committee but I submit to you that that is a matter for the member who wrote the letter and/or the member who was complained about. Either of them has the right to release it and I am slightly anxious about your suggestion that it would be completely wrong for them to do so. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I hear what the member has said. I accept absolutely the point that the Hon Trevor Mallard makes which is that it is perfectly within the existing Standing Orders for a member to do that. I have no argument with that. I believe it undermines the procedures of the House though and maybe it is something that the House should consider in future consideration of the Standing Orders. Anything that undermines the procedures of the House is not good. It is a practice that used not to happen years ago but it has tended to happen more. I think on this occasion the best way now that there has been a reflective period on the matter and the House is in a position to do so is for the House to decide whether it will give leave for this letter to be tabled. The member should seek leave again and I invite Carmel Sepuloni to do that. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: I seek leave to table my letter to you Mr Speaker outlining my concerns about the behaviour of ACT MP David Garrett at the select committee yesterday. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that letter. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Question No. 3 to Minister 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Could I have a clarification that under the Standing Orders Ministers are still required to correct incorrect information given in an answer at the earliest possible opportunity after that information has been corrected? Is that still the Standing Order? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It is a matter for the Minister and it should be done at the earliest opportunity. There are other remedies if the member believes that a Minister has deliberately misled the House but once the Minister is aware that an answer that was given was incorrect he or she should—although it is up to him or her—seek to correct the answer. 
Road User Charges Amendment Bill 
Third Reading 
Hon NATHAN GUY (Associate Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I move  
That the Road User Charges Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. I thank members and officials for their work on this very important bill. The bill will achieve two things. Firstly it will enable the exemption of light electric motor vehicles from the requirement to pay road-user charges and secondly it will ensure adequate notice of road-user charge increases. 
Over the years motor vehicles have given New Zealanders opportunities to travel and travel more freely now than at any other time in the past and motor vehicles have brought huge improvements in economic growth and prosperity. However part of the price of that freedom has been a contribution to global climate change toxic emissions and indeed noise. These problems are not due to the roads or our motorists; rather they are due to the motors of our vehicles. Recent advances in vehicle technology will see zero-emission or very low-emission vehicles in our market as early as 2010. These new vehicles will be powered either wholly or partly by electricity. 
Electric vehicles are beneficial: while providing the choice of flexible and personalised transport they are more efficient and cheaper to run than conventional vehicles. They will reduce our need to import fossil fuels and when combined with smart metering technology will increase road and electricity security against energy disruptions. Electric vehicles release little or no toxic emissions and they have the potential to substantially reduce transport greenhouse gas emissions. 
This bill seeks to allow exemptions for owners of light electric motor vehicles from paying road-user charges. The 4c per kilometre saving would provide an incentive for those people who have bought light electric motor vehicles. The exemption is intended to operate until 2013 and is limited to light electric motor vehicles. In 2013 the exemption will cease and owners of light electric motor vehicles will revert to paying the full costs they impose on the roading network—an important principle of our road-funding system. 
The second important issue this bill addresses is the provision of notice for an increase to road-user charges. These charges are a significant cost to commercial transport operators. They are a tax and no reasonable Government would increase a tax overnight without warning. The bill proposes a very reasonable period of 6 weeks’ notice before these charges are increased; the possibility of Government revenue loss through large-scale pre-purchasing of road-user charges at cheaper rates is neatly averted. Road-user charge licences for heavy vehicles will expire 1 month after an increase comes into effect. Refunds of road-user charges for unused kilometres will be automatically provided at the time a new licence is purchased. No additional resources from Government or businesses will be required. The 400000 owners of light diesel motor vehicles will not be subject to the expiry provision. The lower cost of road-user charge licenses for these vehicles substantially reduces the incentive for large-scale pre-purchasing. 
Again I thank the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and officials for the very prompt work on this bill. The bill will help to encourage light electric motor vehicles on to our roads which will lead to cleaner and quieter streets lower fuel bills and fewer greenhouse gases. The bill provides a transparent notification system for increases to road-user charges while safeguarding the Government’s revenue. This is a very good bill and I commend it to the House. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 Labour will be supporting the third reading of the Road User Charges Amendment Bill— 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: How’s your landlady? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: I am sorry? 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: How’s your landlady? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Out of all the choices of people I would much rather have her than some other people I know in terms of kindness and things like that. 
We are in support of this bill— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Seen the Harry Potter movies? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: What was that Maurice? I would have thought National members would be the last members to raise anything to do with housing this week. I am amazed they want to do that. All it shows is that there is a lot of disloyalty over there at the present time. 
This bill is in the name of the Minister of Transport the Hon Steven Joyce and who is the No. 1 beneficiary of Bill English’s problems this week? It is Steven Joyce. So is it not interesting that all those members are climbing over one another to praise Steven Joyce as he marches towards the deputy prime ministership and the finance portfolio in this country? That was a nasty little dig by Paula Bennett to try to get one over Bill English in order to grease up to Steven Joyce as she looks for further promotion within the Government. I am very disappointed that she would do something like that; I think it is a real black mark against her name in that particular regard. 
The third reading of this bill is welcomed by Labour although it is very timid legislation. Through the Committee stage we highlighted the concerns we had that the Minister and the Government have not used the chance of this legislation to be far bolder and show a little bit more vision with regard to the development of light electric motor vehicles in New Zealand. The bill as the previous speaker said has two parts: the first covers the exemption for light electric motor vehicles from road-user charges and the second covers the period in which road-user charges may be purchased after the Government has announced an increase in those fees—and I will come to that point second. In dealing with the exemption for light electric motor vehicles I say that the bill does not go far enough. It is disappointing that it is anticipating only 300 of these vehicles being on the road between now and 2013. 
One of the issues that the Minister would not address in the Committee stage was why the opportunity was not taken to set a bolder target for those vehicles to be on our roads in order to send a very clear signal from Government that it was showing the leadership required to get a diversity of vehicles fuelled by different means through our motor vehicle fleet. I think that is a missed opportunity and many questions were put to the Minister that he did not answer. For example he was asked why a percentage figure of our fleet was not set rather than a number. When we consider how many cars each family has we realise that 300 cars is a very very small number indeed; 300 cars would pretty easily cover two or three streets in a small provincial town. But if the Minister had set a percentage figure even one as low as 1 percent that would have been a chance for the country to see how serious the Government was for light electric motor vehicles to be developed. 
Light electric motor vehicles are such a great idea and reinforce all the work that the previous Government had done around the sustainability agenda to make sure that the single biggest area for most families in terms of fossil fuel emissions—that is people’s participation in the transport sector—could be covered. For many families who think about how they can make a real difference to climate change it will be in the area of transport that they are able to make the biggest difference to their emissions. Electric cars are obviously one way in which that could happen. We have to increase the proportion of these vehicles in our fleet on the roads. Combining both a greater quantity and the fact that New Zealand has such a strong supply of renewable energy would have brought together those great ideas. I hope that will happen with this bill and that we will have 300 of these cars between now and 4 years’ time but I fear that the wrong signals are being given or that the signals are not being given strongly enough with the passage of this bill here today. We know that cars that rely on oil engines or petrol and need to be filled up at the gas station are harmful sources of fuel because they are non-renewable sources and emissions from cars are something that we are all concerned about. By flipping over to electric vehicles we see that both of those things can be changed. 
I want to pick up on a point made by National member the Hon Tau Henare yesterday. He referred to a documentary called  
Who Killed the Electric Car? 
. In politics it is very easy to have conspiracy theories put to members or to the community about how things can be affected but I think that documentary clearly showed that not only Governments but corporations as well can send the wrong signals by the decisions they make. One thing that reminds me of that point is the style shape and design of the cars that were chosen in order to make them unattractive to consumers. A very deliberate decision was made to try to limit sales of that particular type of vehicle. I believe that the Government has a role to play in this area that can be quite influential and I encourage it to take up that role in a stronger way. 
We know that at the moment the availability of these cars in our market is currently very very low. The purchase price is around double the cost of what a conventional vehicle would be and that puts them out of the reach of many many working families particularly those who are facing harder times as unemployment rises at a seemingly unstoppable rate. Today it is at 6 percent of our labour market. Global manufacturers have not seen New Zealand as a priority to send cars down to because they have not seen a market that is ready and willing to go. That is the tragedy of the bill. 
The role of Government is to remove barriers. This bill partly does that and that is why Labour is voting for it. We offer the Government congratulations on that part but so often within this area of sustainability and climate change we are not seeing the Government being bold enough which is what our country needs. New Zealand relies so heavily on a stable climate. Often the people who stand to lose the most from climate change are themselves the most reluctant to make a change but I think it is the role of Parliament and the Government to look at that. I point the Government’s attention as I did during the second reading to Denmark. It has outlined a huge programme to try to kick-start a proper electric motor vehicle fleet a US$135 million plan to try to get that going and the New Zealand Government should be trying to focus on that as strongly as it can. 
Finally I turn to the area of road-user charges that the bill contains in its second part. The previous Government ordered a review of road-user charges because there are a number of legitimate questions in this area around fairness where costs should fall and the emerging types of vehicles that have environmental efficiency. We have just been discussing electric vehicles and they are of course covered by the bill but there are also diesel-powered sedans and light diesel vehicles. They are becoming more and more popular on the consumer market. How those are all treated is a subject of some considerable debate and angst within the transport industry. The review was set up last year to try to come up with some potential options or solutions in that respect. I certainly welcomed that review. 
