Volume 660 Week 35 - Tuesday 23 February 2010(continued on Wednesday 24 February 2010) 
Volume 660 Week 35 - Tuesday 23 February 2010(continued on Wednesday 24 February 2010) 
[Volume:660;Page:9173] 
Tuesday 23 February 2010 
( 
continued on Wednesday 24 February 2010 
) 
Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed. 
Part 2 Miscellaneous provisions ( 
continued 
)  
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to address the Committee and indeed the nation this morning on the very important matter before us the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. When we began the debate on Part 2 last night my friend and colleague the Hon David W Parker was busy outlining the direction Labour will be taking during this debate. We are strongly opposed to Part 2 of this bill because it means a very simple thing for accident compensation: New Zealanders will be paying more and getting less. If members of Parliament in the Committee this morning vote to approve Part 2 they will ensure that Kiwis out there facing a rising cost of living and economic uncertainty will be paying more for accident compensation in New Zealand and getting less. We in the Labour Opposition do not believe that that is a fair deal for anybody at all. That is what is at stake as we debate clauses 45 to 59 of this bill. 
We are very interested this morning to hear from the Associate Minister for ACC Pansy Wong who has taken over from Dr Nick Smith as the Minister in the chair for a variety of reasons no doubt. We are very keen to hear her views as to whether she contests the contention by Labour that people will be paying more and getting less as a result of the clauses that are in front of us. One of the areas I will look at first of all is the first clause of Part 2 clause 45 “Validation of disclosure of information for assessment of levies”. The issue of how levies are set has become hotly contested. People earning average amounts of money have faced an increase in their accident compensation levies. Of course the small tax reduction they may have received last year was well offset by the increase in accident compensation levies. Those same workers on average incomes will face an increase in their GST to 15 percent this year as well as further increases in accident compensation levies. 
We want to hear a justification from the Minister in the chair of the way levies are being set in respect of clause 45. If we take one group of levy payers in our country motorcyclists we see that it is pretty clear that the disclosure of information for assessment of their levies has been subject to the grossest political manipulation by Nick Smith Pansy Wong and the National-led Government. They have run the line that motorcyclists in New Zealand are somehow an incredibly dangerous group of people who should be socked with massive massive levies. The Government wants political congratulations for the fact that it reduced the proposed levy increase for motorcyclists from many many hundreds of dollars to just several hundred dollars. The approach the Government is taking is inequitable and unfair because it is not applying the same principles that it is socking the motorcyclists with to other groups in society. 
I want the Minister in the chair to try to explain to us why that it is fair. If it is fair to misrepresent the effect that motorcyclists are having on our accident compensation scheme why is she leaving other groups out of that assessment? The only assumption that members of the Committee can make this morning is that this bill is just one in a tranche of several bills which can only lead us to ask who will be the next to pay unfair accident compensation levies when that disclosure of information for assessment of levies is made under clause 45. 
What are the levies now paid by pedestrians and pushbike cyclists for their accident compensation? What level of assessed risk is taken into account for people in that category in the same way that the Minister is now doing for motorcyclists? I think that the Minister needs to come clean on those matters because it seems to me that we are being asked to change accident compensation for one group of people to move it away from the no-fault system to make an assumption about the risk that they have on society and to take into account no other factors. For example Government Ministers have been going around claiming that motorcyclists are 16 times more likely to have an accident than other road users. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on Part 2 of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill and this morning I will address two issues that are affected by this part. The first is around the abatement of holiday pay. We heard some very interesting comments from the Minister yesterday and also in response to previous questions. He said workers who receive their holiday pay when they are on accident compensation are double-dipping. This provision is one of the most miserly provisions in the bill. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Disgraceful. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: It is disgraceful. We are talking about pre-injury earnings so we are talking about workers who have been working happily in their jobs—not going to work to deliberately be injured as the Minister has suggested in past comments. They are working happily in their jobs and accruing holiday pay and in some cases they have not been able to take their holidays. They may be saving them up or may be thinking about taking a holiday with their family and then they are injured on the job through no fault of their own. They go on to earnings-related compensation. If those workers are then fired because it is a frustration of contract or if they are made redundant for some other reason they suddenly because they have lost their jobs have to use their accrued holiday pay. The earnings-related compensation stops and they have to use their holiday pay before that compensation resumes. 
I think that provision is very mean. If workers are lucky enough to have used their holidays before being injured this does not apply to them; they carry on receiving earnings-related compensation. How mean is this provision? This is such a mean and miserly provision. In fact the Cabinet paper that recommended these and other changes says the estimated saving from this provision is $1 million. In the scope of the scheme that is a tiny amount of money. Yes it is a saving but it will be paid for by the injured workers themselves. Treasury actually warned that the relatively small savings did not seem to justify the unfairness of this provision. It said “Claimants may think it is unfair to have weekly compensation abated because of annual leave accrued while they were earning or accrued in a previous financial year but that was not paid until termination of employment.” As I said workers who have taken their holidays prior to being injured receive earnings-related compensation but if they have not taken them—because they were too busy or hard-working or because they have not been able to agree with their employer on when they will have their holidays—then that is just tough. They have to give up their holiday pay—their very own money that they earned as holiday pay—and have their earnings-related compensation suspended. 
We spent quite a lot of time on this provision in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee; it was very interesting to try to get clarification of it. The member opposite Michael Woodhouse insisted that when workers are on accident compensation they actually accrue holiday pay. In the end we all agreed that they accrue leave and if they go back to work they actually get that leave. But I am here to tell the member that I have talked to all the unions about this and a whole lot of wage claims are coming to employers based on Michael Woodhouse’s insistence that workers who have been on accident compensation should be accruing holiday pay. I have gone and told them to thank Michael Woodhouse and the National Party for that and a whole lot of pay claims are coming their way. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Did he make a mistake? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well he will not admit he has; that is the problem. He will never admit it. Right to the last minute at the select committee he insisted that he was right. So I thank Michael Woodhouse. I have given the advice to the unions. They are taking it seriously and saying Michael Woodhouse thinks he knows what he is talking about so they are off to do a whole lot of pay claims for all those workers on accident compensation who did not receive accrued holiday pay. 
The other issue I will talk to this morning is the proposal to reduce the weekly compensation for seasonal and part-time workers. This is another miserable provision. It particularly affects workers who are women Maori Pasifika and in low-paid jobs—around half a million workers. These are workers in meatworks fish processing and a whole range of seasonal jobs. This provision will change the basis of the calculation of their pay back to the pre-2008 basis. It means that they will end up much much worse off than they would be at present should they be injured in their jobs. As I said this provision will significantly affect low-income workers and it also exposes those workers to manifestly unjust compensation. They will end up not just on the minimum wage for earnings-related compensation but in some cases on a heck of a lot less than that. It is very very unfair. 
I will give an example of the negative impact of this change. A young mother who has been financially dependent on her partner for most of the year undertakes seasonal work for 20 hours per week and is severely injured during the fifth week on the job. Her $450-per-week earnings for the 4 weeks prior to her injury will be divided by 4 weeks initially under new clause 36 (1) in schedule 1 and she will receive 80 percent of this or $360 for 4 weeks only after the first week of incapacity due to the injury. For the rest of the time that she is incapacitated her weekly compensation will be calculated by dividing the total amount of her income over her brief employment. Eighteen hundred dollars divided by 52 weeks is $27.70 a week. That will be the compensation for that worker. How on earth is that woman supposed to help her family to survive on that? It is a long way from real compensation which we should remember is one of the Woodhouse principles that the National members say they support. It is a long way from real compensation for her severe work injury and it is an unacceptable erosion of the social contract that underpins the scheme. 
Furthermore the process by which that worker is categorised as non-permanent is to a large degree very arbitrary. It requires the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) to essentially make a guess as to whether the employee would have continued to work for another 12 months. There is no way of knowing that. It assumes that seasonal workers go to work for 3 months. It does not take into account that many seasonal workers go from one job to another. It just assumes that they work for 3 months and that is the end of it. It should go without saying that in many cases it cannot be foretold by ACC whether a worker would have continued to work after his or her seasonal job ended. Given the severe nature of the possible consequences of being a non-permanent employee under this bill the test is fraught with uncertainty and that is simply unacceptable. For these reasons we believe that this proposed amendment is absolutely unfair and should not proceed. 
The other whack that will happen for seasonal workers—they get a double whammy—is that they will go on to injury-related compensation and because they are seasonal workers they will be paid out their holiday pay. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: They’re not on holiday. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: They are not on holiday; they are injured. But they will have to use their holiday pay. Their payments will stop. The $27.70 a week that the woman I have described might be entitled to will stop and she will have to use the holiday pay that she has accrued in her seasonal job. That is incredibly unfair. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Michael Woodhouse said that was all right did he? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Yes and so did the Minister. He kept on saying that workers who are injured should not be better off when they are on earnings-related compensation. Well I think I have demonstrated this morning that under this provision workers will be significantly worse off. It is totally unfair that that woman should receive $27.70 a week. It is totally unreasonable. 
I do not accept the Minister’s assertion that somehow these workers are gaming it. The implication of the Minister’s comments is that workers are gaming the system and better off under the provisions that Labour introduced in 2008. We brought in those provisions in 2008 for casual and seasonal workers for the very reasons that I have described: because what was happening before was unfair. Again I say that we are talking about the most vulnerable workers in our country. There are around about half a million of them doing very important work and being paid the minimum wage. They are struggling along trying to feed their families and to do the best they can and hopefully trying to find another job in between. One group of workers who were brought to our attention in the select committee were school support staff. We know from the fair pay campaign late last year that these are very low-paid workers. They are affected by this provision. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I call Lynne Pillay. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: That was a very good speech. 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 That was a very good speech. I congratulate my colleague Darien Fenton on outlining very very clearly some and I say only some of the major pitfalls and major claw-backs in the bill. When we negotiate in workplaces “claw-backs” is what these clauses are commonly known as. If we look we see that these are conditions and rights that the previous Labour Government reinstated to hold with the principle that the accident compensation scheme should be a no-fault system a social contract when people are injured. All New Zealanders have felt very very proud of that system. It has worked and it is not broken. I note that Pansy Wong the Associate Minister for ACC is the Minister in the chair. I have not heard Pansy Wong speak on this before and she should take a call. Nick Smith’s contribution yesterday is probably why we are not hearing that contribution now. It was absolutely appalling. It was offensive to many people and certainly to all people on this side of the Chamber. 
I congratulate obviously the Labour Opposition but also the Green Party who have consistently opposed this bill on the basis that it is simply unfair. It simply takes away rights from New Zealanders and that is not the principle of what accident compensation is all about—it is the absolute opposite. So I congratulate the Green Party but I challenge Maori Party members on this and tell them it is not too late to change their mind. It is inappropriate to support many of the clauses. I urge them to change their mind and to take a call— 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: We voted against it. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: That is excellent but the Maori Party supported sending the bill to the select committee and if it had opposed it at that stage perhaps the bill would not be back before the Committee. 
The Minister has claimed that the accident compensation scheme is broke. I have talked about that claim before but it is very important. How many times have we heard the Minister Nick Smith say “ACC is broke.”? Well it is not broke. It has $11 billion in reserves so how can it be broke? In fact it is quite the opposite. If we look at independent advice we see that PricewaterhouseCoopers from Australia found that the administration costs of the scheme are lower than for any other scheme. That confirmed previous assessments and that is a very very pertinent point. The accident compensation scheme has been criticised by the National Government but has been assessed independently as the most cost-effective in terms of administration. 
That is simply because of the simplicity of the scheme. It is simply a no-fault structure. It covers injuries at work or elsewhere with a broad pool of levies coming in. I urge the Government to reconsider its position; accident compensation levies do not need to rise. The only reason the Opposition can perceive that levies would rise is that there is— 
Darien Fenton 
: An agenda. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: —an agenda. What could that agenda be under a National Government? 
Hon Maryan Street 
: Two guesses. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: I do not think we need two guesses. I think we need only one guess and that is privatisation. That is ultimately what will be at the end of this process. As I have said before we saw absolute slashes to conditions in the accident compensation scheme under the former National Government. We saw the slashing of lump-sum payments. This bill is very much the same scenario. 
I want to talk about hearing loss. I know that a number of my colleagues have spoken about it. In terms of hearing loss the bill imposes a bar where people will get work-related— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: It is all right to be a little bit injured. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Exactly; as Ruth Dyson says it is all right to be a little bit injured and never mind what a medical professional says. We already have a bar in terms of age with regard to eligibility for hearing aids. I know that Labour members will attest that there were some very compelling submissions about hearing loss at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I ask whether I am correct on that and Darien Fenton is nodding. If people have work-related hearing impairment through no fault of their own and even though their quality of life is diminished with just a little bit of hearing loss then this lousy Government is saying that funding accident compensation coverage for those people is unacceptable. It is saying that those people who have anything less than 6 percent hearing loss should foot the bill themselves. The principle is no-fault coverage for a work-related injury but this Government is saying that if it is just a little bit of hearing loss or what the Government perceives as being a little bit of hearing loss regardless of what medical professionals and the Deaf Association say then the Government does not have to fund accident compensation coverage for it. This Government says that it will make those injured people pay even though the hearing loss has occurred through no fault of their own. 
What will this do and what alternative do people in that situation have? Either they foot the bill or they think that it simply is not fair and will look at whether they can sue their employer in many cases. What is the principle behind accident compensation? If we go back to basic principles it is a no-fault system. This change is absolutely silly. The amount that will be saved will be minimal but this measure will also cause considerable stress anxiety and financial stress for people who have suffered a work-related injury. We are absolutely opposed to this change as we are opposed to many of the other clauses. 
One such clause is clause 53 which amends the work-related gradual process provisions. We know that this change will affect older people but we are also hearing from many people at the moment—and I think that many of my colleagues will confirm this—who have been told that their claim is a gradual process injury. They are not getting any support from the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) so they have to go through this long process of going to a review and having to challenge ACC’s decision. Many people go to a review which without support from ACC obviously causes considerable financial strain. People also have to wait long periods of time for their review and to be able to see justice served. After going through that process many of those people may also see the original decision upheld. 
But the other thing that concerns me is the number of people who do not go through that process. People see that the stress and anxiety of all of this process is too hard and they just drop their claim. They just box on not getting the financial support that they are probably entitled to. The cost-cutting agenda of ACC is nothing short of ruthless. I am pleased to see that the Minister of Labour is currently the Minister in the chair because the next thing I want to talk about is holiday pay. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: She won’t know about that. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Oh yes people should use up their holiday pay. This Minister of Labour is not familiar with many many issues to do with labour. I think that even she would accept that; I think I see her nodding. The situation is that holiday pay is not double-dipping. Holiday pay is a right that has been accrued by work. People have worked and they have accrued that right to holiday pay. I have news for the Minister and the Government: when people are injured they are not on holiday. It is not a holiday. If the Government went out and spoke to injured people it would see that. 
JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) 
: 
 We started this debate this morning with Darren Hughes asking the question about the fact that surely we are paying more and getting less with the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. I wonder why we are paying more. That surely is the question. Why are we paying more? I do not know how closely Darren Hughes has listened to this debate. It is pretty obvious that Lynne Pillay has not listened to this debate because she criticised the Maori Party for supporting this bill and the Maori Party made it very clear that it was not supporting the second reading. In fact the Maori Party voted against the second reading and will not be voting for this bill. So Lynne Pillay has not been listening to this debate. 
Let us now address the question that Darren Hughes asked. He said we are paying more and getting less. Well why are we paying more? We had claims in 2005 totalling $2.2 billion. In the space of 4 years the claims paid by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) have gone from $2.2 billion to $3.6 billion which is a 57 percent increase over 4 years. That is simply not sustainable. Darren Hughes may think that money comes from fresh air but if the claims keep increasing at 12 percent per annum indefinitely of course we will pay more. Someone has got to pay. Lynne Pillay said that the accident compensation scheme is not broke and that levies do not need to rise. Maybe we will get to a state where levies will not rise but we certainly will not get to that state where levies do not rise if we keep paying claims that are increasing by 12 percent per annum. 