The review came out of a period when the National Party had been very very critical of an increase in those road-user charges. There was 18 years between increases in the fees and when the increases were finally put forward we saw the then National transport spokesperson Maurice Williamson back when he was alive politically lead a charge of National MPs around the country. They said that those were the most terrible disgraceful increases they had ever seen and that it was terrible that the Labour Government had raised road-user charges. Yet nowhere in this debate have National members got up and said that they believe road-user charges should be lowered to the level they were last year. I have been intrigued by that because I thought that last year’s high principle would have been this year’s delivery. I thought that National members were so genuine in their outrage last year that they would have reduced those road-user charges. But—surprise surprise—they have not done that. I would love to know from the next speaker why all of a sudden they believe that the road-user charges are now at an appropriate level when last year those members joined protests all around the country because the charges were so outrageous. Equally the cost of diesel has fallen since that time— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: No we just joined the protest because it was anti-Labour! 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Oh so the member says that he joined the protest only because it was anti-Labour. I hope that the members of the trucking industry who listened to the Hon Tau Henare when he turned up realise now that maybe he did not really believe what he was saying. That is a very interesting revelation. When he gives speeches they are more about his political party view in terms of the Government of the day than about the substance of what he is saying around that. 
We know that the money collected in road-user charges goes to the National Land Transport Fund. We use that fund to build our roads and to try to improve our infrastructure in respect of rail and so many other things we need in order to get New Zealand moving. When the Government talks about the seven roads of national significance they are paid for out of the National Land Transport Fund. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a short call in the third reading of the Road User Charges Amendment Bill. There is a global movement towards the use of cleaner greener cars and that includes electric cars. The Government has a role to play in this change. It needs to take a lead and through this bill the Government is making a start. 
There is no doubt that road-user charges have been a barrier to the uptake of electric cars. An increase in the number of electric cars on our roads will reduce the greenhouse gases produced by the transport sector as well as the harmful emissions affecting air quality. It will also decrease reliance on imported fossil fuels and improve energy security. 
This bill provides for 42 days’ notice of a road-user charge increase. That has been done to minimise the potential harm and revenue loss caused by the pre-purchasing of road-user charges by the heavy motor vehicle industry following notification of a road-user charge increase. The bill provides that heavy vehicle road-user charge licences will expire 1 month after an increase comes into effect. The changes in road-user charge rates that cannot be passed on to consumers in a timely manner impacts on their businesses. I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I went over to the United States in 1992 on one of those “CIA” trips. I was there for a month and we were entitled to have a bit to do with putting our own agenda together. I found myself in Pasadena talking to a guy called Paul MacCready. Paul MacCready has since passed away but before he did he managed a few things. He got a pterodactyl to fly. He took part in the Alice Springs to Darwin solar races each year and continued to clean those up. 
Paul MacCready was the guy who invented the Gossamer aircraft the first aircraft that was human-powered and heavier than air and he invented a thing called the Impact which was an electric vehicle. I sat down with him for the day just to get a sense of where his head was at and he taught me a really important lesson. It was that politicians should not pick technologies; politicians should back technologies. 
In 1992 the Government of California had said—and as my colleague Darren Hughes said earlier—that there was a case for the Government to set a percentage target so it did. It said that all vehicles to be sold from the year 2000 or thereabouts in Los Angeles would be zero-emission vehicles. But Mr MacCready said that the politicians had made a mistake because they had picked a technology instead of backing it. They should have watched what technology was coming forward. It was not zero-emission vehicles back in 1992; it was hybrids. He could see them coming out of Japan and he could see that that would be the next wave to be followed maybe by plug-in hybrids and then maybe by electric vehicles. 
Now 17 years later Mr MacCready has been proved right and the time for a Government to back this new technology—zero-emission vehicles; electric cars—has come. So Labour members support this legislation but in the same breath we say that it is insufficient. We are not suggesting great subsidies or anything of the sort but we wonder whether taking road-user charges off zero-emission vehicles will make much of a difference when one considers not only the capital cost but the entire lack of infrastructure. 
No planning is going on around the advent of electric vehicles into this country. There is no planning law about what type or types of recharging we might have—induction plug-in or whatever. There is no standard set for safety around those forms of recharging. We do not have any infrastructure in place for the advent of these vehicles so the early movers will have to make it up as they go along. If we are to have 350 or something electric vehicles in this country by a certain period— 
Sue Moroney 
: 300 in the next 5 years. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Well by the law of averages that will mean 10 in my home town of Dunedin and those 10 electric vehicle users will not have a place to plug in in the central city unless there is planning for that. They will not be able to be assured of safe ongoing recharging at home or anywhere else unless there is planning for it. And they certainly will not be able to go on a trip—not into Central Otago—because there will not be anything there for them to charge into or easily charge into. So it is an infrastructure issue. The Government needs to do more in the electric vehicle space than it has done. I commend what the Government has done. It is a good step forward but it is not a sufficient step forward by any means. 
I wonder whether the Government would ever consider getting together a group of people who have an interest in this matter—potential users potential services—and asking them when we should start training mechanics to look after these vehicles when they need servicing. We do not have that now so will we be doing DIY maintenance on electric vehicles? Will people be phoning up some trained electrician who is very interested in electric cars? 
The point is we will have to have that trained electrician or have that knowledge before people buy the vehicles. That is why I think the Government has not done enough. We need a skills infrastructure we need a physical infrastructure and we need a plan. But we do not have any of those; we simply have the removal of road-user charges. 
I refer now to the other matter in this legislation. I well remember a bunch of truck drivers rolling into the streets of Dunedin and elsewhere around the country late last year. They were outraged by the fact that the then Minister of Transport had taken steps so they could not rort an increase in charges as if such Government action was unusual. Has no one ever been in this House when under urgency tax changes have gone through in the dead of night? That is the precise action of a Government when it is looking to put up charges. It does so suddenly so that people have certainty about what they are going to pay—more or in some cases less—the following day. That is normal but when the Minister of Transport did so it was an outrage. So a bunch of truck drivers came into town blocked up the roads and basically said: “We know that we don’t pay enough but we don’t want to pay any more.” 
I acknowledge that road-user charges always bring debate around the margins that road-user charges are never set perfectly and that there is always room for debate about this or that aspect of them. I know that; I have been a Minister of Transport myself for a time. It is an ongoing thing but when the Government decided that road-user charges needed to go up—and that decision was backed by quite careful analysis—and when the truck drivers of the nation started running into town one did wonder whether a former National Party member for New Plymouth who currently runs the Road Transport Forum the trucking forum was behind some political motivation. Hearing some of the chatter across the House today confirms for me that that was a political act designed to do damage to a Government rather than to protest an issue. 
I think that this Government’s solution of a limited ability to pre-buy is a really good one and I congratulate the Government on it. But let us not suggest that there is anything new or unreasonable about making a sudden decision to increase a charge or a tax. That is normal in democracies and it is normal in this democracy. So I do not want to hear any of that from the National Government. With those remarks I welcome this legislation and I hope it makes its untrammelled progress through the House. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I will take a quick call on the third reading of the Road User Charges Amendment Bill because in fact all of that which can be said about this bill already has been—and quite a bit more besides I have to say. I will touch on one issue and it is an issue that the member for Dunedin North has discussed and I want to give a slightly different perspective on the matter of consultation. As Mr Hodgson rightly recalls there was considerable disquiet around the announcement of the increase in the road-user charges made last year by the previous Minister of Transport and there is no doubt that the road transport industry in the face of increasing diesel charges and other increases in the costs of doing business was quite annoyed about that. But there is a bit of rewriting of history going on about the trigger that caused the truck protest which caused gridlock in the Octagon and in the main streets of just about every city in New Zealand. That was around— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Pretty good to have trucks in the Octagon. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: It was a very impressive display I have to say. There were trucks of all shapes and sizes around both sides of the Octagon and Moray Place and it brought the centre of the city to a standstill. The reason it happened was not that the road-user charges went up; the reason was that the Minister promised in 2007 that she would give the industry a month’s notice. Then she justified not doing that by saying that people would have rushed out and bought lots of road-user charge licences. The point was that she said she would do something and she did not. That is what got people so angry. As long as Labour Opposition members continue to deny that that was the cause of the problem and continue to rewrite history then my suggestion is that they will be sitting on that side of the Chamber for a very long time to come. 
But I acknowledge as Mr Hodgson and others on the other side have that this is good legislation. I do not believe it is timid; I think it is a very sensible response to a situation. It balances the needs of the Crown to avoid the sort of arbitrage that could go on with the need of road users to have plenty of time to plan for any future increases. I congratulate the Minister—one more flight of sycophancy before I sit down! I certainly commend the bill to the House. 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to speak to the third reading of the Road User Charges Amendment Bill. This is sensible legislation timid though it is. It is sensible because the initial work on it was done by the previous Labour Government. It seems that the only sensible pieces of legislation that the Government is bringing before the House happen to be legislation that had already been worked on by Labour and this bill is yet another example of that. 
This legislation causes us to reflect on exactly where our whole transport policy is going in this country. Although this bill is about reducing road-user charges for owners of electric cars I think we should stop and reflect on what that actually means. Is this a big bold move or is it timid? We know that the estimates are that there will be something in the order of 300 of these electric motor vehicles in New Zealand in the next 5 years. So in 5 years’ time there will be about 300 of these cars. My colleague the Hon Pete Hodgson talked about what that would mean in his neck of the woods—it means 10 electric cars would be owned in Dunedin. 
I am from the Waikato and roughly 10 percent of what happens in this country happens in that region. That would mean a grand total of 30 motor vehicles in the entire Waikato region—I am talking about 10 percent of our country—in the next 5 years. I think I can quite correctly guess without the backing of officials to tell me this information the 30 families in the Waikato who will have the financial resources to buy the very latest model on the market. It will not be the people we heard about today who are losing their jobs. So many people are losing their jobs in the recession because the Government does not have a plan for job creation. It will not be those people. The 300 people on the very highest incomes—probably business owners and landowners—will be the fortunate people in the Waikato who will benefit from not having to pay road-user charges because they happen to be the ones who will be able to afford the very latest thing on the market. I do not think we should fool ourselves—that will be the impact of this legislation. 
What is the Government doing in this area of transport? I want to broaden this discussion out and look at the whole transport area. We have heard the Minister of Transport the Hon Steven Joyce refer to himself as the Minister for land transport. I think it tells us quite a lot that he refers to himself as the Minister for land transport when in fact transport involves sea rail and a whole lot of other areas of transport that do not happen to involve land transport. So I think we have some questions to ask the Minister over what he sees as being in his portfolio. 
Yesterday while debating this same bill I asked the Minister—and he did respond—whether he supported the proposal for a passenger train service between Hamilton and Auckland. I was astounded—absolutely stunned—by his response. He stood in this very debating chamber and said he did not think he could give it his support because he could not understand how a passenger train service between Hamilton and Auckland might ease congestion on the roads. What sort of response is that from a Minister of Transport? He cannot understand that putting 70 to 100 people on a train in the morning when they would normally commute by car between Hamilton and Auckland would ease congestion on the road. I invite the Minister to drive from Hamilton to Auckland on any day of the week so he might understand that by the time he gets to the southern Auckland motorway the 70 to 100 cars that would not be on the road if we had a rail passenger process in place would be adding to the congestion on the southern Auckland motorway. I am not sure how the Minister thinks people from Auckland drive in a car and get to Auckland. Perhaps he thinks they do not use the southern motorway somehow but that is exactly the problem. 
The Minister obviously has not been well advised. He certainly has not got on top of his portfolio and he certainly seems to think that roading is the only way we can actually manage transport in this country. I have to say that the Minister is completely out of touch with New Zealanders. 
On the very good Labour MPs’ blog Red Alert I have blogged about the proposal to have a commuter train run from Hamilton to Auckland. 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: Who responded? 
SUE MORONEY 
: It has the highest number of comments and responses of any of the blogs on that website. It has smashed the record. That tells us that New Zealanders understand exactly what is going on with this Government. New Zealand responded to the blog which did have a very provocative title. The title was “Why do the Nats Hate Rail so Much?” and boy have those responses poured forth. People have come forward and given their stories. They have told us what they think about National members going around putting down a proposal for a rail service in Hamilton. National MPs are running around in Hamilton saying they do not want another rail passenger service in Hamilton. Why would they do that? 
That is the very question I have asked on that blog site. I asked: “Who’s prepared to hazard a guess on the real reason the Nats oppose rail transport?”. I do not think I could read out some of the responses in the House but here is a smattering of them. This comment is from a person using the name of Flower. She says: “As a Waikato girl by birth Aucklander by nature and living in Hamilton by choice”—go Hamilton—“I am thoroughly delighted by the idea of a regular train gig chugging the willing and the weary between the hustle and pace of Auckland and the tranquillity and bliss of Kirikiriroa. For Hamilton needs this and if David Bennett can not see the rail cars for truck tyres then more fool him. This isn’t just about getting those Hamilton[ians] to Auckland but getting Aucklanders to Hamilton! This city is growing it’s awakening it’s progressive and dare I say it [is] quite happening.” 
That is the sort of vision that ordinary New Zealanders are coming forward with—which this Government completely lacks. There is no leadership and no vision in this area. In the Government’s view the only thing that will transport things or people around this country will be private cars clogging up our roads. If we continue down that track we will continue to have the same old problem over and over again. 
It is not just ordinary New Zealanders who are concerned about this. I want to quote a couple of councillors in the Waikato. The councils are currently considering their submissions to this National Government’s fast tracking of the juggernaut proposal. This is the proposal to get larger trucks on our roads. Our roads are not designed and built to carry these trucks by the way but the Government will fast track this proposal through. I think it is absolutely clear from reading the comments of Waipa and Waikato district councillors that they have been bullied by the Government on this issue. Here is a quote from councillor Peter Lee who happens to be the deputy major of Waipa District Council. He says: “Get the freight off the road and on to rail. The Government seems determined to get more freight on the road despite owning a rail network.” I could not have said it better myself. Another councillor Michael Cox suggested that the rail argument should not be mentioned in a council submission because it would be seized upon by the Government “as a reason to damn it.” That is the word going around the local bodies in the Waikato region. The Government does not want rail and if someone dares to speaketh its name his or her submission will be damned. That is the message local bodies are picking up from the Government. 
I will continue and talk about what the Waikato District Council had to say about the rule. The council felt so bullied by the Government on this issue that even though it said that it knew that its roads could not cope with the juggernaut trucks and it knew about how much it would cost ratepayers and taxpayers in the future to have all the freight going by road in the much larger trucks—even though it knew all of that—one of the local people said in a council meeting: “If we submit in opposition it will be swept aside.” That particular council decided to go ahead and not put in its submission in opposition to the rule even though it quite clearly opposes the rule because it has been bullied by the Government to not talk about rail. People do not dare speaketh its name because the National Government will not take any notice of anyone who is advocating the very clear benefits of rail transport. 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 If there is any doubt in people’s minds about why Labour lost the last election Sue Moroney’s speech will answer it. We heard from that previous speaker that she does not know anything at all about the Road User Charges Amendment Bill. She never once talked about what is in the bill. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: Well you tell us. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I will tell the member who has just arrived from his afternoon sleep. 
David Garrett 
: Who’s that fella? What’s his name? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I do not know; he has not been here very long. The bill is about electric cars electric motor vehicles being exempt from the road-user charges until 2013. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: What about the hybrids? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: What about hybrids? That member is a hybrid; we are not here to discuss his whakapapa. I want to concentrate on the previous speaker Sue Moroney. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: You don’t. Surely you don’t. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Well I do not want to but I have to. 
The initial work on the bill was done by Labour. OK we will get that sorted out. Labour was here in Government for 9 years but it got nowhere. In 9 years Labour did all that work but in 8 months the National Government has been able to take the bill not only from its first reading but to the select committee and back into the House for its second reading Committee stage and now third reading. It has taken only 8 months. Just imagine what we can do if we are here for 9 years. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: 9 long years. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Nine long years. 
Sue Moroney talked about roads but said we have to concentrate on rail. She said that the Minister had not done anything about roads and that the National Government has not done anything about roads. We now have seven roads of significance roads that will lead to the economic development of various areas. Sue Moroney also talked about her massive blog that she has been blogging about. She told us that she has had a huge response. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Three people. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Some of my colleagues on this side of the House have been a bit disingenuous and said that only three people had commented on her blog. But I have to tell members that it is 10—only 10. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: 71. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Ten. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: 71. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Ten. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Tell the truth. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Ten. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Tell the truth. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Ten. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I just looked at it; it was 71. Tell the truth. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Ten people. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: We do not have to have a commentary from each side. The point has been made. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Ten people blogged seven times and they changed their names. One of them was called Flower. Oh I am having fun. Seven people commented 10 times they changed their names and one of them is called Flower. What do we expect from a person with the name of Flower? 
This bill is all about the future. It is all about making a statement about electricity and about the new technology we can look forward to. But members opposite want us to go backwards and put freight on trains that do not even exist. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Back to the future. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Those members should tell that to the people of the north and the far north; we do not have any rails let alone trains. So what that member is talking about is a load of old hogwash. It is about going back to the future for the Labour Party. But National is concerned with the future and with enhancing new technology. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party is pleased to join in the consensus in the House in supporting the Road User Charges Amendment Bill which will waive road-user charges for electric cars for 4 years. Why would anyone not support electric cars? After all they will make our fleet more efficient they do not have emissions they will reduce our dependence on oil and they will be a tiny step towards New Zealand becoming energy independent and so forth. Of course we support electric cars but we do have as others have mentioned some real questions about the underlying strategy behind the rather modest bill. 
Others have asked why the bill has been rushed through Parliament and wondered what the great rush is. I would like to speculate. There are two reasons for it. The first one and the previous speaker hinted at it is that National members can go around as David Bennett has done claiming that National is now somehow taking leadership in clean green transport. He can rush around saying “Look what we’re doing; we are giving incentives for using the electric car.” It is a great spin. 
The second reason is that it justifies in National members’ minds business as usual when it comes to transport which means building more and more roads for more and more cars. It does not matter because in this wonderful vision that David Bennett spoke about electric cars will be all over New Zealand. So everything will be fine! The presence of the cars will justify what National has just done. National has slashed $420 million out of the fund for alternative public transport and it is pouring all that money into building new roads. This bill is like a fig leaf; somehow the Government can justify this incredibly short-sighted policy because we will have electric cars. It also enables David Bennett and the previous speaker Tau Henare to go on and on about it. Tau Henare said: “Look at it. We are embracing the future. We are embracing new technology.” That is great stuff! 