I believe that one of the major contributions to this debate was made by Maryan Street when she said during the second reading that medical science has advanced so much since the accident compensation scheme was passed and brought into being in the early 1970s that people who would routinely have died as a result of accidents now live on. That is one of the major reasons that we have a blowout in accident compensation. It is not the only reason but it is a contributing reason. People who would have died now live on but they live on as paraplegics as tetraplegics and the cost of keeping those people alive can run into many hundreds of thousands of dollars and even into many millions of dollars. 
Grant Robertson 
: What is the member suggesting should happen to those people? 
JOHN BOSCAWEN 
: I will listen to Mr Robertson. What I am suggesting is those people should be allowed to live on—absolutely. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Phew. How very generous of you! 
JOHN BOSCAWEN 
: It has to be paid for I say to Ruth Dyson. My sister was involved in a fatal car accident 30 years ago and she lived for 53 hours. One of the hardest decisions my mother had to make was to allow her life support system to be turned off. She would not have had the quality of life that she could have had with medical science today. With the advances in medical science if that accident had happened today she might have been able to live on. My mother would have wanted her to live on. The wonderful thing about accident compensation is that the advances in medical science would have enabled her to live on but it comes at a very significant cost. We need to address that issue. We have people living today who are tetraplegics and paraplegics and the cost of their living on is many millions of dollars. Life is precious. Life is absolutely precious and if those people can live on with any semblance of a normal life we absolutely need to allow that to happen and that is one of the beauties of medical science. 
But we need to recognise that that has a huge impact on claims of accident compensation. That is one of the contributing reasons why we have calculated liabilities of accident compensation of some $23 billion. If a person has a fatal accident—let us say in 1995 which is 15 years ago—and they become a tetraplegic they can live on. But they require round-the-clock care 24 hours a day. 
So what happens is that there is a cost. An actuary can calculate the cost of a person living on from say the age of 25 for a further 40 years. It may come to $2 million $3 million $4 million or $5 million. That actuarial calculation is done for all other claimants and I think the current valuation of ACC’s liabilities is some $23 billion. Lynne Pillay’s contribution to the debate was saying that because we have assets of $11 billion ACC is not broke. Well if the forecast costs of looking after and maintaining the life support systems that keep those people alive supporting them and giving them income are some $23 billion ACC is currently running at a deficit of $12 billion. There is a cost. 
I find it very interesting that when it comes to superannuation Labour criticised National’s decision not to continue pre-funding New Zealand superannuation. We have a New Zealand Superannuation Fund of some $12 billion. I do not hear Labour saying that because we have $12 billion in reserve in the Superannuation Fund we do not have to contribute—no. In the case of ACC it is exactly the same. We have assets of $11 billion liabilities of $23 billion and a $12 billion deficit. We need to wake up to the fact that in the time going on 40 years since accident compensation was adopted there have been advances in medical science and that is fantastic. It is fantastic that there have been advances in science so young people like my sister—who was not able to live 30 years ago—can live today and their families can have them around but there has to be a cost. 
We need to recognise that there have been substantial extensions to the accident compensation scheme. Clearly the country cannot afford it. We cannot carry on indefinitely increasing claims by 12 percent per annum year after year after year. This Government is trying to put a lid on that and recognise that claims have blown out. What do we do? We introduce competition choice and ways that we can reduce the number of injuries occurring. We need to improve rehabilitation rates. This is not a simple issue but the Government has woken up to the reality that we cannot keep increasing claimants by 12 percent per annum at fives times the rate of inflation year after year. Thank you. 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I would like to respond to a couple of points that Mr Boscawen has just made in the previous speech even though none of it bore much relation to Part 2 of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. Mr Chair I hope that you will allow me to provide some rebuttal albeit a little tenuously connected to Part 2. 
First I wish to register my sympathy and respect for the personal family story that Mr Boscawen told. Such stories touch us all and the story goes to the heart of the accident compensation scheme. I thank the member for raising it and I want to treat that story that part of the member’s own family history with a deal of respect. It is true that near-fatal accidents and very serious injuries that may result in tetraplegia can cost the accident compensation scheme something in the order of $20 million over the lifetime of a person these days. Because our medical technology has improved substantially because our support systems are better than they were 40 years ago and because prices and costs have increased yes it is quite true that even one such accident a year can cause a $20 million liability to be loaded across the lifetime of that person. 
But for my part I would rather have such a system than not have it. I would not wish to see people compensated and supported at a time of a traumatic injury for one or two years only or even perhaps for three years only. The reality of the situation is that we proceed with our busy and full lives something happens an injury is sustained and people’s lives are irrevocably changed. They are changed for life. I want to be part of a society that is compassionate enough to say we will support those people for the duration of their life because they are human beings and because we value them. I cannot put a price on anybody’s life. I can say some people with extraordinary disabilities arising out of injury have been among the most inspirational people I have ever met and to think that a Government a State a country a society would choose not to support those people does not sit with my values and with the values of the Labour Party. That is the first point. 
I wish to turn to a couple of issues that come out of Part 2. I want to revisit clause 55 which my colleague Darien Fenton spoke about earlier and which is to do with the calculation of weekly earnings for weekly compensation. I too am pleased that the Minister of Labour is in the chair at the moment because I want to draw some facts to her attention. The Minister in charge of this bill the Hon Nick Smith comes from Nelson. In Nelson there is a lot of seasonal casual and part-time labour. It is a region that is fundamentally dependent on primary produce. Fortunately we produce it well. I live there also so I know that we do it very well. But there is a lot of seasonal work. It is a good year for low-paid workers in Nelson if they can move from trimming the vines to picking the apples and to harvesting the kiwifruit in succession. But quite often workers find that they can get work for say only 40 weeks out of 52. And let us not exaggerate the case and say it is 4 weeks out of 52; let us say it is nearly a year but not quite. 
The amendments in this legislation have compensation being calculated on the basis of a 52-week year rather than the number of weeks worked. Anybody can work out that if one divides earnings by 52 rather than by the number of weeks worked—for example 40—one will get a much smaller figure. If we think about the principle of compensation it has always from the very beginning in the Woodhouse report been set at 80 percent of income. The purpose of that is to prevent people from doing the very thing that the Minister in charge of this bill accuses people of doing; that is earning more on compensation than they would do if they were in work. Receiving 80 percent of one’s earnings is an incentive to get back to work. Receiving 80 percent of the household income is an incentive to get back to work. That is why that percentage was set; that is what it was designed to do. 
What we have in Nelson is not only the average hourly income being the last time I looked at the figures some $2 less than the average hourly income across the country—and the Minister in charge of the bill should be aware of that—but also a lot of seasonal work. So suddenly to divide a 40-weeks-a-year income by 52 and then pay compensation at 80 percent of that will cause hardship to already low-paid workers. The Minister of Labour who is currently in the chair needs to drive that home to her colleague the Minister for ACC because for some reason he does not get it. 
The Minister for ACC persisted with yet another myth—another of Nick’s myths—when he said people are likely to receive more through compensation than they would through their earnings. That is both untrue and nonsensical at the same time when people are working a short year and are on low rates of pay if the system divides their earnings by 52 rather than 40 and then takes 80 percent of that. Hardship is suffered by some 76 percent of the families who live in Nelson. Some 76 percent of them did not benefit from tax cuts from this Government. They are low-income earners. Nelson is beautiful; it looks lovely when we drive in. I love it. It is a fantastic place to live. But let us not be fooled into thinking that the whole region is not sustained by the low wages that come out of primary production. This clause will create hardship. It is not fair. The nonsense that the Minister for ACC spouts about people receiving more while they are on compensation than they do when they are working is simply that: it is arrant nonsense. 
The next clause I wish to speak to is clause 53 and it is to do with work-related gradual process disease or infection claims. We have had some discussion about this clause in relation to hearing loss in particular. I want to make a couple of points. One is that work-related gradual process injuries if we take hearing loss as a particular example have been monitored and have been subject to research and analysis for numbers of years. In fact one of the advisory panels to the Minister is particularly engaged on this aspect of the accident compensation scheme. The hearing loss figures as an example of a work-related gradual process injury were actually in decline. They have been declining because most of the people who have been subjected to noisy work environments have become older and have been detected. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I am delighted to take a call on Part 2 of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. In particular I want to concentrate on clause 58 “Abatement of weekly compensation” because if there was ever an example of not letting the facts get in the way of a good rant it was from the Labour members this morning. Actually this is an extension of the irrational—in fact ill-informed—rant that started in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and is continuing today. 
One of the more disappointing aspects of this is that Labour members were prepared to sit by while submitter after submitter complained about things in the bill that just were not there. So what I want to do is take the members on the other side through a couple of pieces of legislation. I know that is difficult for some because it involves reading the law so I will go very slowly. It is quite appropriate I think that the Minister of Labour is in the chair at the moment because it actually relates to the Holidays Act 2003. Who passed the Holidays Act? Oh it was Labour. That is right. So for the benefit of the members on the other side who do not understand and have never employed staff I am going to work very slowly through it. Under section 16 of the Holidays Act every employee is entitled to 4 weeks’ annual leave. That entitlement to annual leave accrues even though the employee— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Everyone’s wrong except Michael. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: See is it not amazing how Labour members cannot listen and talk at the same time. They think they can but they are actually listening with their mouths not their ears. That really prevents a bit of learning. The entitlement to annual leave includes when people are on maternity leave when they are on volunteers’ leave and when they are on weekly compensation. When the anniversary of their entitlement to that annual leave clicks over that 4 weeks is banked. It is calculated on their ordinary earnings and is paid out. 
When an employee’s contract is terminated the provisions of sections 23 24 and 25 of the Holidays Act apply. I have to accept for the benefit of Darien Fenton that she was correct; I misunderstood this aspect of the law. The officials clarified it for me. What is really interesting about this is that employers are actually paying out holiday pay at a level greater than their requirements under the Holidays Act specify. I know of a number of employers who pay that proportion out notwithstanding the fact that they do not have to because the definition of gross earnings as set out in the earlier definition in the Act and which is applied in sections 23 to 25 does not include weekly compensation. So here is the thing: I will run through the scenario of a nurse who suffered a shoulder injury— 
Darien Fenton 
: All those wage claims mounting up! 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: Opposition members are trying to listen and talk at the same time. It took 2½ years and about three surgeries before it was agreed reluctantly that that nurse would never return to active nursing again and her contract of employment was terminated under the frustration provisions. She had up until the time of her injury accrued annual leave for her work. That is a concern of Mr Parker’s I know. She was on 80 percent weekly compensation and used that annual leave to top up her earnings so that she was getting the same take-home pay as she would have if she had not been injured. Two years passed and the entitlements to annual leave in accordance with section 16 of the Holidays Act clicked over and she was validly entitled to those. That is what we are talking about in terms of the abatement provisions. We actually paid out the balance of the year for which she did not accrue annual leave prior to her termination. I now know that under the law we did not have to. Here is the point: if we do not pay it out it cannot be abated. So that is a red herring as well. What we are talking about essentially is annual leave accrued during the period of incapacity that is then paid out. All this bill does is simply say that we should not pay twice. 
Darien Fenton 
: What about seasonal workers? 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: Well I will come to seasonal workers if I get a chance; I may not have time. Before the end of my speech I will also quickly touch on the issue of it costing only $3 million or $4 million. The Opposition says that the hearing loss provisions and the Holidays Act issues cost only $3 million or $4 million. Let me tell members that the accident compensation scheme actuaries are provisioning over $1 billion in full-funding entitlements for hearing loss. 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 How very interesting that speech by Michael Woodhouse was. I will just go back to a couple of simple points in relation to holiday pay because I think we should keep to the main point here. The main point in relation to holiday pay in the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill is that it will blatantly unfairly provide that holiday pay accrued before the injury will be counted and abated against weekly compensation. When people have an accident it is a random event. One cannot plan for it. One circumstance might be if a person has had the good fortune to go on a paid holiday with the holiday pay that he or she has accrued for the time worked prior to having an accident. Another circumstance might be that of a person who has accrued holiday pay and could have a paid holiday but unfortunately has an accident prior to taking that paid holiday. It is as simple as that. I will not go into all the technical detail about other points around holiday pay because I want us to focus on the real issue. The real issue is that this bill perpetrates a completely unfair outcome for workers. It is an attack on workers’ rights in fact. 
As other members have said I am very glad that Kate Wilkinson the Minister of Labour who I am sure is listening intently to what I am saying about holiday pay is the Minister in the chair. I ask the Minister to talk about this matter and to explain it. I think it should be explained to the workers of this country why this provision is fair. Even Treasury hardly the place where worker-friendly advice is forthcoming points out that this will save only $1 million but that in principle it is unfair. Let me say that again. Treasury says that in principle this provision is unfair. I would like the Minister to take a call and explain to us how she can justify a provision that saves $1 million—a provision that even Treasury says is unfair—and basically randomly affects workers based on when they have an accident and whether they have previously taken a paid holiday. Two workers in the same workplace could find very different outcomes for themselves because of this provision. 
There can be no justification for treating people differently. It is just a mean-spirited and unfair provision. I know that for some people in this Chamber talking about whether things are fair or unfair is really a bit of a red herring. They do not like it. They think that is not really the point. But New Zealanders do care about fairness. I believe that most New Zealanders do not yet understand this provision. Certainly members on this side of the Chamber will be making it crystal clear to people that this is what this bill does. Once people start to see this bill in action I think the Government will hear significant concern being expressed to it because of the blatant unfairness. 
Submitters on this particular provision certainly recognised that this was an erosion of workers’ rights. A number of unions and the Council of Trade Unions explained pretty much what I have just said—that holiday pay is earned at a time prior to the injury which effectively means that this provision requires a worker to fund his or her own compensation for the period of the abatement. Some of the cost is therefore effectively being shifted to the worker. There are a number of provisions in this bill that do exactly that. It is about cost shifting. It is about cost shifting to workers; it is about cost shifting to families; and it is about cost shifting to the health budget rather than accident compensation. There are a range of cost-shifting provisions in this bill and this is one of them but it is a really mean nasty unfair little provision that shifts the cost back to a worker who unfortunately did not have the opportunity to take the paid holiday that he or she was due. Again I urge the Minister to stand up and tell us how this can be right. 
Last night I made the point that a number of provisions in this bill are unfair. I have taken some considerable time this morning to explain in detail why I believe that one little provision around holiday pay is unfair. But let me say that the combined effect of this bill including that provision is a range of unfairness. It has a disproportionate impact on some groups in our society. Certainly Te Puni Kokiri has made it very clear that this bill has a disproportionate impact on Maori. Certainly it is clear and submitters have acknowledged this that it will have a disproportionate impact on women. Some of my colleagues have talked this morning about seasonal workers. I think they would find that any analysis of seasonal workers in this country will include significant numbers of Maori and significant numbers of women. That is just one particular example where we will see a disproportionate impact on particular groups of New Zealanders. 
The hearing loss threshold as I said previously will have a disproportionate impact on older New Zealanders and on New Zealanders who have worked in our primary industries and in manufacturing where we have had decades of people working in very very noisy workplaces. Fortunately we seem now to have got that one largely sorted out. The hearing loss threshold will impact mainly on older New Zealanders. Those are some reasons why this bill is unfair. 
But not only are the provisions of this bill unfair. Others have gone on to explicitly show that this bill is discriminatory in terms of our Human Rights Act. The Human Rights Commission made a very strong submission to our select committee and I find it deeply troubling that no Government Minister who has been in that chair has taken the time to get up and tell us why we should not be concerned about the areas of discrimination identified by our Human Rights Commission. 