There is one slight flaw: it is estimated that there will be only 30 electric cars by 2010 that within about 3 years there will be about 300 electric cars and maybe by 2020 there will be 30000 electric cars on the road. That hardly is a panacea. The problem is that electric cars are expensive. They cost two to three times as much as an ordinary car. How will New Zealanders fork out $40000 to $80000 for an electric car? Yes electric cars are great; we strongly support them. But let us not use them to provide a justification a panacea for increasing our focus on roads and for running down public transport like rail as previous speakers have mentioned. 
The bill also deals with the ability to alter the rates of road-user charges particularly referring to trucks. Trucks do enormous damage on our roads. A 40-tonne truck can easily cause as much damage to a typical road as 60000 one-tonne cars. As a result of this overweight trucks chronically underpay their fair share of road-user fees for the repair of roads and bridges. By damaging roads large trucks further degrade highway safety. My estimate related to damage done by a 40-tonne truck. Imagine how much damage will be done by 53-tonne trucks which National is about to unleash on our roads. These juggernauts are 72 feet long which is 6½ feet longer. We can be quite certain they will destroy our roads. If 40-tonne trucks can cause as much damage as 60000 cars God knows what damage will be done by 53-tonne trucks! I can be absolutely certain that trucks will not pay their fair share of road-user charges which are used to repair the damage they will do on our roads. 
One thing that road-user charges do not take into account is the cost of all the accidents that these juggernaut trucks cause on our roads. Trucks make up only 4 percent of our vehicle fleet yet cause 18 percent of the road toll. Despite knowing this we will allow trucks that are much bigger and considerably longer on our roads. We know that that will inevitably cause more accidents on our roads. How do we know that? Am I just scaremongering? No because the truth is that the longer the truck—6½ feet longer at 72 feet long—the longer it will take for people to pass it. It will be more difficult for these juggernaut trucks to go round the corners of our windy hilly roads in New Zealand without passing over the centre line as they do on many many State highways in New Zealand. Huge 53-tonne trucks will take longer to brake. If one has the misfortune to be involved in an accident with a 53-tonne truck one will come off even worse than if one was involved in an accident with a 40-tonne truck. 
New Zealanders are completely opposed to the juggernaut trucks. The previous speaker from Labour Sue Moroney blamed National for them but it must be said that Labour initiated the pilot study that is now being used as an excuse to allow these juggernaut trucks on our roads and to give them the green light. The stupidity of this proposal lies in the fact that our roads are far too narrow far too windy and far too hilly. They are just completely ill-suited for huge juggernaut trucks; that is why so many New Zealanders are alarmed. They are only just waking up to the fact that this is about to happen and they are horrified. They know that these trucks will not only cause destruction to roads and bridges but also will contribute to more accidents. People are worried. Unfortunately this will be one of those things that people wake up to only when it is a fait accompli. They will ask why on earth our Government allowed these huge juggernaut trucks on New Zealand roads that are completely ill-suited to them. 
I am glad to see that the Minister of Transport Steven Joyce is here in the Chamber. He is the one who will make the decision as to whether these juggernaut trucks will be permitted on our roads. I suspect that he has already made the decision and that the so-called consultation process was like most consultation processes—just a farce. The Green Party put in a submission. We wasted our time. We pointed out the sorts of things that I have pointed out in my speech. But we felt that making the submission was probably to no avail and that the Minister working hand in glove with the trucking industry had probably already committed to this legislation. He had probably committed to it before the election and it is just being rolled out now. 
Having said that there is one positive thing in this bill which is why we are supporting it: it will give some incentive for electric cars. That is a good thing but let us not pretend that having 30 electric cars on our roads next year and 300 more in a few years’ time will somehow justify pouring more and more money into roads. This will undermine rail. The other thing that I did not mention about those big juggernaut trucks is that heavy freight should be moved by rail. The Government owns the rail network. I ask why it is giving incentives so that these huge trucks will be carrying our heavy freight instead of the rail network. Why is the Government undermining the viability of the rail network in New Zealand? 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. I rise again to speak in favour of the Road User Charges Amendment Bill. The bill proposes to amend the Road User Charges Act 1977 to achieve two main outcomes. The first is to enable the exemption of light electric motor vehicles from the requirement to pay road-user charges and the second is to provide 42 days’ notice of increases to road-user charges. The road-user charge licences for heavy motor vehicles will expire 1 month after an increase comes into force. 
I intend to talk about both of those matters in a little more detail and perhaps recap some of the issues I raised in my previous contributions on the bill. But before I do that I note in relation to comments made earlier that my colleague Sue Moroney was talking about the level of interest in the rail network between Hamilton and Auckland. Some comments were made by Tau Henare about that matter. I will just confirm that 71 people so far have responded to Sue Moroney’s blog on that issue. 
First of all I will explain the changes in the bill in perhaps a little more detail. In relation to light electric motor vehicles certainly nobody could deny that it is a good idea to exempt those vehicles from road-user charges. We believe that the exemption reinforces the work Labour did in promoting electric vehicles. Electric vehicles will be the beginning of a new era of energy independence and low-emission transport. Increasing the proportion of electric vehicles in the fleet will decrease reliance on imported fossil fuels and improve energy security. 
As a country we are very lucky that we have a competitive advantage in renewable electricity generation which has the potential to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases produced by the transport sector. I intend to come back to that matter later. Light electric motor vehicles are also cheaper to operate per kilometre than conventional motor vehicles. However as others have commented there are some problems with them. First of all availability is currently low. Secondly their purchase price is at least double that of a conventional vehicle. Thirdly manufacturers do not rate New Zealand as a priority market. Therefore take-up rates are understandably low. 
The Government’s responsibility in relation to this matter is clearly to remove barriers to the take-up of electric motor vehicles. Removal of the road-user charges is a positive step but we all have to recognise that it is a minor one in the big picture. The Government needs to be much more adventurous in this area. It needs to look at some of the examples from overseas. For example Denmark is currently installing a network of recharging stations hooked up to wind turbines. That would be a useful thing to look at. 
We also had a discussion around how long the scheme would be extended for in terms of the exemption from road-user charges because clearly at the moment the exemption provides financial assistance to the owners of those cars. But given their price for the reasons I outlined earlier the technology will be available only to those with significant financial resources. Poor people will miss out and we certainly do not want to be in the situation where the poor are subsidising the rich. 
The review on road-user charges was actually instigated by Labour and the previous Minister of Transport Annette King because there had not been a review in about 18 years. As I have noted previously during that period the ratio of trucks to cars changed enormously as did the weights being carried by those trucks. The upshot was an inequality between trucking firms and private motorists over who was paying for road maintenance. Operators of heavy trucks which were causing substantial damage were not paying their fair share. 
We have all noted during the course of the debate on this bill that Labour faced a revolt by truck drivers when we put up road-user charges with no notice. But there was a reason no notice was given. On the previous occasion when notice was given $17 million worth of pre-purchasing took place. That $17 million was $17 million of revenue lost to the Crown. So as a sensible Government would do we set up a process to work with the sector to put in place a regime that was fair to the Crown but also fair to the trucking industry. 
Ultimately the bill and the provisions around increasing road-user charges are the result. Effectively it is a balanced outcome whereby there will be 42 days’ notice of an increase. Truck drivers will be able to use road-user charges bought in advance for up to 1 month after any increase. Any pre-purchased road-user charges left over at that point will be able to be refunded. It is a good solution. As I said we support the bill. We also support the very sensible Supplementary Order Paper 33 which clarified one of the points in the bill. 
I will also comment on the process of passing the bill because one of the things we have found somewhat perplexing is why there has been a need to rush it through. The report-back period was just under a month with a 2-week adjournment included in that 1 month. 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: Were you on holiday? 
CAROL BEAUMONT 
: No we were not on holiday; I do not know about Mr Joyce. The Opposition has been given no explanation or justification from that Minister as to why the bill has had to be dealt with so quickly. The submissions on the bill were received and we did not get the opportunity to hear them orally. That is a huge mistake. One of the real strengths of our Parliament is our select committee process. It works very well. We have enormous numbers of people making submissions taking the time to share their ideas and thoughts and giving us feedback on the bills before the House. They add value to the legislation we pass. I do not know why on earth we could not hear from the submitters. 
We are not seeing the proper scrutiny of legislation that one would expect to see from our Parliament. The Government is constantly undermining the process reporting back bills faster than they need to be reported back and pushing through under urgency legislation on many important issues. The process question is one that is very troubling. Why the haste? As a new member I have absolute confidence in the select committee process and in the people of New Zealand having their opportunity to give us their feedback. The Government should seriously think about its behaviour in that regard. 
I will follow up some points made by Sue Kedgley about trucks because the significant part of the bill is in relation to road-user charges that apply to trucks. As Ms Kedgley has quite rightly pointed out the Government is currently planning to allow larger trucks on the roads. We believe that there will be many serious consequences of that decision. It has the potential to make our roads less safe and it will undoubtedly be bad for the environment. We agree with the Greens that rail and coastal shipping are better methods of moving heavy goods. Submissions have been heard on the matter and I guess we have to wait to see the outcome as to whether the concerns that are being raised will be taken account of. 
The heavy trucks potentially will not be paying their fair share of the cost. There are also safety and environmental issues. The possibility of road-user charges being replaced with a flat diesel tax that could exacerbate the already uneven playing field between roads rail and coastal is one that has been flagged up. 
One thing I have not yet had a chance to talk about in the debate on the bill is coastal shipping and I thought members would be quite interested in that. As well as talking about the problems with heavy trucks let us look at one of the alternatives. We have had some discussion around rail but let us look at coastal shipping. The previous Labour Government was developing coastal shipping because within a relatively short time frame our roads will be unable to cope with projected increases in total freight volume. An integration of roads with an upgraded rail and coastal shipping network is the only possible solution as we look to the future. One of the problems with the current Government is that it does not look forward and plan. Planning seems to be a problem for the Government. 
We developed a programme called Sea Change and $36 million was earmarked to help develop coastal shipping over the next 4 years. That programme has been cancelled by the National Government. 
Grant Robertson 
: Shame! 
CAROL BEAUMONT 
: It is an absolute shame. The target was for at least 30 percent of inter-regional freight to be carried by sea by 2040 up from the current 15 percent share. It is worth noting that in Japan which has a very similar geography to New Zealand domestic sea freight has more than twice the market share of sea freight here. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I take just a short call on the Road User Charges Amendment Bill. We have debated it at length over a number of days and we have gone through all the big issues that could be debated. It is revolutionary legislation in the sense that we are supporting electric vehicles and showing leadership on environmental and transport issues. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Revolutionary in that they’re supporting the environment for a change. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: Some members of other parties have not been able to stomach that but they do not realise the importance of showing that leadership on those issues. The National Government is quite happy to do that and our Minister of Transport is quite happy to provide that direction. This bill will be for the benefit of New Zealanders going forward. It is well overdue it is in our best interests and we commend it to the House. 
Bill read a third time. 
Estimates Debate 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 5 August. 
Vote Health ( 
continued 
)  
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 In October 2008 National announced its policy to fund 12 months’ Herceptin treatment. That decision was not made lightly. We knew we would be accused of interfering politically in what should not be a political decision but we simply could not stand back. We were concerned that Pharmac’s decision to fund 9 weeks’ treatment was flawed as cancer specialists in New Zealand overwhelmingly backed 12 months’ treatment. Following the election the new National Government moved quickly to put into action its election promise. We knew there would be women who would have recently completed a publicly funded course of 9 weeks or recently discontinued a private 12-month course of Herceptin treatment and would be in limbo waiting for the National policy to be implemented. 
The New Zealand Breast Cancer Special Interest Group a group of independent experts considered a recent international review of the 12-month and 9-week data. That group considers that the update further confirms the validity of the 12 months while casting serious doubts on the 9-week treatment. 
Those experts also questioned the viability of the international Study of Letrozole Extension trial comparing 9 weeks’ treatment versus 12 months’ treatment. To date only 23 New Zealand women from two centres have elected to participate in the Study of Letrozole Extension trial with only a few hundred internationally. Two thousand women need to be recruited into the trial to get any meaningful data and I predict that is most unlikely to happen. The New Zealand Breast Cancer Special Interest Group is quite right to question the viability of that trial and the money we have sunk into it to date. I understand that from 2008 to the end of May 2009 135 women took a 12-month course. These women of course had the international standard of care. I am proud of my Government’s decision to fund 12 months of Herceptin treatment. 
One of the consequences of the Herceptin debate was that the spotlight went on the pharmaceutical budget which over the last several years had not kept up with inflation and the mechanism of how high-cost medicines were evaluated and funded. In May 2009 the National Government announced a total of $185 million in new funding for subsidised medicines over the next 4 years. Shortly afterwards the Government also announced a three-person panel to review access to highly specialised medicines to review funding mechanisms and to work with stakeholders to recommend ways to improve access— 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 Late last night as we were getting deep into the debate in the darkness of Wednesday night there was a scene that was almost like one from a horror film. Over where Mr Garrett is sitting a hole in the ground opened up. It was not there to swallow Mr Garrett much as I am sure he wishes it would at the moment. From that hole in the ground from out of the crypt came the Hon Sir Roger Douglas. He came out with his old mantra from the 1980s: “Privatise privatise privatise.” He levelled the accusation at what he called “socialised” health—Fox News’ favourite phrase: “socialised” health. If one can get oneself on TV and get one’s issue out there on  
Close Up 
 on  
Campbell Live 
 or on a similar programme one can get funding from the health system. That he said was the problem with “socialised” health. Unnervingly I find myself slightly agreeing with Sir Roger— 
Grant Robertson 
: It won’t last. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: It will not last. 
The problem is not “socialised” health; the problem is the way this Government spends its health money. With this Government it is about getting on TV it is about populist decisions and it is about putting money into things that have no evidence base whatsoever and do not have the support of the medical fraternity but do have the support of votes. It is all about buying votes. 
Where have we seen some examples of this? Dr Blue has just said how proud she was of the decision to undermine Pharmac—an independent body set up to ensure that politicians could not use the health dollar in this way—and fund a 12-month course of Herceptin. The Government quite callously and shamelessly used the emotions of women suffering from breast cancer and of the families of women suffering from breast cancer. It used the health dollar to buy votes and to undermine an organisation like Pharmac. I am sure the health Minister Tony Ryall would have liked to bully Pharmac in the same way he bullied the MidCentral District Health Board but he could not. He is not allowed to by legislation and long may that last. Instead of coming along with a “bully knows best” approach he managed to undermine Pharmac by directly funding something that was really a Pharmac decision. 
We have seen it time and time again. Take PlunketLine. Stopping the funding for PlunketLine was not a decision that the Labour Government took lightly; it went through a very robust open and competitive tendering process—something that the members on the opposite side of the Chamber usually say is the best way to go about a funding process. It was robust it was open and it was transparent and this Government came in shamelessly using the brand of PlunketLine and shamelessly buying votes with the health dollar. This is not a sign that the Government is about finding efficient and productive ways to make the most of the health dollar; this simply says that the Government is looking for ways to buy as many votes as it possibly can. 
Another area where we have seen this is in the shift away from primary health and public health and into the hospitals. Why? Because the Government wants to find some short-term numbers. The Government has no interest whatsoever in improving health quality and health outcomes for New Zealanders over 20 years or being able to look back in 20 years’ time and see how many people it has managed to keep out of hospital. No it wants to get them into hospital and then in 3 years’ time it can point to the number of elective surgeries it has done. It does not matter what the case weighting was! It does not have to be brain surgery. It could be ingrown toenails for all the Government cares. The Government just wants to get the numbers. The Government wants to show off those numbers and make itself look as good as possible in 2011. 
This issue has been raised by Rahui Katene. She is in the Chamber this afternoon and I am very pleased she is here. She gave a long list of concerns that the Maori Party has about the way the health dollar is being spent. She said she was concerned about the loss of Fruit in Schools she was concerned about prevention in terms of public health and she was concerned that health funding would not be protected during the recession. She said that this was the most important time to protect health funding. I say to Ms Katene that Labour members could not agree with her more; we could not agree more with what Ms Katene said. We strongly desire that the Maori Party members find it in themselves to vote against the Vote Health estimates when the question is put shortly. Ms Katene made some very valid points and I cannot understand how the Maori Party can possibly support this Budget given all the points that she made. She made an excellent speech and I was very pleased to be in the Chamber to hear it. 
That is looking back. We need to look forward as well. I have in my hands a very important document—it is a pity that I am out of time. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote State Services 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 Vote State Services is ground zero for the broken election promises of the National Government. Let us begin with the promise to cap but not cut public services. That is the promise John Key made when he spoke to the Public Service Association congress in October last year. In relation to this policy he was asked “So does that mean National will be cutting services?”. “Not at all.” said Mr Key. But that is not the record of this Government. When I stood in this Chamber and asked Gerry Brownlee what core public services were and what would not be cut do members know what he said? He said “It’s the bit that won’t be cut.” National members do not actually know. They do not have a definition. They went into the election with a policy that was fluff. It was designed to try to reassure the people who in 2005 knew that the real National Government agenda was to cut public services and that is the agenda we have seen put in place by this Government. 
We have seen cuts right throughout the Public Service. We have seen cuts in the Ministry of Social Development. It was a remarkable decision to cut jobs and services in the ministry that looks after the most vulnerable people the ministry that in a recession we would expect to be there providing those services. But we have seen hundreds of jobs go from the Ministry of Social Development including jobs within Child Youth and Family and including the jobs of people who work with people advising on child abuse. John Key stood in this Chamber and said that this Opposition side of Parliament did not care about child abuse. That was an outrageous statement! When Labour was in Government we continued to support the Ministry of Social Development to ensure that child abuse was reported and looked into but that Government over there has decided to cut back staff in that area. 
The Government has also cut back on other important front-line services. That is promise No. 2 broken. Front-line services were going to be the priority of State services within this Government but we have consistently seen front-line services cut. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s biosecurity division looks after our border but now 60 jobs have gone. One 55-year-old man from the division with 25 years’ experience asked us what he can do now and what will happen in the future. The reality is that when cargo volumes return that man’s experience will be required. Will we be able to get him back or will he come back as a consultant or a contractor as happened in the 1990s and will we see ourselves paying more for those services? That is a front-line service that has been cut by this Government. 