In this bill it talks for example about discrimination against young people. It talks for example about discrimination against older New Zealanders. It talks for example about discrimination against those with mental rather than physical injuries. These are very important points being made by the Human Rights Commission whose job it is among its many jobs to inform us as members of Parliament about the potential disproportionate impacts and the discriminatory impacts of things we are doing here. I would really like somebody on the other side of the Chamber to do the decent thing and take a call on this and explain to us why we should be relaxed about things that the Human Rights Commission are identifying as discriminatory. I do not think those members will be able to do it because I think the Human Rights Commission is absolutely right. 
So we have a bill before this House that is unfair and mean-spirited some of the provisions of which like the hearing loss one are justified only as so-called cost containment. So despite the fact that the provisions are unfair and discriminate against certain New Zealanders this is a $3 million to $4 million saving and the holidays pay one is a $1 million saving. This is mean-spirited unfair discriminatory legislation and it affects workers’ rights. Of course that is something I am sure that the Minister of Labour who is the Minister in the chair will want to talk to us about and I am really looking forward to that. So far under her watch we have already seen the erosion of workers’ rights in this country and I am sure there are many more to come. We have seen the erosion of workers’ rights in relation to the right to take a personal grievance. 
This certainly leads me to be very nervous about the fact that there is more coming in this space and the Minister has not ruled anything in or out according to an interview I heard the other day. I would not be surprised if we found more New Zealanders losing their right to take a personal grievance which I think will be something that hopefully will worry most fair-minded New Zealanders. 
In respect of workers’ rights in this country we have had very little effort by the Government to deal with issues around jobs and that is a pretty important worker’s right—the right to a job. We have certainly seen low-paid workers being hammered including most recently a 25 percent lift to the minimum wage being the response of this Minister to moving the minimum wage which is the social floor if you like—the minimum we believe that people should work for. I urge the Minister to get up and talk to us about on this provision around holiday pay in the bill. Thank you. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am very happy to take a call on Part 2 and I very much look forward to hearing more patronising speeches from Michael Woodhouse lecturing the Committee on accident compensation. I say to the member that he would need to be here a little bit longer than 15 months to be as patronising as that. I think it is something the member should just build up to. He should talk to Mr Peachey who is sitting next to him. He will explain how this place works. 
Hon Members: 
 Ha ha! 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Or maybe not; maybe Mr Woodhouse could explain to Mr Peachey how this place works—I do not know; they can sort it out amongst themselves. The fact is that we did not deserve that level of arrogance from that member given that he did not answer a number of the very serious concerns we have been raising. 
Jo Goodhew 
: You’ll get to the bill? 
MOANA MACKEY 
: I will get there I say to Ms Goodhew; I am responding to the comments made by one of her colleagues. Ms Goodhew could get to her feet and answer some of the questions that members on this side of the Chamber have been raising. 
Jo Goodhew 
: Personal attacks—that’s all that is. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: She says that these are just personal attacks. Well Labour members say that this bill is an attack on every single vulnerable victim of an accident in New Zealand and National should take it a little bit more seriously. I will pick up on the question that my colleague Darren Hughes asked. He said that this legislation would result in New Zealanders paying more and getting less. I absolutely agree. I want the next National speaker—indeed the Minister in the chair the Minister of Labour—to stand up and absolutely guarantee that not a single person in New Zealand will pay more for accident compensation and get less. If they are saying we are wrong then can they absolutely guarantee that that is not what this legislation will result in? 
Michael Woodhouse 
: We’re paying less than if you were on the Treasury benches. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Mr Woodhouse refuses to answer the question. The fact is— 
Jo Goodhew 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I draw to your attention that thus far in this particular debate Speaker’s ruling 108/5 would appear to indicate to us that this member has not yet addressed the provisions in Part 2; she has not mentioned in any respect that part of the bill. I wonder whether you could rule on that. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I understand the point that the member is making. I have just assumed the Chair so I have not had the time to apply myself to the nature of the content of this part. But I think it is a timely warning that this part of the debate is actually about addressing Part 2. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Thank you Mr Chairperson. Perhaps Ms Goodhew needs to read Part 2 which actually refers to levies if she thinks that the costs— 
Jo Goodhew 
: You didn’t mention the word “levies” once. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Oh! OK. “Levies”. Is the member happy? Can I now talk about the cost on New Zealanders? I said the word “levies”. Is Ms Goodhew happy now? I notice how sensitive National members are; they do not like us talking about the cost on New Zealanders. But the reality is that the cost for New Zealanders will go up and they will get less service because of this legislation which Ms Goodhew and her National colleagues are voting for. I think that the next National speaker needs to absolutely categorically state that that is not the case. I guarantee members that the National members will not do that because they cannot. They know that all the evidence that the select committee heard and all the evidence that came out in the PricewaterhouseCoopers report shows that New Zealanders will get less and pay more. 
I spoke on Part 1 last night and one of the questions I raised—which also comes up in Part 2 under clause 51—was not addressed. That is the fact that under this legislation someone who has a large fine and pays it can keep his or her accident compensation entitlement but someone who has a large fine and cannot pay it and ends up going to prison for non-payment of the fine will be disentitled from accident compensation. I would like the Minister in the chair to answer that question because I want to know why. We have heard a lot of argument and rhetoric around this clause about how it is all about the worst of the worst and it is all about Graeme Burton but I actually want to ask a serious question. How is it fair that someone who can pay his or her way out of a large fine can keep accident compensation entitlement but someone who cannot pay and ends up going to prison—ends up with a custodial sentence—loses the entitlement? If Mr Woodhouse who appears to be the guru on all of this would answer that question— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: It’s a nonsense question. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: I think that just shows exactly the colour of this National Government. I say to Mr Woodhouse that under this legislation someone who commits an offence but cannot pay the fine goes to prison and loses his or her accident compensation entitlement but someone who commits exactly the same offence and can pay the fine because he or she is wealthy gets to keep his or her entitlement. 
Michael Woodhouse 
: It’s an outrageous insult on the judiciary! 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Well I tell Mr Woodhouse that we are passing legislation that will be enacted and I think we should be clear. This could be fixed if the Government cared enough about it to fix it. Instead of standing up and making patronising speeches that do not address any of the concerns of members on this side of the Chamber maybe the Government could look at fixing these anomalies and taking some of these concerns a bit more seriously than it is. 
The other issue I raised last night was that instead of only talking about the Graeme Burtons—which we all agree was a serious issue and that is why the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) has the ability to disentitle—members on the other side of the Chamber should maybe look at the reasons why ACC is not using that power and resolve them. One of the questions the select committee asked was whether it is about information sharing. ACC said that one of the problems is that it does not know when people have been convicted. How can it disentitle people when it does not know whether they have been convicted? If the issue is information sharing between departments then that issue should be fixed and I would like the next National speaker or the Minister in the chair to tell us that it has been fixed. We could fix it in this legislation. We could make it absolutely clear that that information can be given directly to ACC so that it can use its power to disentitle where appropriate. 
The other thing I would like to raise is the concerns that were raised by the Legislation Advisory Committee. Mr Woodhouse is very concerned about good practice and good law. Well this committee had a lot to say about this bill and in particular the fact that we are now reversing that entitlement. Currently the Minister cannot disentitle; ACC does it. I think that separation is appropriate. This bill says that the Minister can entitle someone but nothing in here has any criteria around that power. So we are now giving a power to a Minister who can be lobbied and politically persuaded. I mean National has done a deal with ACT over this and other legislation—it hated the “three strikes” law and it was only going to select committee but it has done some deal to support some other legislation probably this legislation and now they think “three strikes” is wonderful. Ministers deal in politics; Ministers make political decisions. Now a Minister has the right to entitle someone to accident compensation. This right is not sitting apart from the politics and with the department. The Legislation Advisory Committee said that in that section there should be criteria around how that decision is made. 
I would like the next National speaker or the Minister in the chair to explain why there are no criteria in this bill relating to this power. How will we ensure and how will the people of New Zealand have confidence that that power will not be completely unhindered by any kind of control; that the decisions that are being made will be appropriate and not political decisions; and that all politicians—but Ministers in this case who can be very prone to lobbying on a number of issues—will put that lobbying aside? Labour members believe that there should be criteria. If a Minister is going to have this power—and there is a question over whether a Minister should have this power—then there should be criteria so people can see clearly and transparently how those decisions will be made. Maybe Mr Woodhouse could tell us why there are no such criteria in this legislation. 
For someone who had a lot to say for himself not very long ago he has gone very very quiet. Now he is doing that whole: “I am looking up at the gallery.” thing; he did not really hear what I had to say; he does a little bit of a quirky smile. I say to Mr Woodhouse that it is all textbook; we have seen it all before. Maybe instead of pretending that he is waving to some constituent up in the gallery he could answer the question I am putting which is why there are no criteria— 
Jo Goodhew 
: You have no idea how to actually talk about the bill Moana. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Oh Ms Goodhew is getting upset. “Levies”—there is she happy? I said the word “levies”. Maybe Ms Goodhew could answer the questions about why there are no criteria in this legislation for the power we are giving the Minister. Does she know? Does she care? No not really. She just wants to go home. She is just upset that we will not roll over and let the Government pass this terrible legislation which will be incredibly damaging for all New Zealanders. 
Maybe Ms Goodhew could stand up and explain—and I think this is a very simple question—why people who use up all their holidays get to have accident compensation and people who do not take their holidays do not. How is that fair? No one knows when he or she will have an accident. No one can predict that. But if people happen to have taken a holiday before they have the accident and used up all their holiday pay they still get their accident compensation entitlement. But if people are unlucky enough to plan their holiday for the period after they end up having the accident they get nothing and they lose their holiday pay. I ask Ms Goodhew how that is fair. We see that she is now doing the “tugging on the ear pretending I’m not listening” routine which is a variation of Mr Woodhouse’s “pretend I’m looking at someone in the gallery” routine. Maybe she could answer that question. Again she had so much to say for herself before; maybe she could take a call and explain to me how it is fair that people lose their entitlement just because they did not take their holidays. 
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 I appreciate the chance to make a modest contribution to the debate on Part 2 of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. I will begin gently. I do not know that the last speaker—Moana Mackey who is a very experienced member of this Committee—particularly addressed Part 2 but she certainly got a lot of her agenda out there. I gently point out to her that on this side of the Chamber we write our own speeches. We do not need an Opposition member to tell us what we will talk about. 
It is with a slightly heavy heart that I speak this morning. We have been through the first reading of this bill and a lengthy select committee process during which on occasion the contribution of Opposition members was valued and very positive. We have had the second reading and have been through Part 1 in the Committee stage. We are now on Part 2 and all the Labour members have done is to get a whole pile off their chests much of which is not particularly relevant to this legislation. 
I repeat to Opposition members the offer I made to them last night. Let us get rid of all the posturing posing and displays of emotion that have been going on. In this debate on Part 2 I ask why the Opposition members do not reach out to the Government members in the way we are trying to reach out to them and agree that we have to save the accident compensation scheme. Part 2 is about saving the scheme so why do we not get down to work and do so together? The people of New Zealand require us to save the scheme and that is what Part 2 does. Along with Part 1 it is about making the scheme affordable and financially viable for ordinary New Zealanders well into the future. 
The member Ms Beaumont did a far better job than the speaker who followed her Moana Mackey of addressing the clauses of Part 2 and I commend her for that at least. She talked about Part 2 being an attack on workers. I do not understand that. An attack on workers would have happened had Labour remained in office. The consequence of Labour remaining in office and persisting with the attitude it has shown in this debate would have been the collapse of the scheme as a 24/7 accident insurance scheme that still has the potential if fixed by measures such as those contained in Part 2 to serve New Zealanders well. 
The phrase “mean-spirited” was used. I cannot see what in Part 2 could be described as mean-spirited. What is mean-spirited about introducing changes to the legislation that save the scheme within the realms of what the country can afford? The Opposition should have learnt from 9 long and some would say miserable years in Government that we can throw money at a situation for only so long. At some point in time responsibility has to be exercised. I ask Labour members when they will start showing some responsibility. 
We heard the phrase “blatant unfairness”. Is it blatant unfairness to the taxpayers and levy payers of New Zealand to make the accident compensation scheme more affordable and therefore to save it? That is what Part 2 does— 
Colin King 
: Sustainable. 
ALLAN PEACHEY 
: As my colleague Mr King says it makes the scheme affordable and sustainable. What is blatantly unfair about that? Nothing in Part 2 is blatantly unfair to anybody. The words “mean” “nasty” and “unfair” are emotive words that have no meaning in Part 2. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I will talk to clause 53 of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill which relates to transitional provisions concerning gradual process workplace disease. This clause relates to a change that is being made to the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act. The change disentitles some people who can currently prove a workplace accident relating to gradual process disease. After this transitional provision comes into effect they will not be able to. I will explain to those who are interested the nature of the change that is being made and how it is unfair. 
Currently it is quite hard to prove a work-related gradual process disease or infection. If someone has an illness there are often a lot of possible causes. If someone has an illness that may be related to exposure to chemicals at work or on a farm for example then there is some onus on that person to show that exposure to those chemicals caused the disease and not some other cause. I would have thought that is quite a hard albeit appropriate test to meet. One of the ways in which the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) goes about assessing whether this link is sufficiently proven is through ministerial advisory groups of experts who look into these things. As the quality of science improves and their knowledge as to these links grows the decisions that are made by ACC no doubt become better. Incidentally another provision in this bill does away with those advisory boards which to me seem necessary and ought not to be disposed of. 
My point in respect of clause 53 is that in addition to the existing test this bill introduces another impediment to getting cover. That impediment is found in clause 7 which does not come into effect until the transitional provisions of clause 53 apply. The new test in clause 7 says that people will not be able to get compensation for work-related disease caused by exposure to chemicals if that same chemical is found to any material extent in their non-employment activities or environment. So if someone now has exposure at work to chemicals that cause disease and if that exposure causes a disease then that person can get accident compensation. But if he or she has material exposure outside of work—at home—the Government will deem that that person did not get the disease from work. It does not have to be greater exposure at home; it just has to be some material exposure. 
I could understand if employers were saying that they were paying for the cost of non - work-related exposure to these chemicals that it was too tough and that maybe there should be some sort of pro-rata assessment of whether that injury should fall inside or outside the employers’ compensation scheme. I can see myself being persuaded that if there were partly a work cause and partly a non-work cause then the compensation should be proportionately divided and put to the different accounts. Indeed if there is no compensation for work-related disease partly caused outside of work then a person might not get full compensation if part of it was caused outside work. But to completely take away cover from someone who has a work-related disease because some of the disease was not work-related is just wrong. It is unfair. It denies the reality that this person has suffered work-related disease as a consequence of exposure to chemicals at work. 
These things are real. I think that most people who run constituency clinics will have met people who worked in photographic processing shops; that problem is dying out as technology changes. They were being exposed to the chemicals— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Glutaraldehyde. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I am told glutaraldehyde is the chemical; I do not know that from memory. Those chemicals cause skin problems and respiratory problems and in some cases people have terribly affected lives. These consequences are not minor; they are life-changing events. This clause would say that amateur photographers—presumably some of these employees are amateur photographers—would no longer be entitled to compensation relating to personal injury caused by gradual process disease or infection as a consequence of exposure to those chemicals at work despite the fact that the vast majority of their exposure to those chemicals was at work and therefore was the cause of their injury. That in my opinion goes too far. As I said I could understand an argument to rateably apportion the cost between the two different causes but to say that just because there is a material effect from the outside-of-work exposure those people should have no right to any compensation for their work-related injury goes too far. 
Again the question is: why are we doing this? We already know that work-related accident compensation levies for employers in New Zealand are lower than they are anywhere in the world that we are aware of. The only information the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee had in that respect was the comparison with Australia which clearly showed that the costs for our employers are already lower. So what is the justification for reducing them further by effectively excluding cover for these real injuries? 