School library service advisers who spent their time in rural schools ensuring that children had access to good-quality information provided through the National Library budget have gone. That is another front-line service that has gone under this Government. We also have the example from the Department of Conservation of the East Coast Hawke’s Bay Conservation Board which has gone. Staff from the Department of Conservation have been cut at the front line. Front-line staff have been cut right across the board from the Ministry of Fisheries and the Tertiary Education Commission. People in the regions and in the communities representing the Government have had their jobs cut. I am quite sure that when the promise was made that resources would go to the front line and that there would be a capping of the core Government administration people expected that Government services and the Government presence in the regions would be continued but they have been cut. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Remember what Stephen Franks promised? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: That is right. My colleague Sue Kedgley reminds me that on the campaign trail the National Party’s Wellington Central candidate said that no jobs would go from the Public Service under National. Well we have seen up to 2000 jobs go from the Public Service—2000 New Zealanders are out of work as a result of the decisions of this National Government. We have heard all about the recession we have heard all about the effects of the recession but these are decisions made by the National Government to put hard-working New Zealanders out of work. 
The third broken promise was when John Key stood up at the Public Service Association congress and said that we would not have a radical reorganisation of the public sector. He said that it was easy to underestimate the amount of energy and inspiration soaked up by institutional change as well as the loss of personal and institutional knowledge. What a sensible thing to say! Why then do we hear from Bill English time and time again that we are in for a period of radical change in the Public Service? We hear that there will be big changes and that there will be job losses. This is a broken promise. The State services the public services that New Zealanders rely upon in their daily lives are being undermined on a day-by-day basis. This recession is being used as an excuse by National to undermine public services and to make the cut-backs it has always wanted to make to the Public Service. That is an outrage because New Zealanders rely on those services. 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 As my colleague Grant Robertson has just pointed out it is becoming clearer as every day goes past that the National Party’s pre-election manifesto was not worth the paper it was written on. One of the cornerstones of its State sector manifesto was that it was going to protect the political neutrality of the Public Service. That is something that all New Zealanders should care about because the New Zealand Public Service is built on the idea that Governments can come and Governments can go but the Public Service will serve the Government of the day without fear or favour. It is incumbent on all of us on both sides of the Chamber to respect that distinction and to protect the political neutrality of the Public Service. 
It is not just a Government responsibility to protect the political neutrality of the Public Service; all members of Parliament have a responsibility to protect the political neutrality of the Public Service and to recognise that public servants have the same rights as individual citizens. For example a public servant is not disqualified from appearing before a select committee. A public servant is not disqualified from having an opinion on legislation. I think it is absolutely disgraceful for public servants who appear before a select committee—for example the Department of Corrections staff who appeared before the Law and Order Committee just recently—to be bullied and threatened by a member of this Parliament. I think that fundamentally undermines the nature of the New Zealand Public Service and it is disgraceful behaviour from this National-ACT Government. I am appalled that no Government Minister has expressed a concern that when members of the Public Service appeared before a select committee a member of Parliament supporting this Government threatened their jobs. I think that is absolutely disgraceful. 
I understand that the member who did it Mr Garrett does not limit his threats just to members of the Public Service. In fact I understand that he has taken to threatening other members of Parliament at select committees when he disagrees with them. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The member is transgressing the rules of the debate which I read out quite clearly when the debate commenced. I ask the member to return to the estimates. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Thank you Mr Chairperson. I am talking about the importance of the political neutrality of the Public Service and I think that is covered under Vote State Services. In fact members will find references to it in the estimates report of the Government Administration Committee which is what we are discussing at the present time. I think that it is incumbent on all members of the House to protect the political neutrality of the Public Service regardless of which political party they are members of. All members of the Public Service are entitled to appear before a select committee for example and have a view as private citizens without fearing that they will be threatened— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The member must not talk about members threatening other members. All members are honourable members. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Thank you Mr Chairperson. I was actually talking about members threatening members of the public which I believe you will find is in order. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: No. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Thank you Mr Chairperson. We should protect the political neutrality of the Public Service; I think all members of the House think that is very important. 
The State Services Commissioner actually has an important role in protecting the political neutrality of the Public Service. For example the State Services Commissioner may like to take an interest in the release by Government Ministers of private information held by Government departments. I think the State Services Commissioner should take an interest in that. When Paula Bennett releases the personal information of beneficiaries in order to bully them and silence her critics it has implications for the entire Public Service because it suggests that any personal information held by any Government department can be accessed by Ministers in order to bully and intimidate members of the public. 
Members of this Government seem very relaxed about bullying and intimidation when they are the ones doing it. When they are the ones doing the bullying and intimidation it is all OK. It is very much “Simon Says” from this Government. Simon says: “Do as I say not as I do.” Although members of this Government say they are opposed to violence and intimidation if they are the ones doing the bullying and the intimidation then they think it is perfectly acceptable and it is all right. It is a bit like their saying that they believe restraint in the Public Service is important except when it comes to them. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
 There can be no other portfolio where the differences between National and Labour are more stark. Labour was about increasing the Public Service; National is about increasing services to the public. That is the major difference. I ask Labour members whether they have noticed something going on called the global recession. 
Hon Member 
: This has got nothing to do with that! 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: In this country there is not an individual there is not a family and there is not a business that has not had to change its circumstances or its modus operandi to cut back on its operation and to make changes. But somehow Labour thinks the Public Service should be completely protected from that and it does not matter. 
For example in my own portfolio of customs trade is down—sadly. Trade is down for both exports and imports. The number of people who are travelling—both leaving and coming to our country—is down. What does Labour want us to do: keep the same number of people who were required for the old levels or somehow make appropriate adjustments to cope and yes when the growth comes back yes when those volumes come back bring people back on to the payroll? 
I want to share with members my personal favourites when it comes to numbers. Listen to what happened to the Public Service under the Labour Government. In 9 long years—9 long bitter years—the Public Service grew by 50 percent. 
Chris Tremain 
: You’re joking! 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: No no. Members think I jest but it is true. Let me give the facts. In 1999 at the end of the National Government’s time there were 30702 people employed in the State Service bureaucracy—30000. Can members remember that? It is a nice round number—30000. By June 2008 not long before the last election the number was 45900. In fact the figure I like to give an audience—it is another one of my personal favourites—is that in the last 5 years of the Labour Government Public Service floor space in Wellington alone increased by 13.7 hectares. That is a fact—13.7 hectares. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes I have the numbers. Without question it increased by 13.7 hectares. 
I say to the Labour Opposition that these are tough times for everybody but if anything the Public Service is getting quite special and considered treatment. We are trying to redeploy people who are made redundant. We are trying to find them new jobs right across the Public Service so that we can accommodate their needs and requirements and we are being quite successful. 
But I repeat: it was Labour that was committed to increasing the Public Service and it is National that is committed to increasing services to the public. That is the difference. By the way people would imagine after hearing the whinging whining machine from the other side that Vote State Services must have been cut. I wondered whether that was the case. Hang on last year it was $216 million and this year it is $256 million. That is an 18 percent increase in Vote State Services. That is the Dreamtime we get from Labour members. They think money grows on trees out the back of Parliament— 
Hon Members 
: Where are the pixies? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Out where we will be sleeping from now on I understand. 
I tell members that I think National has done a sterling job of protecting most of the Public Service especially the front end from the sharp edges of the global downturn—and the edges have been very sharp for the private sector. We have been able to redeploy people move them around shift priorities and keep the cap of 38800 that the Prime Minister promised. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote ACC 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I want to talk about cause and effect. 
Grant Robertson 
: Why don’t you praise the Minister first and get it out of the way? 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: I tell the member that that will come. He should not worry; there is plenty of time in a 5-minute call to praise the Minister for ACC Nick Smith. Cause is about two related events where one event makes the other occur. First comes the cause and the event that follows is the effect. Nowhere is that phenomenon more apparent more obvious or more damaging to the Crown accounts and these estimates than Vote ACC. We have had not one not even a few but several policy and legislative changes that have had the effect of putting considerable financial strife on the accident compensation system the premium payers and the Crown. 
I have mentioned some of those changes several times in this Chamber but I think it is necessary to restate just a few of them to illustrate the cause and effect of them on Vote ACC. They include a substantial broadening of the treatment of injury provisions in 2004 the flawed decision—about the same year I think—to expand the endorsed provider pilot to nearly every single physiotherapist in the country with no caps on spending and the significant broadening of the boundaries of the scheme with flimsy cost and premium impact estimates when the most recent changes by the previous Government had been made in the face of lower financial returns. Just last year there were 13 changes alone which cost about $75 million. There was the tacit endorsement by the previous Government of the corporation paying entitlements completely outside the boundaries of the legislation even in the face of court judgments that ruled out such activity. But the big kicker was the reduction of rehabilitation outcomes. Claims are up the duration of claims is up and scheme exit rates are down. I have no doubt that the corporation was influenced by previous Labour Ministers who were not nearly as interested in that goal as they were in softening and socialising activities even though a fast and lasting return to work or independence is a cornerstone of accident compensation. 
The effect of all of that is we now have the legacy of total liabilities having increased by over $11 billion in the last 4 years and the unfunded portion of those liabilities has gone up from about $3.5 billion to over $8 billion. Heaven knows what they will look like when the 2009 annual report is published. I tell members that $10 billion is the equivalent of an extra $5000 per household. If the previous Labour Government had spent as much time on righting the ship when it was so clearly heading off-course as it did on trying to cover up the mess then perhaps things would not have become nearly as bad as they have. 
I have no doubt that we will hear from Mr Parker Labour’s spokesperson on ACC who will say that it was unavoidable and an unforeseeable consequence of the economic downturn. Well that is absolute rubbish. The numbers were tanking well before the financial downturn and he knows it. Even the MartinJenkins report on the debacle confirmed that the deteriorating trends were in evidence since 2005. The report stated that the impact on the appropriations was a bit masked by their high investment returns but all that people had to do was to read the balance sheet to know that things were going bad. 
I think that banging on ad nauseam as that spokesman will do about how inexpensive the scheme is compared with for example Australian schemes is completely spurious. He knows that the comparisons are simply not able to be made. The cover conditions are all different. Work-related motor vehicle accidents go into the work account in New Zealand but they do not in Australia. In any event Australia has a fully funding scheme that is viable and we do not. We are paying for years of that situation and we probably will pay for years more. Those members opposite need to take a long look at themselves over accident compensation because unless they do some reflection and show a little bit of mea culpa they will be sitting on that side of the Chamber for a very very long time to come. Until they come to that realisation then that is exactly where they should stay. 
The Minister talked to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee in the estimates hearing. He said that amending legislation would be coming in soon and that there would be a stocktake. We have not seen the terms of reference yet but perhaps the Minister will be able to explain them. I saw the pain on Carol Beaumont’s face when the Minister told her that the stocktake would not include a reflection of competition and choice in the work account. She looked so disappointed. She was badly needing to bag the Minister for having some kind of privatisation agenda—about which I am sure we will hear from Mr Parker—but that is simply not true in the next few years. Do members know why? Because we will have to spend all of that time sorting out the mess we have inherited. I am very glad that the Minister is taking this seriously because the members opposite do not seem to be doing so. Yet the liabilities continue to mount; unless we turn the ship around it will be bad news. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 In speaking to the estimates for Vote ACC I will draw attention to the very ugly fiscal position that was to this Government by the previous administration. As the previous speaker Michael Woodhouse noted over the last 4 years the liabilities of the accident compensation system have grown by more than $10 billion. That is more than $5000 for every single New Zealand household. 
At the moment the corporation is preparing the figures for the annual report. The bad news is that when I had to advise the House in February that the liabilities had got to $21.9 billion I thought that they could not get worse. But I have to say that the preliminary figures I have for the end of June show that they have deteriorated further by billions. When we campaigned one of the things we said was that we had quite deep concerns about the way in which the accident compensation scheme was managed and we said that we wished to have a stocktake. Today I have announced the details of that stocktake which is provided for in the estimates and which was promised by the Government. 
The steering group will consist of the former chair of the Accident Compensation Corporation a person who has done considerable work for both Governments in respect of the Electricity Commission and a person who in my view has a deep level of knowledge of New Zealand’s accident compensation system the Hon David Caygill. We will also include on the steering group firstly an academic in public policy for whom I have huge respect. He is Professor Neil Quigley of Victoria University. I note that both of those gentlemen by being respectively on the Electricity Commission and at Victoria University are effectively already doing work for the Government for which they are drawing a salary from the Public Service. But they have said that they will do the new work without additional charge and I acknowledge that in this Committee. 
The third person on the steering group is Gordon Smith. Gordon Smith is from Havelock North and he has extensive experience in the insurance industry. He has been chief executive of the Farmers’ Mutual Group for the past 7 years. He alongside officials from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet from Treasury and from the Department of Labour as well as the new chair of the corporation John Judge will oversee this very important piece of work. 
It is about a thorough examination of each of the accident compensation scheme accounts covering the motor vehicle account the earners account the employers’ account the non-earners account the treatment injury account and the residual claims account. It will look at alternative options both for service provision and for funding. It is the view of the new Government that experience-rating is the sort of initiative that we need to take in respect of the accident compensation scheme. We also want to look at the monitoring of the accident compensation scheme and also the oversight and governance of the $10 billion investment fund of the Accident Compensation Corporation. 
I have said quite publicly that the scale of the problems that we have within the accident compensation scheme the sorts of levy hikes that we are potentially looking at if we do not make significant change are such that we do need to have this stocktake group do its work but it will not include work on investigating whether the work account is opened up to competition simply because the scale of the issues that we are facing is so huge. Quite frankly the work account is in better shape; the problem is with the earners account and the motor vehicle account. 
I also want to make it plain that key stakeholders like the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand will have the opportunity for input into that important stocktake process. The stocktake group’s work programme is to be completed by June of next year. My expectation is that we will require a bill reforming the accident compensation scheme in the latter part of this year as well as one flowing on from this important work next year. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 One thing that I can agree with National members on in terms of what they at least say about the accident compensation scheme is that it is a fundamentally important part of the New Zealand system. It is something that we are proud of. It has no-fault liability for accident claims on a 24-hour basis so people do not have to prove fault do not waste their money on legal bills and do not waste money on insurance company margins. Those things are very good. Therefore a more proactive approach funded out of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) revenues can be taken to injury prevention than is typical of private insurers and the insurance-based private accident insurance market. 
But I take issue with some of the things that were said by the last two speakers the Hon Dr Nick Smith and Michael Woodhouse. There is still and there has been throughout the year exaggeration and rhetoric on the part of the National Government as to the underlying problems with the accident compensation scheme. I will give members a few examples. We heard Mr Woodhouse say that the unfunded portion of the accident compensation scheme liability has increased. It is true that in nominal terms it has—that is the proportion of the future cost of current claims and historic claims that has yet to be funded. That proportion has increased in nominal terms but decreased in proportionate terms. In 1999 it was largely unfunded. By 2008 when the new Government took over the proportion of the scheme that was pre-funded had increased. In 1999 ACC had $2.5 billion of investments to resort to for pre-funding the existent claims at that time. Now it has $12 billion of investments even after the sharp decline in world markets. Last year it took in $3.6 billion of levy income—that is excluding its revenue from investments—and it paid out $2.7 billion. So it went forward to the tune of $1 billion in its reserves. The unfunded proportion of the work account decreased from 64 percent to 45 percent. In other words in 1999 it was 36 percent pre-funded; now it is 55 percent pre-funded. 
We heard a very quick phrase from Michael Woodhouse who said we should not make and it would be difficult to make comparisons with Australia’s system because motor vehicle accident claims were treated in different pools. I agree that we have to equalise for that effect so that we are comparing apples with apples rather than different pools. I tell Mr Woodhouse that his Government needs to produce figures that show the proper comparisons— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: That’s why we’re doing the stocktake. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: —before it can justify changes to the scope of the scheme. The Minister in the chair the Hon Nick Smith said: “That’s why we’re doing the stocktake.” Well why before the stocktake has the Government jumped to the conclusion that it can justify significant changes to the scope of the scheme? The Government has not yet made the case for change. 
Just today we heard on Radio New Zealand National an orthopaedic surgeon from Christchurch say that in the last 6 months operational changes had resulted in an increase in the rate of people being declined orthopaedic operations that were necessary as a consequence of accidents. The decline rate has gone up by 60 percent. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: There’s no change in policy. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: The Minister says there is no change in policy but that is in direct disagreement with the orthopaedic surgeon who said that there has been a change in operational process concentrated in the last 6 months. 
There is always a need to look at cost centres that are getting out of control and I have been on the record as saying that I agree there have been necessary changes in respect of physiotherapy. But they should not be used as an excuse for wholesale changes to the scope of the scheme. The need for a reasonable part-charge should not be an excuse for an unnecessarily large part-charge. 
I will say something about the Australian system. The cost of accident compensation per $100 of earnings in Australia is a lot higher than New Zealand’s. Yes they earn more and therefore their total amount should be more but the rate per $100 of earnings in Australia is higher in New Zealand as well and this Government has not justified that change. 
I will also mention privatisation. We hear from the Government that privatisation is now not top of its agenda this term because it finds it has “other problems that are more pressing”. However we have not heard either in respect of accident compensation or elsewhere any resiling from the proposition that the Government favours privatisation and will return to that agenda after the next election. In fact the Government is almost starting to promise that that is what it will do. So it is incumbent upon me to point out how silly that would be in respect of accident compensation. The last time a National Government did that it caused increases in cost. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: No it didn’t. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: It did. It caused— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: It did not. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: It did not cause increases in accident compensation levies but it caused costs to be shifted from the accident compensation scheme to individuals. The costs overall to society did not go down. 
If the member talks to people even people from the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) he will hear that they do not see any case for privatisation. They know that last time privatisation was a dog’s breakfast and it caused a host of problems. Let us consider the case under privatisation of someone who has an accident goes to the doctor and is referred to a physiotherapist. Before that person knows whether he or she can have treatment approval has to be obtained from a private insurer. There are a host of different private insurers and he or she does not know which one to go to. There is uncertainty for the individual who often does not know who the employer’s insurer is in respect of a work accident and cannot easily negotiate his or her way through the system. Under privatisation service providers were not paid on time. Some of them were never paid for work they did. Privatisation really did not work. The administrative costs of a State-owned monopoly are already demonstrably low by international standards and I say to the Government that there is no case to go to privatisation. 