John Boscawen said that costs are going up and therefore we should truncate the scheme. It is true that medical costs are going up. They are going up for a number of reasons. There has been high inflation in the health sector which I think will abate and ever more sophisticated procedures are available to ensure that people live healthier longer lives in the face of injury and disease. Those procedures cost and as a country we face the pressures of meeting that additional cost. 
We make choices as to how the extra wealth that is generated in a society is allocated. We are a country that grows wealthier over time. Every country as it grows wealthier chooses if they have a bit of disposable income or more disposable income to spend more of that disposal income every year on health care because health care is so intrinsically important to quality of life. If people have the choice of spending more on quality of life—if they can afford it—they do. As a country we can afford to pay more for quality of life every year and we do. We should not be stuck in some 1950s paradigm that says that that was all we could afford back then and therefore all we should try to aspire to afford these days is the level of cover that we used to have. That is not the way for New Zealand. We want improving quality of service in medical services in New Zealand as the economy improves and as technology improves. That is called progress. Some of the comments we heard from John Boscawen seemed to be that the reality is that medical procedures all become too expensive and we just have to put a ring-fence round it and say that we are sorry but people will not get anything more. I disagree with that view. I think that we can as a country pick up some of these additional costs because we become wealthier as our economy grows. 
That is not to say that we ought not to be prudent and to try to manage costs. I certainly agree that we ought to maximise rehabilitation so as to minimise those costs but I am certainly not one of those people who thinks that we should have as an objective keeping expenditure in these areas static because in reality we cannot unless we freeze ourselves in time and slowly become a backward country. 
I will also talk about the residual levy. I agree with some provisions in this part of the bill. There is a problem with the levy-setting process of the accident compensation scheme. Changes in rates of return can have an enormous effect on the capital pool that is needed to fund some of these old residual claims over time and therefore the change in the parameter of expectation as to what the rate of return on investments will be for the next 20 years might go from 5 percent to 4.5 percent per annum. That change has an effect worth many billions of dollars on the pool of assets that is required to be held by the scheme to meet the long-term life of those old claims. That number bounces around every year and causes real volatility in the levy that is set for those residual claims particularly as we approach the end of that funding. We are doing two things here: we are extending the date from 2014 to 2019 which is good; and we are putting that date in stone which I think is a wise policy decision by the Government and I congratulate it. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 Deciding who to give the next call to was a major dilemma and I really think you moved forward on it with courage and correctness Mr Chairman! I thank you very much for giving me the privilege of taking the next call. 
I will add to the comments made by the member who has just resumed his seat the Hon David Parker in relation to John Boscawen’s comments but I will also recall different comments that that member made during his contribution. John Boscawen began his speech by asking why we are now paying more and getting less in accident compensation. He asked why that was. Well the answer is very simple: we have a National-ACT Government that will make New Zealanders pay more levies pay higher levies and get less through reduced entitlements. That is what we get under a National-ACT Government. Mr Boscawen should ask that question while looking into the mirror. What part has he played in making sure that New Zealanders under the scheme now have to pay more and get less? 
As an example of that reduction in entitlements I will look at clause 54 in Part 2 which is the part we are debating at this moment. I think that this debate will go on for some time given the number of people I have seen seeking calls. The provision I will refer to which will certainly cause people to be paying more and getting less relates to vocational independence. “Vocational independence” is a lovely term is it not? It sounds as though people who have had an injury have had proper high-quality rehabilitation and are now able to move back into a paid job if that is what they had before or even if they did not have a paid job previously—a younger person a student or a parent with the primary responsibility for caring for the children may not have been in a paid job. 
Vocational independence sounds great but the National Government has gutted the basis of the vocational independence assessment. It has made three major changes with this amendment. Clause 54 refers to the assessment but it does not give the details of those dramatic changes. The first is that people’s pre-injury earning capacity will no longer be considered as part of the vocational assessment process. For example a Minister of the Crown earning quite a good income has the misfortune of having an injury—I would not wish that on any Minister of the Crown. That Minister then goes through some rehabilitation. Part of the vocational independence assessment under this legislation will no longer require one’s earning capacity as a Minister to be taken into account. The vocational assessor might tell the Minister that he or she is fit to work as a cleaner in a Minister’s office and that would be determined under this amendment as vocational independence. Well there is one word for that: “unfair”. It is not fair for a person to be moved so dramatically from one scale of earning or potential earning to another much lower scale because of an injury. People’s pre-injury earning capacity should remain as part of the consideration. The officials confirmed to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—and I give them credit for doing so—that changing “must” to “may” can be interpreted by a vocational assessor as “may not”. So it will not matter a toss to the vocational assessor what the person was earning before his or her injury; all the vocational assessor will be interested in is turfing that person off accident compensation. 
The second change that I will refer to is that where a person is assessed as having the capacity to do a job it will not matter whether it is a real job. It will not matter whether such a job is available in New Zealand. Many examples of that happened in the 1990s and this bill will head us in that direction. There were many examples where people were deemed to have the capacity to be a lift operator for example. I ask members when the last time was that anyone in this Chamber went into a lift in Kirkcaldie and Stains Smith and Caughey’s Ballantynes or James Smith’s and had a lift operator ask which floor madam or sir would like to go to. We do not have lift operators in New Zealand any more. Those were the olden days which is where clause 54 in Part 2 of this amendment bill will take us. That is exactly the situation this clause will take us back to because the clause removes the requirement for the job that the person is assessed to be capable of doing to be a real job. 
The other example that I recall very well was that of a man who was assessed as being capable of being a tap-dancer. I have not seen a lot of tap-dancing jobs going in New Zealand on which one could earn money or keep a family but that was what the vocational assessor said. Later that same week Paul Holmes interviewed the tap-dancer. It was revealed that the man—who had been assessed by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) as being vocationally independent able to move off accident compensation and fit to be a tap-dancer—had only one leg. That would be a very very hard duty to perform but that is exactly what this amendment makes possible again. 
The Minister in the chair the Associate Minister for ACC is right to hang her head and keep her mouth closed. She seems to be—and she should be—ashamed of what she is doing to ordinary hard-working New Zealanders who have had the misfortune of being injured. This amendment takes us back to having no consideration of pre-injury earning capacity. Georgina te Heuheu thinks it is funny. Well I do not think it is funny that people who had high-paying jobs who worked hard to get ahead in their careers and who were able to offer their families good financial support because of their hard work and determination will now be told by ACC that that does not count any more and that they are fit to do very low-paid menial jobs with no career prospects. Under this amendment that is all right. Well I say to Mrs te Heuheu that it is not all right. I will be very interested to see members of the Maori community front up to that member and say exactly what the impact will be on Maori families. That member should be raising questions with her ministerial colleagues rather than laughing at the unfair treatment that this amendment will dish out. 
The third change in the work-capacity vocational independence assessment outlined in clause 54 is the reduction in hours. Currently people have to be determined to be fit to do a real job—taking into consideration their pre-injury earning capacity—for 35 hours a week. That is fair. It is not a full-time job but it is pretty close to it; 35 hours a week is in the main enough to keep a family on. This amendment reduces that requirement to 30 hours. Someone may be deemed to be capable of working only 30 hours in a low-paid job. Even if that person is able to get a low-paid job he or she frankly could not keep his or her family going on that many hours a week. It is just not possible if one is the primary income earner. The inclusion of that amendment says to injured people that we do not care what they were doing before the injury we do not care whether there is a real job and we do not care whether they can afford to keep their families on 30 hours a week. That is not what Labour says. Labour believes that what people were earning before their injury should be taken into account in the assessment process. They should be able to work for 35 hours a week and the job that they are determined as being fit to do should be a real job. 
That is what ordinary New Zealanders who have the misfortune of having an injury deserve out of a scheme that they pay for. They pay for it out of their hard-earned income; they deserve fair treatment when they are injured. That is all the New Zealand public want. They do not want what National and ACT are dishing up which is to pay more for accident compensation but get less in return. They just want a fair go. Frankly I do not think that is too much to ask. 
Throughout this bill there are amendments that cut back provisions that people now expect as part of the social contract they have bought into with the Government. We will see increased calls for the right to sue. I am sure that Associate Minister Pansy Wong will say that maybe people should have the right to sue but why would any one of us want to take New Zealand down a track of litigation of stress of putting money into lawyers’ pockets and of many hundreds of people losing their entitlement and their rights to a fair go through the court system? We have a fair and just system now and we should keep it. 
JO GOODHEW (Junior Whip—National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 I came to the Chamber to listen to the debate on the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill because it is an issue that Labour intends to fight strongly on. We are believers in the accident compensation system that has served New Zealanders so well for so long. 
I listened to Mr Peachey’s speech; it was a 3-minute attack on Labour’s record in Government. He stressed the need to have an affordable and sustainable system. I tell Mr Peachey that this bill—and as a constituency MP Mr Peachey will know this—will undermine the confidence that New Zealanders have in the scheme that they are paying for. It is their scheme to cover them when they have an accident. As other members are doing in their constituency offices I am picking up on people coming back to us asking why they are being denied cover under a scheme they thought they would be covered by. 
I agree with the points that Mr Peachey made about the scheme needing to be affordable and sustainable and so do New Zealanders. But from the National Government we are getting nothing more than a propaganda campaign to undermine accident compensation for its own political purposes. I ask people to read a story in the newspaper today about a 15-year-old girl who injured her hip playing sport. The mother has gone vocal because she said that she thought the accident compensation scheme would cover her child in the event of an accident yet she was turned down for cover. Why was she turned down? Because the medical assessor for accident compensation said she had an unusual-shaped hip. Before she had that accident she was playing sport and was an active child. She was like any ordinary kid at 15—lively running and enjoying life. She is now in such agony and pain that she can do nothing. She can hardly walk. She is on painkillers. That is a very good example of the system not being fair. Why would that child be turned down just because an assessor said she had an unusual-shaped hip? 
I say to Mr Peachey that when he makes speeches about the scheme being affordable sustainable and all the fancy words the National members are using he should think about the New Zealanders who need to have access to accident compensation and rehabilitation. This is not an insurance scheme as National has tried to paint it; it is a scheme to help New Zealanders in the event of an accident. If they have an accident they need help. 
I was staggered by John Boscawen’s comments. He really labelled what this Government is doing and I think it should be said by every member of the Opposition. He said that we are paying more and getting less. I thank Mr Boscawen for that comment. New Zealanders will be paying more and getting less. I have a question for him: why is he voting for a bill that will mean people pay more and get less? That seems a bit crazy to me. We have had no answer to that question. 
I think one of the big issues in these transition clauses is the issue of New Zealanders who will lose access to hearing aids that they need because of hearing loss. People have already come to me around this issue. They have come to me because they have a workplace injury: they have lost their hearing at work. They have gone to work year after year and worked in a noisy environment in a time when they did not take a lot of care about health and safety. A lot of those changes came in under a Labour Government and much of it was called “bossy PC” Government. But we believe in workplace safety. Many New Zealanders who have gone to work in a noisy environment year after year now have hearing loss. The reason why the Government is changing the entitlement is not that it does not want people to have hearing aids; it is that it thinks too many are getting them and it is costing too much money. It is saying that because the cost has gone up—of course the cost of hearing aids has gone up too—it will now put a threshold on when people can get a hearing aid. 
We and the National members have been told that many New Zealanders who do not meet this threshold will still not be able to hear daily things around them. A very good example was their not being able to hear children speaking because of the pitch of their voices. We were told that these people would miss out on parts of their lives that they should be able to enjoy with help from the accident compensation scheme. They did not choose to lose their hearing. They did not deliberately go out put on earphones and listen to heavy metal; they were actually working amongst heavy metal and heard the noise and the thumps of their workplace and so they lost their hearing. I think it is shameful to treat our workers in such a way. 
I also endorse the comments made by Ruth Dyson around clause 54 and the area of vocational assessment. I have to say that I had not heard the story of the one-legged tap-dancer. He was assessed following an injury as being able to tap-dance—he had a job he could do. He was assessed as being able to be a tap-dancer but he was found to have only one leg. I imagine it is quite difficult to tap-dance on one leg. The only thing I can say is that the person was lucky he did not have both legs missing. He may have then been assessed as being able to do something else. Who knows? 
This is the stupidity of this whole change. Why would we not take into account someone’s pre-earning capacity and his or her capability to do a job? It is demeaning to New Zealanders—who may well have gone to university got qualifications been top earners and supported their families—to be told that they have been assessed as able to do a job that does not relate to anything they have spent their life doing and that many of them will have paid to be qualified in. This is another method of reducing access to accident compensation for New Zealanders. I know there will be many many other examples. 
This is a sad day. I hope New Zealanders are listening to this debate because they are seeing the gradual destruction through the tyranny of the majority in this Committee of a scheme that has served New Zealanders well. When we were in Government we were not looking for New Zealanders to pay more and get less; we were looking for a system that worked and provided cover to many many people including the families of people who commit suicide. I think this Government has taken an axe to the scheme for no other purpose than its own political philosophy and ideology. We knew it was coming unfortunately. We warned New Zealanders it would happen. We said that National would make drastic changes to accident compensation and would set out to undermine and privatise the scheme which is exactly what is happening in conjunction with ACT. 
At the end of the day we will see New Zealanders demanding the right to sue. We have to ask whether we would blame them. The mother of the 15-year-old I told members about will be asking why she should not sue if she cannot get compensation. What about the ACC doctor who said her child should not get cover because she has oddly shaped hips? We have to wonder why an ACC doctor would do that other than that he or she was being paid by ACC. That is an extremely serious issue. Too many cases come to me where people say they have grave doubts about the fairness of the assessments that are done on them. 
I conclude by saying that Mr Peachey wants a sustainable and affordable system but National is making New Zealanders pay more and get less. That is what this bill is doing. 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I thank the Chair for giving me the call on this occasion; I know it was a tough choice with such an admirable team here ready to take the fight to the National Government on the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. 
I will speak about the transitional provisions in Part 2 particularly those relating to compensation for earnings and holiday pay. However I want to make reference to an interjection we heard from Sir Roger Douglas when Annette King was saying that the bill is going through with ACT’s support. We need to take ourselves back in this debate and remember that the ACT Party supports this bill on the condition that the scheme moves towards privatisation. Sir Roger can correct me if he likes but that is the ACT Party’s reason for supporting this bill—that the scheme move towards privatisation. Sir Roger just said the bill does not go far enough yet but clearly that is the reason why ACT supports this bill. Clearly National’s direction must be towards privatisation because that is why the ACT Party is supporting the bill. The Maori Party is not supporting this bill. Its members have said today in the Chamber that they are not supporting this bill and I am sure that is because they believe that National is going towards privatisation. The ACT Party is leading National here saying that it will go with National as long as it goes in the direction of privatisation. That agenda is what lies behind this bill. 
Hon Annette King 
: Peter Dunne will go where he can. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Well we do not know what Peter Dunne will do but I am sure there will be a ministerial job at the end of it whatever it is. 
In Part 2 we see the essence of the unfairness of this bill particularly in respect of compensation for earnings. I refer back to the original principles of the Woodhouse commission which established the accident compensation scheme and in particular to the principle of real compensation. I will read out what the commission said. It observed that modern households have several financial commitments that “do not disappear conveniently if one of the hazards of modern life suddenly produces physical misfortune.” We can understand that. Financial commitments do not go away. We all know that. We all know about the fixed costs that we have in our lives and need to meet. In particular people who are on lower incomes and people who undertake seasonal work have to work very very hard to manage their budgets to know they will be able to handle things if something comes along. 