The euphemism about the introduction of competition to the work account should be seen for the euphemism that it is. The accident compensation scheme is currently publicly owned and publicly administered. There are lots of private providers who provide services under the accident compensation scheme but there is a fundamental difference between that and the so-called introduction of competition into the work account. That effectively means moving from the State-owned efficient monopoly—which provides insurance cover and contracts private service providers to give physiotherapy operations and other treatments that people are entitled to under the accident compensation scheme—to contracting all of the scheme out to the private sector. 
I note one other point where the Minister for ACC has been caught out exaggerating. When the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee was examining the ACC estimates the Minister baldly said that the big employers who are effectively allowed to self-insure—the so-called accredited employers—have a better rehabilitation rate than those who are not. That is wrong and I hope that the Minister now acknowledges that the Accident Compensation Corporation— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: No no. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I have done questions and answers on it. We got on to this matter because we saw the chief executive officer of the Accident Compensation Corporation looking shocked when the Minister gave the answer. Then the chief executive officer was overheard outside to say: “We haven’t got any evidence to support that.” So we put written questions to the Minister that asked whether there was any support for that assertion made by him—and there was not because it is not true. Rehabilitation rates are going down by about 1 percent per annum. It is a problem and it is a problem around the world. Unfortunately I think the Government will approach that problem by kicking people off cover rather than appropriately dealing with the reality that as people get older they take longer to get better and they are more easily injured. Thank you. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Climate Change 
NICKY WAGNER (National) 
: 
 The National Government has increased its funding for environmental priorities in Budget 2009. Funding for Vote Climate Change is over $502 million. The Government’s priorities in Vote Climate Change are firstly the redesign and implementation of the New Zealand emissions trading scheme and secondly to present our climate change case in international negotiations. 
Climate change is one of the most important issues of our time and one of the most complex and challenging. New Zealand has a unique position. We are a developed annex 1 country with a developing world emissions profile. Our two major industries agriculture and tourism rely on our management of our natural resources in a clean green sustainable way. As customers become more environmentally discerning we need to ensure that our agricultural processes can provide food that is considered safe and to honour our “100% Pure New Zealand” tourist brand we need to show that we understand sustainability and care for our environment. How successfully we deal with climate change will reflect on these important industries. 
The Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee is finalising its work and will report back in a matter of weeks. After that decisions will be made about amending New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme. The Government intends that amendments will be broadly in line with our 2008 policy. We want to create a pragmatic durable scheme that will ultimately create more business certainty. The Government will take into account the impacts of the global recession when considering amendments. We are also working with Australia to ensure that New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme is harmonised as far as possible with Australia’s carbon reduction scheme. However the longer New Zealand delays implementing policies the more difficult it will be to meet the more stringent targets that are likely under future global agreements. Earlier action will allow a smoother transition and will better prepare the New Zealand economy to compete in a carbon-constrained world. 
The international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are headed towards a crucial meeting in Copenhagen this December. It is hoped that the main points of the future treaty will be agreed there. The Government’s intention is to announce New Zealand’s 2020 target prior to the beginning of the next negotiating meeting in Bonn on 10 August. All other developed countries have announced their 2020 targets. Australia has announced targets equivalent to reducing its emissions to below 1990 levels by 4 percent unilaterally or by 14 or 24 percent depending on the strength of global agreement. The European Union has announced a unilateral target of 20 percent below 1990 levels and 30 percent in the context of an ambitious international agreement. The US administration’s target is to return to 1990 levels by 2020 but more ambitious targets are still under consideration by the United States Congress. 
In setting a target for New Zealand the Government is considering scientific economic foreign affairs environmental and other factors including the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and recent statements by the G8 and the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate in support of limiting global warming to 2 degrees centigrade. We are also taking into account public input from a series of meetings attended by over 1600 people an online panel discussion a national hui meetings with business people and over 150 written submissions. Recurring themes from the public input include the need to focus on the environmental and economic consequences of action or inaction New Zealand’s clean green image and the effects on international competitiveness. As well as making a fair contribution to global emission reduction New Zealand is also actively involved in getting right the shape and form of a future climate change agreement. It is a difficult challenge but New Zealand is up for it. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I was disappointed by that contribution from Nicky Wagner because she sits on the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee and has made a thoughtful contribution on that committee. I was hoping we would hear from her today some further reflection on the work of the committee the design of the scheme and the question of targets. Instead we heard her read out a speech written by a research unit. That really is disappointing in this debate. 
In this brief contribution I will say that people are growing tired of the delay we have experienced in getting finality in this vital area of policy. We need to take it seriously. In my view there has been too much misleading talk about the balance between economic and environmental considerations. I think we are coming to a head when we come to the question of what carbon pollution reduction targets have to be set. It is embarrassing that we are one of the last developed countries to do this and it is just another indication of the risk we face in falling behind the rest of the world. Looking at the countries we like to compare ourselves with we see that President Obama has announced his Green New Deal with a major emphasis on how the US will transition to clean energy; in the United Kingdom Ed Miliband the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has announced major reforms of the electricity sector in order to encourage investment in renewable energy resources; and our nearest neighbour Australia has developed the $4.5 billion Clean Energy Initiative to provide investment in the development of low-pollution technologies. The rest of the world is doing something. It was interesting to hear the previous speaker talk about the need to avoid a longer delay. We do not need to be in delay mode; we need to get on with it. We need to make sure that the actions we take will be beneficial. There is just too much at stake not to do so. 
Let us talk about the targets Nicky Wagner mentioned. The figures that have come out as far as Government studies are concerned—the analysis from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research and Infometrics—are misleading. We need to have a good look at them. The studies cite a carbon price of $200 a tonne which is completely out of touch with international consensus. The price of carbon internationally in the medium range is much more likely to be about half that amount at $100 a tonne. The suggestion that there will be a price of $3000 per household per year is grossly inflated. If we look at the assumptions in the report we see that it is much more likely that if we adopt a target of zero then there will be about $1000 cost if there is a 15 percent reduction then the cost per New Zealander will be more like $1350 and for a 40 percent reduction there will be around $1900 cost which is 36 percent lower than the figure in the analysis that has been released. 
The modelling also assumes a lack of international competition in the carbon market. This is a major omission. It assumes no forestry planting which would result from the gradual increase in carbon prices. The US$25-a-tonne modelling by the Greenhouse Policy Coalition shows that forestry plantings would provide for 9 million tonnes after 10 years. This would make a huge different to meeting our target. Why not be bold? Why not look at the sorts of targets that are being advocated overseas in jurisdictions we like to compare ourselves with? I ask why we are instead mucking around with numbers that will not make a difference in the long run and that certainly will not get us to a satisfactory level of reduction by 2050 which everybody agrees we need to do. 
It is interesting to think about the hiatus that we are in. Nick Main the chairman of the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development told the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee that indecision in this area is costing huge amounts of forgone investment. He said: “investment blight was affecting hundreds of millions worth of … investments in forestry clean energy and biotech and also holding up decisions on reinvestment and new investment in emission intensive industries”. 
The time to be bold is now. It is the time to show leadership. That is what New Zealanders want from the Government. We really need to see that leadership and we need to see it from the Minister for Climate Change Issues in respect of targets. 
Debate interrupted. 
Amended Answers to Oral Questions 
Question No. 3 to Minister 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister) 
: 
 I want to correct a detail in my answer to oral question No. 3 today. I stated that the unemployment rate was last at 6 percent in 2005. In fact— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The member needs to seek leave. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I seek leave Mr Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Is this a personal explanation or a correction? Either way is the member seeking to make a personal statement or to make— 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I seek leave to make a personal explanation to correct a detail in an answer to a question— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Just a moment. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is anyone opposed to that course of action? It appears not. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: In answer to oral question No. 3 today I stated that the unemployment rate was last at 6 percent in 2005. The correct figure is that the unemployment benefit is the same now as it was in 2005 not the unemployment rate as measured by the household labour force survey. 
Question No. 2 to Minister 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Climate Change Issues) 
: 
 I seek the leave of the House to correct an answer that I gave in the House in respect of a question from Mr David Garrett. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Leave is sought for a personal explanation in relation to a question. Is anyone opposed to that course of action? There appears not. Leave is granted. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: In response to a question in respect of how much the existing emissions trading scheme legislation would reduce emissions I advised the House that the information was in the regulatory impact statement that had been provided. In fact it was in the economic analysis that was with the regulatory impact statement provided to the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee. I seek the leave of the House to table the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research report that has the information that the member sought. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is anyone opposed? Leave is granted. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Estimates Debate 
In Committee 
Debate resumed. 
Vote Climate Change ( 
continued 
)  
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the climate change estimates. I will make a few points in this short contribution. The first is that when it comes to climate change we have a moral obligation to take action. We have a moral obligation not only to ourselves and to future generations of New Zealanders but also to people who live in the Pacific. Just in the last few days the Alliance of Small Island States—some of our key neighbours—called on developed countries like New Zealand to commit to an emissions reduction target of at least 40 percent by 2020. They have called on New Zealand to make a strong reduction target because their very homes may go under. We have a moral obligation to act on climate change. It has been one of the Green Party’s great frustrations that over the years there has been very little action in terms of actually reducing our gross emissions. It is probably true that our net emissions will come pretty close to zero by 2012 but our gross emissions will be way over. 
Progress reported. 
Report adopted. 
The House adjourned at 5.56 p.m.