When New Zealanders accepted the Woodhouse report and when the accident compensation scheme was put in place they entered into a social contract that said: “We’re not going to sue we’re not going to do anything that’s litigious because we accept that the scheme will look after us 24-hour no-fault.” The commission went on to say that a social compensation system “should rest upon a realistic assessment of actual loss both physical and economic followed by a shifting of that loss”—and these are the important words—“on a suitably generous basis.” The figure of 80 percent for earnings-related compensation was designed to offer real compensation and to take into account those words but to leave a proportion of the loss with the injured person in order to encourage personal initiative. We can understand that. We have supported that system over a long period of time. Well under this bill that system is completely and utterly undermined. The transitional provisions that we see here will undermine that principle for a number of workers. 
We are returning to the position before the 2008 amendment when weekly compensation for non-permanent employees would be averaged out to reflect the fact that had they not been injured they would have expected periods of earnings and non-earnings over a 12-month period. So for people in casual employment or in employment where they are not certain of their futures their compensation will be divided over a full 12-month period. That is unfair and unjust. National members opposite need to stand up and say why they are putting forward a bill that increases unfairness. Most of us in the House have come here because we want New Zealand to be a fair place yet we have before us legislation that manifestly increases unfairness. 
In the Council of Trade Union’s submission to the committee it cited an interesting example of people who will be treated unfairly as a result of the clauses we are debating here. I will read out the example it gave. A woman who has been financially dependent on her husband for most of the year undertakes some seasonal work and is severely injured on the fourth week of the job. Her earnings of $450 per week for the 4 weeks of her job is divided by 52 weeks. At 80 percent that means that her weekly compensation will be $27. How is that fair? How is it fair that somebody in that situation will have his or her earnings divided over the course of a whole year? 
The process whereby an employee is categorised as non-permanent is also completely arbitrary under these new changes. It essentially requires the Accident Compensation Corporation to make a guess as to how long the employee might have continued working over the 12-month period. This provision is another unfairness another way in which the principle of real compensation brought forward by Owen Woodhouse as part of the social contract is being undermined by this bill. 
I want to look at the key principle of community responsibility. Society accepts that we have a responsibility for those who have been hurt through no fault of their own. Annette King talked about people who have suffered hearing loss not because of something they themselves have done but because of doing jobs that many people in this Chamber would not want to do like jobs in heavy industry. Michael Woodhouse who has lectured us today about the accident compensation scheme would not want to do those jobs but I am sure he knows many people in Dunedin who do those jobs many of whom I am sure he has worked alongside in the past. They have done those kinds of jobs and as a community— 
Hon Member 
: Not alongside. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Not alongside. Perhaps he knew some of them. He probably refereed them when they were playing rugby. But that community responsibility is undermined if we say to those people: “We don’t think you are worth it. We think you’re worth $27 a week. That’s what we think you’re worth.” 
Hon Annette King 
: And no hearing aid. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: That is right; as Annette King says no hearing aid. So that principle of the Woodhouse commission is totally undermined. 
I want to raise the issue of holiday pay which is dealt with in clause 58. Treasury has pointed out that the provision saves only $1 million but it is incredibly unfair to those who have already earned holiday pay but have been unlucky enough not to have actually used it. Let us look at two workers with different circumstances at the time they have an accident: one worker is up to date and has not accrued any holiday pay and the other worker is owed 4 weeks’ holiday pay. Under clause 58 both workers are treated completely differently and that is manifestly unfair. Labour members have asked members opposite over and over again to tell us why they support something that is so manifestly unfair. The bill requires holiday pay including holiday pay accrued before an injury to be counted and abated against weekly compensation. That will result in manifest unfairness right across New Zealand. 
Every constituency member in this House will have had people come to them to talk about the unfairness of the accident compensation scheme. Someone came to me on Friday with exactly that problem. He was unable to work out what the bill would mean for him was dealing with difficulties at the moment and was scared about the future and that of his family. For a bill to come before the House that puts people in that position is shameful for National members. They should be prepared to take a call on the clauses that put into practice the unfairness around compensation for hours lost and around holiday pay. Yet we have failed to see that from any member. I would like to see the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister for ACC take at least one call this morning to defend the bill. We know how much she loves talking in the Chamber but we have not heard her today. 
This bill is unfair and unjust and Labour will continue to oppose it and ask National for answers. 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I want to take up some remarks made by my colleague Grant Robertson when he referred to the Woodhouse report and the social contract. We are seeing in the Chamber today changes to the legislation that directly and determinedly abrogate that contract. The contract was that the right to sue would be removed and in the stead of the removal of that right there was to be a thing called an accident compensation scheme. The idea of accident compensation back then was always manifold. It included for example back then 30 years ago significant attention on injury prevention. It included the idea that people would be substantially—and the figure chosen was 80 percent—kept free of the risk of their being injured as a result of an accident through no fault of their own and it was on the basis of no fault. Now we see through these changes creeping deterioration of that contract and my colleague Grant Robertson and other speakers have given example after example of that. 
Holiday pay would do as an example—one example. If one is sick and goes to Work and Income and says: “I have an illness I need some sick leave.” I wonder whether members could tell me whether Work and Income would say to that person to first of all use all his or her holiday pay. Is that the case? 
Hon Member 
: Yes. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Oh it is the case. Let us come to bereavement leave. In the situation where someone has an illness and applies to have access to bereavement leave is that person told to use his or her holiday pay first? If a member of Parliament breaks his or her leg is that member of Parliament told by Parliamentary Service that before he or she goes to the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) he or she must use up his or her holiday pay? Actually he or she is not told that for this reason: members of Parliament if they break a leg receive no pay cut at all. They do not go near ACC; they do not need to—not if they are going to be away for a week or two. One can be a parliamentarian with a broken leg; I have seen a number of them. 
There is a difference between people in different strata of society. If I am a meatworker and I break a leg my pay stops that day. If I am a member of Parliament and I break a leg my pay does not stop and unless I am away for a long time my pay will not stop. So you see we already have a situation where some people in society need not worry too much about accident compensation and the finer points about whether holiday pay is up for grabs. Members of Parliament are some of those people and yet we as a group of 120-odd people are deciding by majority to remove the rights of a whole lot of others even though we do not even face the problem ourselves. 
National members should be actively defending this legislation for indeed I find it straightforwardly indefensible but there is not a word from them on these transition provisions in Part 2—or indeed much else in this legislation. We see National members doing the opposite: they are staying silent talking about a system being broken when it is making $1 billion profit a year and saying that we must move quickly to constrain the ability of people to get accident compensation for financial reasons. That is not the social contract. The social contract was never: “We’re going to take away the right to sue so long as we can afford it.” The social contract was that the right to sue goes and therefore we as a society will set out to get some social insurance running to ensure that if people are injured through accident they are held free from personal damage from that. No longer is that the case. 
These days under this legislation meatworkers should get injured late in the season because if they are injured early in the season it is too bad. The way the calculations are done means that those injuries will be thoroughly improperly and incompletely compensated. The meatworker’s fault was to get injured early in the season; if a meatworker is injured late in the season then there is less fault visited on that private individual. That is not a social contract; that is penny-pinching— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Cheating. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: —and it is cheating. What is more it is cheating on a group of people who are already limited in their ability to secure 12 months’ income because of the very nature of their seasonal work. 
Entrenched unfairness is being legislated here and that is not nice. It feels ugly and it is also in my view something that should be defended. I think that the people who are about to do this to the public of New Zealand have an obligation to get up and say why they are doing it. They have an obligation to give the other point of view an obligation to say there are reasons behind this legislation and here they are. This is supposed to be a debating chamber. It is not. It is an echo chamber because there is nothing coming back from the Minister in the chair the Hon Pansy Wong and there is nothing coming back from the so-called staunch supporters in National every one of whom will vote yes to pass this legislation. Not one of those members is getting up to defend it. Is there a word for that which begins with “c” that I am not allowed to use? There may be. 
Let me just ask another question. Why is the hearing loss threshold of 6 percent defensible? Why is that defensible? Does that mean that the Government has come to the view that all hearing loss of 1 2 3 4 and 5 percent must be age related and that hearing loss beyond that may be accident linked or injury linked? 
Hon David Parker 
: No because that is over and above the 6 percent. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: OK so I am advised by one of my colleagues the Hon David Parker who is our spokesperson on ACC and who knows about these things that the way it is done is that age-related hearing loss is estimated first and then 6 percent is added. That means that if one is an older New Zealander one needs to have a hearing loss of somewhat more than 6 percent before the scheme will operate. So if hearing loss that is age related is already taken into account why is the figure not 0 percent? Let us see if the Government can answer that. 
If it were to be 1 percent that means that the little wee accident was not compensatable. That itself is a break of the social contract. But we have got ourselves up to 6 percent. I suspect that many people in the public arena are not aware that 6 percent hearing loss is substantial. It does not mean that someone hears 94 percent of everything; it does not mean that. It does mean that in a busy society where there is a lot of incidental noise and where there may be more than one conversation running that hearing loss is very substantial under those circumstances. So we have a 6 percent threshold that was no doubt stolen from some other jurisdiction which no doubt did not have that social contract in the first place. 
This system is unique to New Zealand. It is unique in our history. It is the envy of the world. When one goes to Australia—I suspect the 6 percent threshold came from Australia did it not? 
Hon David Parker 
: Well it’s misrepresented! 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Oh it has been misrepresented! It came from Australia but it became an aberration on the way over. It is a trans-Tasman aberration. If we go to Australia we will not find even the history of the social contract. How do we know? Because if we engage in conversation with any doctor in Australia he or she will say sooner or later: “Gosh we would like your accident compensation scheme because we would not have to self insure so much for our practice. We would not have to put up with ambulance-chasing lawyers. New Zealand does not have them but we have them in Australia.” Members must see that the system is different. Not only that but our scheme is known to be better. So why would one take a system that is known to be better proven to be better—in fact was there not a great big report in only 2008? 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: PricewaterhouseCoopers. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: A PricewaterhouseCoopers report. The scheme got a big tick was it? Am I right? 
Hon member 
: That’s right. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: There was a big tick for the scheme then a change of Government which said: “Oh let us change it.” That has to be defended in this House. National members of Parliament must get up and answer that. I ask my colleagues across the Chamber what PricewaterhouseCoopers got wrong. What did it get wrong? It was a massive report and what did the National Party in Opposition say at the time? Did the National Opposition members say it cost too much? 
Hon David Parker 
: Probably. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: They probably did say it cost too much. Did they read it? Who knows? The big review said things were pretty good with the accident compensation scheme and only months later it somehow has all turned to custard. That is not believable it is not credible it is not defensible and therefore it must be defended by the people who will vote for this legislation to come forward. I say to them that they have an obligation to get up and put their point of view—we will listen to it—so that the public can see what the other side of the debate looks like. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 I am very pleased to take a call on the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill which the Opposition is opposing very strongly because it really cuts to the heart of what divides us as parties in this Committee. One of the principles on which the accident compensation scheme was established was that we gave up the right to litigate in order that we would have a scheme that stood by us and supported us when we had an accident. The whole point about this bill is that it undermines that contract. It undermines our ability to get the sort of assistance and the sort of support that we need when we have an accident. That is the sort of message that is coming through the doors of my office when I meet my constituents in Mt Albert. 
As the Hon Annette King spoke of Mr Boscawen said that the whole point about the accident compensation scheme is that we will be paying more and getting less. That is exactly what this bill will cause. It further undermines the contract we have with New Zealanders who expect us to stand up and defend a system that gives them the right to proper compensation and proper support when they have an accident. 
Another principle on which this accident compensation scheme is based is that it spreads risk. No matter what we do in our society—whether we are a timber worker a factory worker or work in a more benign office environment—we all pay an amount that means that we are all supported and receive the same compensation. This is so that we do not end up like people in other countries like Australia where if they want to take their kids to school sport or something like that they have to pay more to ensure that their accidents are covered. 
The passage of this bill moves us towards the privatisation and the undermining of those principles. Why are we passing a bill that requires us to pay more and get less? Frankly because the Minister for ACC is saying that the accident compensation scheme is technically insolvent and is going down the gurgler. What a lot of nonsense! That statement completely misrepresents what insolvency actually is and that has been picked up by many of the commentators who have an understanding of what the scheme does in New Zealand. Rod Oram for example noted last year that “ … there is a huge gap between the rhetoric of John Key and Smith and reality.” 
Jonathan Eriksen an actuary—that is an expert on insurance and claims—of Eriksen and Associates said: “All this talk of liabilities being blown out is complete nonsense. It’s ill-founded and smacks of scaremongering which given the current economic picture is the last thing people need to be told”. We are talking this up and people out there in New Zealand are starting to believe unfortunately that this scheme can no longer be affordable for New Zealand when actually that is not the truth at all. That justification is being used to ram through this bill which will mean that New Zealanders pay more and get much less. 
A respected journalist in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 
Brian Fallow said this last year: “For the Government to wrap legitimate concerns about slippage in ACC’s performance in a whole lot of shrill scaremongering and scapegoating is gratuitous. Indeed it is downright irresponsible when talking about the scheme to use terms like ‘insolvent’ and ‘going down the gurgler’—even if the context is counterfactual—because there are people who depend on it to keep body and soul together and will do so for the rest of their days.” It is exactly the contract on which we established the scheme. It is exactly the contract by which New Zealanders gave up the right to litigate their accidents—giving massive amounts of profit to lawyers as they do in other countries—in order to have a scheme that will support them and that they will be able to depend on. 
This scheme as many of my fellow party members have spoken of is very good value. We heard from Pete Hodgson about the comparisons with Australia. Let us look at what accident compensation costs in Australia in terms of the rate per A$100. New Zealanders pay A$0.94; South Australians pay A$3.14; and the average Australian payment is A$1.73. In other words our scheme costs employers about half of what Australia’s scheme costs Australian employers. It surprises me therefore if employers are paying so little for the New Zealand scheme—and I assume that they are aware of it—that a Government that proposes to support and be supported by New Zealand businesses might want to go down that track and increase the levies that employers pay for their workers. 
The last thing I will speak about is exactly how unfair many of the clauses in this bill are. The Hon Ruth Dyson talked about pre-accident earnings and asking workers who were on a high income to go back to work earlier and accept a job at a lower level. They have been legitimately paying their contribution to the accident compensation scheme and they have outgoings in their household at a certain level. They expect under the contract that New Zealanders have with the scheme that they will be able to come back get the proper support and maintain their households without being economically deprived. The pre-accident earnings clause in the bill is not fair. It is simply not fair. 
Grant Robertson mentioned holiday pay. Those provisions are also grossly unfair. It means that if I fortuitously have an accident the first day back from my holidays having used up my annual leave I will not be penalised by having to sacrifice my holidays. But if I happen to be saving my holidays and have an accident the day before I go on holiday I will lose those holidays to accident compensation. Holidays are a basic right of New Zealanders. That provision is mean-spirited. I contest Mr Peachey’s claim that it is not mean-spirited and that the bill will enable the scheme to be far more sustainable and affordable. It is simply not. This particular clause will save $1 million. 
All New Zealanders are fair people. They want a fair go. They want their accident compensation to be fair. They want it to be fair on all people. They want to be able to pay a levy and know that their kids can go out and play sport and if they have an accident they will be compensated. They want to know that workers in high-risk occupations will be compensated in the same way that people in low-risk occupations are. Yet clause 58 of this bill which is about holiday pay is grossly unfair and unjust. As Mr Boscawen quite accurately said this bill will mean that we pay more and get less. The bill simply reinforces what Mr Boscawen argued it should not do. For that reason I think it is completely right that Labour stands up and defends a scheme by which New Zealanders have entered into a social contract and on which they depend. 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I appreciate being given a chance to speak further on Part 2 of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. I will address two things in particular. I will pick up where I left off in my last contribution about work-related gradual process injury. There are just a couple of things I am sure that members opposite are not aware of; they may not have included them in their slash-and-burn approach to accident compensation if they were. 
Work-related gradual process injuries and in particular hearing loss were decreasing at the time that I had the privilege of holding the portfolio of the Minister for ACC. The point about that is that a range of workers have moved through their lives and they might have started by working in a quarry or an engineering plant in the 1940s or the 1950s when things like industrial deafness and injury through repeated exposure to noise and machinery were not as well researched or understood as they are now. Typically people with work-related hearing loss are men in their late 50s 60s or 70s. They are able to trace back perfectly easily to the start of their hearing loss which is not age-related but because of their occupation. A doctor could just look at them and ask where they worked when they started work. They might say they worked in an engineering plant or a quarry and the doctor would know for certain that the hearing loss was work-related and that it happened gradually over time. 
People who have benefited from receiving hearing aids have moved through the system so the number of those appearing in recent years has been declining. One of the worrying things—and this is where I want to come to my point about the 6 percent threshold on hearing loss before one is eligible for entitlements under this bill—is that we were beginning to see an increase in the number of young people emerging with work-related hearing loss. I would be very interested to know if the Minister has any awareness of this data and this research or if the Associate Minister for ACC Pansy Wong who is in the chair could speak to that. The concern is that young people particularly those working in social environments—I am thinking of nightclubs and bars where it is not “cool” to wear industrial earmuffs when one is serving drinks behind a bar—are exposed to continual loud music and noise. Suddenly we were beginning to see an increase in the number of young people with work-related hearing loss. This Government is now saying that those young people will have to demonstrate that they have a 6 percent or greater hearing loss before they are eligible for any entitlement. 
I will make another point about the hearing loss issue. One of the things that Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) did very successfully was to leverage down the cost of hearing aids. It used to be that it did not matter at what level one’s hearing was impaired and it did not matter whether it was a high-range or low-range sound that one’s hearing was impaired at audiologists would prescribe a one-size-fits-all hearing aid. Technology has moved on and now hearing aids are devised to accommodate low-range high-range or mid-range sound and can be tailored appropriately. It is true that the cost of hearing aids has escalated hugely but it is also true that the industry was absolutely gouging the price of them. ACC was able because of its huge size and the number of claimants it had needing hearing aids— 
CHRIS TREMAIN (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 I will pick up the points that were started by the member who spoke before me Maryan Street in relation to gradual process disease and infection. The criteria and thresholds of those are dramatically altered by this Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. 
Throughout the debate we have had what I regard as some pretty callous and cruel references to people who have been injured—particularly to those who have injured themselves deliberately and who are now disentitled under the provisions in Part 2. But I say to the Minister in the chair Pansy Wong and to her ministerial and backbench colleagues that we are talking about real people. We are taking away entitlements considered by society to be fair entitlements for the loss that people have incurred because of an injury whether or not it was self-inflicted. I think that it is time the debate in this Committee recognised the harsh reality for many families of the impacts of an injury. 
I will tell members about one such family. I know them well: Tony Annette Leeanna and Sonia Gibson. I will read a statement from Tony. He said in relation to his son Jason: “Jason pulled up at my place to pick up his small daughter. He opened the door to his van and he fell out on the ground. I said to him: ‘Have you been drinking?’ and he said: ‘No I’ve been spraying the inside of tanks with two-pot paints.’ ” Jason was 25 feet away from his father at the time but his father could smell the toxins. He thought that Jason had paint in the van so suggested they take it out; the van was empty. The smell of the solvents was coming because Jason had absorbed them when he was doing his painting job. Later on not very long after that incident Jason came to his parents’ house and said that he had hay fever - like symptoms. He said that the night before he had jogged up Dyers Pass Road to the Summit Road and then his nose had started bleeding which was quite unusual. His father suggested he go to the doctor and be tested for lead poisoning. Jason was a painter and this was a logical suggestion from his father. The next day Jason did that. He had a blood test taken. That same day at 4 o’clock the doctor rang him and said he needed to go to hospital immediately as he had blood cancer. Six days later Jason died. He had suffered five massive brain haemorrhages directly as a result of the solvents that he had absorbed just by doing his job. Jason was 29 when he died. He left his wife Sonia without a husband and his daughter without a father. These are real people whom we are talking about. 
Sonia and Annette spent 2½ years researching the link between Jason’s solvent absorption and his death. They passed that information on to the Department of Labour to use in health and safety promotions and I am sure the department has taken that up. In Part 1 though the Minister has determined that the advisory group that was set up to find out facts about tragedies such as Jason’s death and how those deaths can be avoided in future—to get that information from best practice internationally and to share it with the Minister—is gone. We have abolished that committee. 
There are three people in this Chamber who seem to know more than anyone else: Aaron Gilmore who has probably written a book on knowing more than anyone else; Michael Woodhouse who is determined to be the Minister because he does know more than anybody else about just about any topic; and the current Minister himself Nick Smith. In respect of the talents of all those three members I say that when Jason died nobody knew the relationship between his solvent absorption and his job—the job that not only he did well and was very proud of but that also provided a decent income to keep his family—the job he really enjoyed doing. He got up every morning looking forward to going to his job but the job killed him because we did not know enough in our country about the danger he was exposing himself to. In the same way my colleague Maryan Street alluded to the dangers that people in the 1940s 1950s and 1960s exposed themselves to in terms of the noise chemical absorption—particularly from solvents—and dangers that New Zealand society just did not know about then. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
: 
 I welcome the opportunity to speak however briefly on the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill because this is vital legislation for the agricultural and rural sector. The issues have not been raised in this Committee but as the previous speaker said in Part 2 there are some real dangers with regard to unknown work-related injuries relating to poisons used in the agricultural sector during the 1950s and 1960s that have now been clearly identified as being highly toxic but without the results of that being fully known yet. It is very very important that people who have put their heart and soul into their jobs and who have worked their body almost to the point of collapse to create export earnings for this country can be rightfully compensated in their old age. There will be injuries that we have yet to clearly identify. 
The principles of accident compensation must be upheld. Those principles say we are a society and a community of different occupational groups and we share risks at different levels but it is through cooperation and the sharing of risks experiences and professions that we drive this country forward. This bill will divide us into little risk groups: high-risk groups of people who work on farms and in rural areas chopping down trees and low-risk groups of people who do the administrative work for their industries and who sit on their chuffs in Wellington as we do. If we allow the privatisation of accident compensation we will see the division of this country into low and high-risk groups and ultimately see costs and profits extracted from the very industries that drive this country and its economy. 
In the rural provincial areas through tourism agriculture farming and horticulture people take risks every single day. They work in remote areas they work with animals and they work with machinery in the highest-risk occupations that we have identified. Through accident compensation we take a societal and a community approach that says we must move forward together and we must ensure that there is adequate no-faults protection for each and every worker in this country. Yes there will be some apportionment of higher risk through the earners account and the non-earners account and that should be so. But if we are to divide up those accounts even more and assess as the private sector will do the very high-risk areas then we may see small businesses that drive this country through farming through forestry contracting and logging and through agricultural contracting services being driven out the back door. 
There is a growing realisation throughout the rural sectors that the changes that this Government is making to accident compensation will undermine their viability and may see them become exposed to litigation—because that is the inevitable outcome of these changes—and to costs that will mean they cannot afford to employ people to do the work that is necessary. I say every New Zealander should read the Labour minority report on the bill which clearly identifies these risks. But the Government through blind ideology is determined to push ahead and privatise accident compensation. 
Part 2 deals with some of the technical issues and speakers before me have rightfully identified the difficulties in assessing hearing loss and the long-term effects of that on any New Zealander. But there are unknown effects that will be eliminated from investigation and proper compensation by the changes that are being made here. If someone has his or her claim in now that person will be OK but some people do not know and have yet to make a claim. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. This point of order does not relate to the usual point of order taken at this time to try to influence your decision. I seek some clarification about the new Standing Orders. If a member has contributed to the debate at any one point if a member has used one of his or her four calls to debate the part under the new rules that member is entitled to move a closure motion. There is no question about that. This member has of course having been a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee exercised that right. But this member has previously moved a closure motion and I am unclear as to whether that pushes him over the four calls that he is entitled to or whether he is now able to move a second closure motion his first one not having been accepted by you and having been participating in the debate. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I am advised Mr Hughes that a closure motion is not a call per se so it does not affect the member’s calls. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Point of order— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I will firstly give my ruling then come back to the member. The advice I was given has been corrected. A closure motion is a call. There is no question about that. That accords with how I understood it. My advice is that a member can move a closure motion more than once provided that the member does not take more than four calls. There is a limit of four. I am just checking my notes and I think that Mr Bennett has not made four calls but I shall ask the Clerk to double-check. The Clerk and my notes concur. This is Mr Bennett’s second call on Part 2. Mr Bennett has made one call previously so he is within— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: You can’t trust the whips! 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I am not worried about what the whips’ records say. They are utterly immaterial. It is my notes that count and no correspondence is entered into. My notes say that there have been two calls. Mr Bennett has moved a closure motion—his second—which he is entitled to do. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. This is a separate point of order and it goes to whether a member is entitled to move the same motion twice. I can see that you are getting a nod Mr Chairperson but from my understanding of the situation in the past other members are able to move the same motion—and this is not something restricted to a closure motion; it is something that is general—but a member having moved a motion once and having had it rejected by the Committee I question whether that member is allowed to move exactly the same motion again. I want to add one other point here as to whether the closure motion was appropriately moved because as you are aware one is not allowed to add words to the motion. After the member had received the call he said the words “Mr Chair”. He had the call—he had called for it he had called “Mr Chair” and you gave him the call—and he said “Mr Chair”. 
Darien Fenton 
: He said “Thank you Mr Chair.” 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I did not quite hear “thank you” but he certainly said “Mr Chair”. I am advised from behind that he said “thank you”; I heard the “Mr Chair”. My question is whether those are additional words that obviate his ability to move a motion in the proper form. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The member makes three points. Firstly he claims that the motion moved by Mr Bennett was rejected by the Committee. That is not correct. The motion was not accepted by the Chair. That does not mean it was rejected by the Committee. It was the Chair’s decision. Secondly Mr Mallard raised a point about the manner in which the question was framed—Mr Bennett’s putting in the words “Mr Chair”. I think that is a matter of courtesy and respect and I would not knock out a closure motion for that. If a member thanked the Chair for listening to his point of order again I think that is being courteous and I would not discount a member’s motion for good manners. Good manners should be encouraged by everybody. 
The question is that the question be now put. I will put the question because we have had 2 hours and 40 minutes on Part 2 which is a rather technical part and I think we have had a very good debate. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. My point of order is only to give notice that it is my intention to recall the Speaker on that but my colleague Mr Hughes has another point that he would like to deal with just in case both of them can be dealt with by the Speaker at the same time. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am grateful to my colleague Mr Mallard for giving me the opportunity to put this point of order to you now in order to save time because we are still in the Committee of the whole House and his matter is a separate one. My point of order goes to Speaker’s ruling 7/1 in relation to seating and the attendance of members in the Chamber and it particularly refers to an item brought before the House in 2003 by Mr Dunne the member for Ohariu in respect of the positioning of members of Parliament when moving motions in the Chamber. Matters of seating in the Chamber are at the discretion of the party leader and in most cases are delegated to the party whip but Mr Dunne raised a point of order during the debate on the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill that challenged the ability of members of Parliament to move a closure motion from a seat other than that which had been allocated to the individual member. Mr Bennett is not normally allocated the junior Government whip’s seat or indeed a seat anywhere near the executive seats. That is not where his seat in the Chamber is. [ 
Interruption 
] I do not say that to be unfair or unkind; I am just making the observation that his seat— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Points of order will be heard in silence please. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: I am sorry; I did not mean to cast aspersions on the member in any way. I am saying that for members to move a closure motion they should be seated in their own allocated seat as Mr Dunne pointed out in 2003 and I ask you Mr Chairperson to rule on whether it was appropriate for you to accept the closure motion from that member given that he was not in his seat. I believe that Mr Tremain had not exhausted all four of his calls and would be in a position to move a closure motion. The Hon Mrs Collins is seated in her correct seat; she would be able to move a closure motion. Te Ururoa Flavell is always extremely helpful to National and I am sure he would be able to do so. Mr Garrett is an entirely different matter but everyone else could have assisted in that respect. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I come to the point of the member’s point of order. His contention was that a member of this House can undertake the functions of this House only from his or her allocated seat. If that were accepted as a legitimate point of order I think it would have implications well beyond this matter and I will come back to that in a moment. Firstly I think it is the custom and the practice for members to move about the Chamber and sit in other seats to conduct their business. Very often both Labour and National members give speeches from seats that are not theirs. The Chair always recognises them and accepts their speeches from there. The chief Opposition whip well knows that from time to time the whips’ seats in the Opposition are vacated and neither of the whips sits there and other members cast votes on behalf of their particular party. If the member’s point of order was to be accepted it would mean that on no occasion could the Chair accept a party vote from the Labour Opposition if anybody other than the whip was sitting in the whip’s seat. Of course that is a nonsense. No one would accept that. I think the custom is that people are able to move motions and speak from other seats and I have no intention of disturbing that custom. I rule that it is perfectly in order for Mr Bennett to move a closure motion from a seat other than his own. Mr Mallard has given notice of a point of order. Are we ready to go? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I move that the debate do now adjourn in order to get a considered ruling from the Speaker 
. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The question is that the Speaker be recalled. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No that the Committee do now adjourn in order to get a considered ruling from the Speaker. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I think there is a technical fault with the member’s resolution. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: It was a good go though. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The point is that the Committee cannot adjourn. If the member wishes to move that the Speaker be recalled because of a dispute over the Chair’s rulings he is perfectly entitled to do that. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I would like to do both. You could start with the first one we will have a vote on that then I will move the second one. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: There are lots of things we would all like to do. I would like to have Christmas every day of the year and receive gifts but that is not the way life is. I ask Mr Mallard whether he wishes to have the Speaker recalled; if so he should move that and I will put it to the Committee. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I move  
That the Chairperson report progress to obtain the Speaker’s ruling on the Chairperson’s acceptance of a closure motion on the question  
That Part 2 stand part. 
Motion agreed to. 
CHRIS TREMAIN (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I understand that if a vote is called for we have the right to— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: You didn’t call for a vote. 
CHRIS TREMAIN 
: I said “No” but the Chair said that the motion had been moved. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: It had been carried. 
CHRIS TREMAIN 
: Well I call for a party vote then. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I want to say two points to the member about this. It is one of the conventions of this House that if a party wants the Speaker to be recalled members support that. If the member seriously wished to challenge it he should have called for a party vote and disputed it. The member did not; he just said he was opposed and I took it at that. The member was required to take the next step and say: “Party vote called for.”; the member did not. I then said that the Speaker was recalled; the Speaker has been recalled. End of story. 
House resumed. 
Speaker Recalled 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Mr Speaker we have had 2 hours and 40 minutes of debate on Part 2. National for the third time moved a closure motion which I was about to accept. The Opposition members sensing the mood of the Chair decided to raise a number of points of order and as a consequence of the rulings I gave on their points of order they wish to dispute my decision. 
One point of order was about the place of Mr Bennett who stood to move the closure from a seat other than his own. The Opposition claimed that Mr Bennett could not move a closure motion from a seat other than his own. I ruled that a member could for two reasons: firstly the convention is generally in this House that people can move about and give speeches from various places other than their actual allocated seat; and secondly Mr Bennett was in one of the whips’ chairs and it is not unusual for both party whips to be out of the Chamber and for another party member to conduct the party vote and to do so from a whip’s chair. Without that practice it would be a very difficult situation; a member would have to retreat to his or her seat in the Chamber and then start to cast the party vote. That has never been the practice and I felt that in this particular situation the convention was well established no one had disputed it and I was perfectly happy for Mr Bennett to move his motion from the whip’s chair. 
The second point of order that was raised was that Mr Bennett had prefaced his motion with “Mr Chair”. After having called “Mr Chair” and being given the call he said: “Mr Chair I move that the question be now put.”—and then said some other words—“Mr Chair thank you.” The contention from the Opposition is that by adding those words Mr Bennett had changed the nature of the resolution and was therefore not strictly compliant with the rules set down in the Standing Orders. I have ruled that Mr Bennett’s being courteous in addressing the Chair appropriately and in thanking the Chair was to be applauded and I was not going to rule against him on that. 
The third point of order is that Mr Bennett had moved the motion previously. Mr Bennett is entitled to four calls. He had moved one closure motion before; I had declined to accept the closure motion. He then took a second call and moved the closure motion for the second time. That complies with the rules in that he is entitled to four speeches. Each closure motion is a speech; therefore he had used only two calls and he was entitled to two further speeches. 
But I think the more pointed point being made by the Opposition is that Mr Bennett having moved a motion previously and having been declined is not entitled to move a second motion. I think the general view that the Opposition would put forward is that if a member moves a motion and the House declines that motion the member is not able to bring that motion back to the House a second time within a period of 12 months—that is my recollection of the Standing Orders. I responded to the point of order from the Hon Trevor Mallard by saying that the first closure motion by Mr Bennett had not been rejected by the Committee; it had been rejected by the Chair. I in the Chair did not accept it. Therefore the Committee did not have the opportunity to consider the closure motion and to accept or reject it. It was not a decision of the Committee; it was a decision of the Chair. I felt at that particular time that a number of other speakers in the Chamber were indicating that they wished to speak and to be fair I wanted to give them that opportunity. Once they had spoken I felt it was time to accept the closure motion and test the will of the Committee. 
That is my recollection of it and I am happy with all the rulings I have made. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I thank the Chair; I think it was a good summary of the facts. It is not my intention to take up either the first or the third point of order with you Mr Speaker although my colleagues may. The reason I asked for you to be recalled relates to a very narrow question on which there is considerable precedent. It goes to whether when people are invited to move a closure they are allowed to add words. As the Chair has indicated words were added. I have had experience in the past of closure motions that I have moved being ruled out because I had thanked the Chair for giving me the call. Moana Mackey has indicated that she—obviously in much more recent times; I made my mistakes in this area a long time ago—when Mr Hunt was Speaker had a closure motion ruled out because of her adding a courtesy before moving it and therefore being held not to have used the strict form. 
I know the current Chair is a stickler for courtesy and he thinks it is very important; generally I accept that it is important for the House. However there is longstanding precedent on this particular issue that nothing—nothing—should be added to the closure motion because when something is added to the closure motion it changes it from being a closure motion to being a speech. That is the difference: a member cannot speak and then move a closure motion as part of the same call. If one makes a speech one has to get the call on a separate occasion in order to move the closure motion. It is a relatively simple thing. I am not criticising Mr Bennett for being polite but just saying that in this particular case his form of the closure motion meant that his moving of it was not within the strict rules. Certainly the precedents that I am aware of have all been in that direction; certainly I and Ms Mackey have had closure motions ruled out for exactly the same thing—for thanking the Chair. 
My request to you Mr Speaker is on that point. I will leave it there because I do not want to argue the positioning point of order which I happen to disagree with but there is clearly a differing view on it as well. 
CHRIS TREMAIN (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I think a point of clarification is important in reaching a ruling here. The words that were used were simply “Mr Chair”; there were no other words and no thankyous. Those words were used at that point in time when there was some noise in the Chamber to make clear that the closure motion was read exactly as it should have been following the words “Mr Chair”. The second point I make is that in reading through the Standing Orders I see that at no point do they state that adding other words disqualifies the closure motion and as a result I believe that what was said was in keeping with the Standing Orders and the Speakers’ rulings and that the closure motion should have been accepted. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 Speaking to the point of order— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will hear the Hon Darren Hughes briefly and that will be the end of the matter. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Certainly Mr Speaker. I will address just two very quick points that the Chair reported back to you. One was the ability of members located in seats other than those they have been individually allocated to move a closure motion which had been a matter contested previously. The member was speaking from a block of seats allocated to his party but not his individual seat. The Chair has ruled on that and given you his explanation. There was also a question on the third point the Chair raised with you about the ability of a member under the new rules to move multiple closure motions within his or her allocation of four calls. The closure motion is treated as a call. Members can move up to the maximum number of calls—four—but it is treated as a speech. There was a question which was not answered by the Chair as to what happens in the case where there has been a mixture of calls—that is a member participates substantively in the debate using one of his or her calls as a speech to discuss the substance of the legislation then uses subsequent calls on a procedural matter in respect of a closure motion. It would be useful to get some clear guidance from you on that. 
On the second point the middle point which Mr Mallard has spoken to you about he recalled his own experience and Ms Mackey has offered hers through him. In fact this very point occurred early in the term of this Parliament when we were in urgency before Christmas 2008 and members were unable to get the correct form of words to put the closure motion. All of those motions were not accepted by each of the three Chairs in the debate. That was quite a feature of what happened at that point. The reason why I think it is important is that Standing Order 132(1) is one of the few Standing Orders where the precise form of words is prescribed in quotation marks for members of the House to follow. As it happens there are two examples on that page the other one being Standing Order 129(1) on adjournment of debate which Mr Mallard referred to earlier. There are very few motions where the exact form of words is prescribed for us to follow. 
Mr Speaker I think that if you uphold what the Chair has said that will overturn what has been a longstanding practice that members sadly have to learn the hard way. It has happened to nearly everybody—not getting the form of words right. Members say either “Thank you.” or “Finally I’ve been called.” or some other quite innocent phrase is used but at the point that those very tight words in Standing Order 132 are not used it becomes a speech. 
Finally there appears to be some disagreement. The contribution of the chief Government whip indicated that he did not believe that Mr Bennett had used extra words. Of course that is a matter of debate because that is certainly what was heard on this side of the Chamber. The Chair himself in reporting to you Mr Speaker said that one of the reasons he had accepted the closure motion was that the member had used a courtesy. As nice and kind as that is it is not what is permitted under Standing Order 132. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I thank honourable members. Let me preface my ruling by pointing out Speaker’s ruling 65/4 which states that it is not for the Speaker to second-guess the Chair’s judgment on a closure motion. I make that point at the start because I will not make any comment in respect of the acceptance of the closure motion. That is solely the judgment of the Chair. I do want though to address quickly the technical issues leading up to that acceptance that members have raised. The first one is the question of whether a member can move the closure from a seat that is not the member’s allocated seat. There is nothing in the Standing Orders that prevents a member from doing that. As the Chair pointed out to the Committee at some length there is nothing that prevents that and members are well aware that the House would not work very effectively if everyone had to run back to his or her own seat before being able to do such things. 
In respect of the second point on the actual words used from what I understand took place the member moved that the question be now put in the correct form as required by Standing Order 132(1). The Chair at the time accepted that. I think from what I have heard that there is no reason for me to rule that it was in any way out of order. To suggest that to say thank you is to make a speech is a little unfortunate. Courtesy in this House is something I have been trying to encourage. Having said that I think it is worthwhile that members have raised the point. Members do need to be aware when moving the closure motion that there is a proper form and that it should be used. I am not in any way criticising members for raising the point but I think the ruling of the Chair is absolutely proper on this occasion. 
In respect of the third point about whether the member was entitled to move the closure motion given that he had already had a call the Standing Orders make it very clear that a member can make a number of calls and can move the closure in any of those calls as long as the Committee has not already made a decision on the matter. I will hand back to the Chair at that point having clarified that point. 
Debate interrupted. 
Points of Order 
Question Time—Leave to Hold in Urgency 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is a completely separate point of order but we need to do this now because you are here and we will not be seeing you for a while. I seek leave for there to be a question time at 2 p.m. today with all questions being lodged with the Office of the Clerk by 12.30 p.m. today. Otherwise there will be no question time until 17 March and no chance for the public to have Ministers called to account. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: A member has under a point of order sought leave that a question time be held today under the conditions the member has outlined. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is objection. 
Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed. 
Part 2 Miscellaneous provisions ( 
continued 
)  
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The question is that the question be now put. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 63 Noes 58. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of the Hon Dr Nick Smith to Part 2 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Amendments agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 2 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Part 2 as amended agreed to. 
New Part 3 Requirement to undertake annual reviews of impact of various changes 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: We now come to a typescript amendment in the name of the Hon David Parker to insert new Part 3. I call the Hon David Parker. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chairperson. 
Chris Tremain 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. This is an amendment. It is not a debatable motion I understand. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Before I hear any more I will take some advice from the Clerk. I will refresh the situation. The Hon David Parker has an amendment to insert a new part. The Clerk advises me that because the amendment inserts a new part it is a separate question and therefore is debatable. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: New Part 3 which I and the Labour Party are urging Parliament to vote for puts a requirement on the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) to conduct an annual review of the effect of the amendment bill on injured people. We know that this amendment bill significantly cuts the entitlements of people who are injured. 
Most people in New Zealand never suffer a serious injury that has them off work long term thankfully. So thankfully most of us never experience the consequences of having a long-term injury and all the bad things that flow from that including loss of work pain lost opportunities and constrained abilities to do other things that one used to do before one’s accident. 
When we change the rules in fundamental ways—which is what the changes in this bill do—the impact of that on real people must be considered. During the debate on other parts we heard about the change whereby someone is deemed to be vocationally able and therefore is pushed off the scheme. But it is important that we recall that just because someone is deemed to be vocationally independent because in theory the person could work at some job for 30 hours per week it does not mean to say that he or she will get a job. It is absolutely clear that the “return to work following injury” rules under this scheme are already tough. 
In the minority report of the Labour members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee we referred to a published study that was undertaken by Hazel Armstrong and published in the  
New Zealand Law Review 
. It showed that even under current rules which are made tougher by this legislation people who were deemed ready for work and therefore were pushed off the scheme did not always get work. Indeed after quite a significant period the majority of them were still not in full-time work. 
In fact the study found that of those who were found to be vocationally independent and therefore pushed off the scheme only 32 percent of those who were deemed “work ready” had obtained full-time employment; 21 percent were in part-time employment; 22 percent were on a Work and Income benefit; and 10 percent were not working at all and were on no benefit probably because the person’s partner was of an income that meant the person was not eligible for any other benefit; and 9 percent remained on weekly compensation. 
So the vast majority of long-term injury sufferers did not go back into full-time work after being exited from the scheme. We want to see how this legislation plays out in terms of making the situation even harder on those long-term injured people. We want those additional costs to be assessed by ACC because the reality is that these changes do not cause costs following injury to go away; they just move them on to the injured person. 
It is not as though all of a sudden pushing those people off the scheme means they are miraculously cured. All it means is that they are no longer getting accident compensation. They are no longer entitled to further rehabilitation treatment. The person could have been in quite a well-paid occupation maybe a technical occupation and could be rehabilitated to the stage where he or she could stack shelves in a supermarket and then be pushed off the scheme and get no further assistance towards being rehabilitated to the point of being able to carry out his or her former job. 
The person may for example have been a labourer or a builder who was being paid more. After such a person is pushed off the scheme he or she does not get any further physiotherapy or other services or orthopaedic interventions to help him or her to get well enough to do their prior occupation. So effectively the cost of that rehabilitation either cannot be afforded or is paid for by the injured person. Those effects in the opinion of the Labour Party ought to be assessed and reported upon. That is why I put forward new Part 3 in the hope that the Committee will support it. Thank you. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to get a call albeit under urgency for a bill that the Labour Party does oppose and that is why we are putting forward new Part 3. When legislation is done in urgency when it is rushed through the political process and when the Government is not listening to what people are saying then that is the very time that reviews are so important. When legislation is made in haste; when it is not being considered seriously deliberately and using the normal process that is the very time when what the House calls unintended consequences occur. There could be no more serious time for unintended consequences to occur than when they affect some of the most vulnerable in our society and that is people who have been injured. Often or mostly they are injured through no fault of their own. 
I hope the Committee will seriously consider new Part 3. We know of a policy change made in the area of sensitive claims under the accident compensation scheme. It has not been a legislative change made by the National Government but a change to the practice of how people with sensitive claims are treated. It has not even been a legislative change but the numbers are horrific in terms of the people who are no longer getting treatment for that very important issue. For example in the area that I come from Hamilton in the Waikato the number of sensitive claims that has been accepted by ACC has reduced in the order of 70 percent. So 70 percent more of those people in our community are wandering around without the counselling help they need after having suffered serious sexual abuse. That is an example of the sorts of numbers affected through just a simple policy change that has happened under the National Government. 
This bill makes legislative changes that will have serious consequences for people who suffer hearing loss through their work. It will have serious implications for the families of people who have committed suicide or perhaps people who have attempted suicide themselves. We do not know what the impact of these legislative changes will be. I have heard no information coming from the Government on any research or any evidence that it has been able to put before the Committee to say what the impact of these changes will be. So under urgency into the unknown goes this Government once again with the most vulnerable in our society. 
Yet I hope Government members pick up this opportunity to say that they are only human that maybe they have not got this right and therefore that they would like to take up the Hon David Parker’s proposal to review what the impact of these changes has been annually not only in 12 months’ time but also in another 12 months’ time and then annually thereafter—assuming that this very bad legislation goes ahead and that all those on the Government benches still go ahead and vote for this bill even though some Government members and this has been quite obvious from their speeches over the course of the last 24 hours do not actually understand what they are voting for. It is the strong contention of members on this side of the Chamber that because of the very vulnerable nature of the people being considered here and of the way in which their rights are being retrenched under this legislation we need not only a one-off annual review but also continual annual reviews. 
The nature of hearing loss in particular is that it is not immediately obvious what the impact is for the people who are affected by it. Hearing loss is one of those things that happens gradually over a period of time and often people do not even realise when they first start suffering occupational hearing loss that it is in fact happening to them. 
Before I was elected to Parliament the job that I undertook was training health and safety reps in the workplace. So I am absolutely appalled that this legislation is going through because I heard the stories every day of my working life before I came into this place about the impact on not only working people but also their families and workmates when things go wrong at work. These are not isolated situations. If anyone in this Chamber were to get a group together of 25 randomly selected New Zealanders in a room then he or she would find that every single one of those people has had some claim before the Accident Compensation Corporation at some stage in their life. That is how all-encompassing this issue is. 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call on this proposed new Part 3 of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. The principle of reviewing legislation that comes in to do something experimental or something unexpected to legislation is an extremely sound one and I think that David Parker has proposed a great addition to this bill. It would be fair to say that pretty well every submitter and indeed officials at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee accepted that some of the changes that the bill introduced to the operation of the accident compensation scheme did not change the actual cost of rehabilitation or of compensation but shifted where that cost fell. In particular they shifted the cost of rehabilitation from accidents and injuries away from Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and towards other Government agencies—the Ministry of Health in some cases and the Ministry of Social Development and Work and Income in some other cases. But most particularly—which is for us I guess most concerning—the legislation shifts costs away from the State and back to injured persons and their families. 
That shift is a fundamental worry and concern for the Green Party. I spoke yesterday about our commitment and support for the social contract that lies at the very heart of the accident compensation scheme in which New Zealanders gave up their right to sue in return for a 24/7 no-fault scheme that would provide full compensation and full rehabilitation based on the principles that were outlined in the Woodhouse report. The criticism of this bill that has come from the Green Party has been that those principles have been nibbled away at. Those principles including full rehabilitation and real compensation are ones that have been eroded by this bill. Therefore the cost shifting on to injured people the re-victimisation of the injured is of fundamental concern. But right now we are unable to quantify that. We do not know how big that impact is. So the idea of having an annual review is of fundamental importance since as Sue Moroney said in passing this bill under urgency—as I am certain that this House will do unless Government benches are struck with a bolt of enlightenment in the next day or so—there is the very real possibility of unanticipated and unquantified impacts on injured people. A review provision is a sensible one for any legislation but particularly so for this legislation which so fundamentally changes the relationship between citizens and the State. Thank you. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 I know that the competition is pretty fierce at the moment Mr Chairman so I appreciate your giving me the opportunity to take a call in supporting David Parker’s amendment to insert a new Part 3 in this Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. My colleague Kevin Hague from the Green Party who has just resumed his seat put it extraordinarily well when he said that it was good practice to review a major change in legislation like this one that could potentially have such a huge and negative impact on the citizens of New Zealand. That is what this debate is about. For me this amendment is about National and ACT putting their money where their mouths are because every one of the National speakers—sorry both of the National speakers—in this debate have said that our concerns are unjustified and that this will be a robust scheme under which injured workers will be treated fairly. 
Well that is not true. Under the amendments that we have been debating for the last little while in the Committee injured workers injured children and injured elderly people will be treated unfairly because this legislation takes away the framework of their entitlement which had been restored to fairness. So David Parker’s amendment proposes that we put that debate to the test when we have some facts to weigh up as to whether Labour and the Green Party are right. Our two parties share concerns about cost shifting about people being moved off accident compensation and on to a benefit and if people are married to income earners about their having no income at all. We are concerned about people being denied support for hearing aids because they have only 5.9 percent hearing loss. We are concerned about the families of people who have committed suicide. Their families are left not only devastated by the loss of that family member but also without any financial support from the Accident Compensation Corporation because suddenly this House has made a value judgment about somebody who is supposed to be “bad” having committing suicide—rather than recognising that the person was overwhelmed by their life—as opposed to someone who is I guess a “worthy” person and who has died by some other means. That is what this debate is about. 
Who is right about this matter? I ask whether the costs will be shifted not into some magical savings bucket but from the corporation to individuals who have been injured and to their families. I ask whether people who have a hearing loss will have to do without the essential support they need in order to be able to hear—that is do without the basics of a hearing aid—unless they can afford to buy it for themselves. Will people who are not able to work who are not fit to go back to their old job let alone take any other job just be pushed off accident compensation and have no financial support at all? Those are the questions. 
If the Government had any confidence at all in its words then it would say yes to this amendment because the amendment states that we should get the facts of the situation in 12 months’ time so that we can see how injured people are being treated. Let us see where the costs of injury are falling and let us look at the effects on society of the amendments that we have just put through under Part 1 and Part 2. Then we will be able to say who was right and who was wrong. If National members had any confidence in the words of their Minister Nick Smith then they would say yes to this amendment but if I were them I would not back Nick Smith. I am a little on their side; I would be inclined to say that Nick Smith is probably leading them down the garden path and is not saying anything of substance let alone the truth in this debate. So it is a high risk for members opposite to back Nick Smith. 
It is a high risk for National to say that it will put this legislation to the test when it has some actual facts. That is why I predict that National and ACT will vote against this amendment. I cannot say that those members are chicken or scared; that is not appropriate language to use. But I can say that they do not have the confidence to back this amendment which would put their debate to a test based on facts. That is exactly what this amendment does. It is important when we have Parliament divided on such an important issue that we are able to review the facts. I remember Kevin Hague’s predecessor Sue Bradford coming to me when I was the Minister for ACC and saying that she thought that a lot of people were being turfed off accident compensation and being put on to a benefit. Without the facts of the situation nobody will be able to say who is correct in this debate let alone say what to do about it so I urge support for this amendment. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chair. How impolite of the previous member David Bennett not to thank the Chair for giving him the call after the Speaker’s ruling that we had. 
I am very happy to talk to new Part 3 of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. In the debate on Parts 1 and 2 National members said that Labour members were scaremongering and that what we said we were afraid was going to happen would never happen. Well here is where the rubber hits the road. If National members truly believe that the changes they are making are benign in terms of the effects on some of our most vulnerable citizens then let us have a review after a year. 
I will speak about clause 60(2) in new Part 3 on which no member has yet spoken. It requires that at the end of a review period the “Minister for Accident Compensation must present a copy of any report provided under this section to the House of Representatives as soon as practicable after receiving it.” This is a very important part of new Part 3. It closes the loop of accountability that has so far been missing when we are talking about the Minister for ACC. 
Sometimes Government members have been very flippant and have made jokes about the kinds of things that Labour members and Green members have raised in this debate. They have been sniggering and they have been joking about us. But the fact is that the decisions we make in here no matter how lightly they are taken by the Government have huge repercussions out in the community. The Minister for ACC should be held responsible for any impact as a result of this legislation. The accountability for any repercussions should lie with the Government but first and foremost it should lie firmly with the Minister for ACC. 
What is so important about subclause (2) put up by the Labour member David Parker our spokesperson on accident compensation is that it firmly places accountability for those changes at the Minister’s door. If the Minister is prepared to make those changes if he is prepared to say to workers that just because they had not taken their holidays before they were unlucky enough to have an accident they lose them if he is prepared to say to people who have a significant hearing loss that they no longer qualify for a hearing aid because that is what is done in Australia—which actually is not true—if he is prepared to say that not a single New Zealander will be worse off despite the fact that New Zealanders will be paying more for accident compensation under his changes then he should have to come to this House with a report and publicly take ownership of those repercussions. I do not think that Nick Smith and the National Party will be prepared to do that. 
The ACT Party claims that it is a party about accountability. I hope the ACT Party will vote for a review clause and will be prepared to say that it is not scared of the changes it is voting for. The ACT Party vote will put this legislation through the House under urgency. I hope the ACT Party has the courage to stand in this Chamber and say that it is not scared of a review clause and what that review process will uncover about this Government’s changes. I sincerely hope the ACT Party will vote for this review clause. It will still be terrible legislation but at least taxpayers will know that the Government has to be held accountable for the changes it makes and the Government will be made aware of the impacts of the changes it is making. National members cannot blissfully go about their lives bouncing from cloud to cloud unaware of what happens to people on the ground who are being denied accident compensation as a result of this legislation. These changes are significant. 
Where are the great defenders of property rights now when workers are having their holidays taken off them? Those are pre-injury earnings. Workers have earned their holidays. They own them. It is not something that they get when they decide to take a holiday; it is something they get as they work. National which claims to be the great defender of property rights says that the holidays of those people should be taken off them—after they have earned them. If people are lucky enough to take their holidays before their accident they will be fine and will still get accident compensation. But if people have their accident before they take their holidays they will lose their holidays. They will not get accident compensation because they have their holiday pay. How is that fair? 
Those are the very issues that Labour and Green members and I hope ACT and Maori Party members will be supporting by voting for Part 3. If what I have claimed is not going to happen and if I am just scaremongering—and not a single National member has stood up to make me feel any better and tell me that I am wrong—then members opposite should vote for this part. 
CHRIS TREMAIN (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I have a question for the Government and it is this: is there anything to be scared of in Labour’s proposed new Part 3 of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill? New Part 3 proposes annual assessment of the impact of the cuts on for example how many people receiving treatment are pushed over into the health system. Is there anything about that assessment that the Government is scared of? If there is nothing that concerns the Government about the part proposed by my colleague the Hon David Parker then it should logically just vote for it. Government members are not even speaking for it or against it. All we have had from Government members is a motion to close the debate. This is a debating chamber. The idea of a debating chamber is to debate. We have had nothing come forward— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Is there a Minister in the chair? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: There is a Minister in the chair. That Minister Pansy Wong is able take a call ahead of any other member in this Chamber simply by standing. If the Minister wanted to stand now I would yield at this moment. From the Minister we have had not a twitching muscle and from any member sitting on the Government benches we have had not a twitching muscle yet the idea put forward by the Hon David Parker is an idea that is worthy of some debate. Why do the Government members not get up and say that it is a good idea? Why do they not get up and say that it is a bad idea? Is there anything wrong with the idea of requiring the Government of the day to see whether its law changes have worked and to see whether its law changes have worked in this that and the other way as laid out in the new Part 3 amendment put together by the Hon David Parker? 
If the Government members think that there will be no cost shifting on to the health system or on to the individual and that there will be nothing to review then let them get up and say that. If they think that some cost shifting on to the health system is tolerable or desirable and some cost shifting on to the individual who has had the accident or the injury is tolerable or desirable let them get up and say that. This is a debating chamber and saying nothing speaks volumes. It says that the Government not only has decided to stop question time in the Chamber this day but is not prepared to debate its own legislation in the Chamber this day. That tells me that the Government does not seek to defend its position. If the Government does not seek to defend its position why would any member of the Government vote for its position? There is something going on here that is not very open and not very transparent. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: The “Hollow Men” set it all up. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The “Hollow Men” set it all up. I am afraid I have been in the House long enough to remember when the Rt Hon Bill Birch did this last time. I would like to tell members what happened at my electorate office in Albany Street Dunedin North. Many people who had been denied accident compensation and who felt they should not have been denied it came in. Some of them were distressed; in fact most of them were distressed. They not only were distressed about their own position—the fact that their households were short of money or whatever the situation was—but were distressed in another sense. They were distressed that their Government had let them down at the point when they least needed to be let down. So we found ourselves inundated with cases. 
One of my staff developed a speciality in accident compensation. I remember coming to work one Saturday morning and finding this staff member at work. I asked him what he was doing there so early. He said that he had not been home and he had been working on accident compensation cases through the night. I told him that he was not allowed to do that; in fact it was a sackable offence. I put it in writing for him that he may not work through the night. That happened in Dunedin North when National last decided that accident compensation would be for some people but not for others that accident compensation would have this that or the other constraint put upon it of an arbitrary nature that accident compensation would be part of a scheme and not a proper scheme that it would be some-fault not no-fault. That is what happened last time and people kept coming to us forever. 
One gentleman still comes back. He has long since been thrown off accident compensation. In fact he has been to jail and back in the meantime. He comes back because his life is broken. This gentleman went mad with pain. I did not mean to meet him but one day when I flew on an ATR from Dunedin to Christchurch I happened to sit next to this fellow. He did not know who I was and I did not know who he was but he was in pain. I asked him what was going on with him. He said he was in pain and that he had a bad back. I asked him where he was going and he said he was going to Christchurch; he was going to Burwood Hospital to have his back checked. I asked him how he damaged his back and he said the damage was sustained at the Finegand meatworks in Balclutha. I told him who I was and I said that I did not need any more work but he clearly was in some trouble and if he ever felt the need to come and see me he would be welcome. I gave him my card he turned up a few weeks later and he has been coming back for the last 10 to 12 years. That man has long since been thrown off accident compensation. He went mad with pain and I mean that literally. He comes back now for almost a pastoral sort of a reason. He comes in and I give him a telling off. I tell him he needs to look for work to see the bright side to maintain better contact with his kids and on it goes. It seems that that is my job with this particular gentleman. 
The point of the story is that he is a victim of the last National Government changes to accident compensation in the 1990s. He is a classic case of a person who was denied treatment because it would be too costly. He was thrown off. For God’s sake he was told that the damage was degenerative! I saw photographs of where it had happened. One thing led to another his life quietly went backwards and backwards he ended up becoming belligerent and violent and he got himself into terrible trouble. He has that under control now but he does not have his life back. He has some access to his kids but his marriage is gone. He will remain a pauper. He cannot go to work now. He is too dysfunctional and that is because under the accident compensation legislation at the time he did not get treatment for a back injury incurred in a meatworks in Balclutha. The whole thing was stacked against him. He got initial treatment at Burwood Hospital. He got initial physiotherapy. He got quite a lot of treatment in the first few months but he had a badly damaged back and the treatment was stopped because it was decided that he could go and do something else and that part of the damage was not related to the injury. It was the same old same old and that guy’s life has been badly changed for ever. 
I say to members opposite that it is OK to undertake reviews because they might throw up cases like that yet I am finding a Government that will not even engage in a debate. Mr Chair I do not know how you can do your job or how you can decide how long a debate should go on when only one side takes part because then it is not a debate. That is why I have spent my contribution asking members opposite to get up and talk about why they do or do not support Part 3 which has been put forward by my colleague the Hon David Parker. This debating chamber is the shop window of democracy and only one side has anything to say. That does not seem right to me. I say to colleagues opposite who are in the Chamber to feel free to take a call. I say to the Minister in the chair to feel free to take a call. If she ever gets to her feet she knows that as the Minister in the chair she takes priority. But no members opposite are sitting with their heads down apparently studying the daily newspaper. That is their contribution. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: No I’d be generous and say its their shoes. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Well it might be their shoes but in any case they are not looking us in the eye. An idea has been put up. It has merit. It might not be very good but surely it has some merit— 
Chris Tremain 
: “It might not be very good”. He’s admitted it himself. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: People on this side think it is pretty good but the point is that if National members think it is not any good let them get up and say why they do not think it is any good. Let them say something anything in this debating chamber of New Zealand. There is no other place. This is where laws are passed. This is where debates take place. This is where ideas are teased out or contested. This is where the battle of wills takes place. But only one side has anything to say. One side does not make a debate; it makes for an echo chamber and I think that says heaps about the National Government’s approach to its own legislation. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on the amendment to insert new Part 3 in the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. I would like to add my voice to the challenge that was issued by the Hon Pete Hodgson to Government members to share with us their views on what I think is a very sensible amendment. I want to broaden the debate a little by giving additional reasons why a review of the impact of this legislation and of the policy changes we have seen in accident compensation is so necessary. We have already had a discussion around in particular the Government’s proposals regarding gradual process disease. I want to touch on that again because recently in the Justice and Electoral Committee we have been hearing evidence on and debating with policy officials about the impact of changes to the Limitation Act. I think this comes right to the heart of this debate. We will be making changes in this legislation but we cannot anticipate the impact and effect of them on other legislation. 
Let me explain what I mean by that. Based on this primary legislation we have other dependent legislation. The Limitation Bill proposes that we set a limitation of 15 years on the time within which anyone can take a case. We have raised in this Chamber the issue of what happens if someone is suffering from a gradual process disorder or from the effects of continual exposure in the workplace to chemicals repetitive actions in their job or repetitive strain injuries. The impact of some of those conditions is not known for quite some time yet we are legislating in this House to set limitations on when claims pertaining to those injuries can be made. When we have questioned Ministers and officials as to the impact of that in the workplace the response has been that we have accident compensation. Well I ask whether we do and whether we will have it. I do not think we will know the answer to that question immediately; it will take us time to know that. 
Our first instinct is to say we should firm up the provisions and not to make significant changes to accident compensation that will impact on those people. Our second back-up option if the changes are going to happen is to say we should put in place the ability to review those decisions. That is perfectly sensible because at the moment we do not know what their effects will be. It is not just their impact on accident compensation but also the impacts in terms of other legislation. We have had assurances that may be false. 
I always come to this issue with a particular case in mind. In the area where I do constituency work from time to time where cases have come to us as list MPs individuals have been the subject of diseases as a consequence of exposure to chemicals in a hospital environment dating back to the 1960s. In that particular case the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) acknowledged those conditions; it was almost forced to because of a court case in which a hospital was ordered to pay compensation to ACC for the continuing care of these individuals. ACC has continued to support those individuals until recently. Whether there have been legislative changes policy changes or directives from Ministers and head offices we are seeing a difference in terms of what happens in our areas. One such difference I have seen is that an individual after receiving years of support from ACC was suddenly told that the person does not have a workplace injury caused by continual exposure to chemicals but has a degenerative disease. Is it up to ACC caseworkers to tell an individual that he or she now has something like Alzheimer’s disease? Is that their job? I seriously question whether that is their role yet that is what we are seeing come through our doors. The psychological impact of that on individuals cannot be measured yet that is what we confront on a daily basis. 
If that is not the intention of some of the changes we are seeing whether they be policy or legislative changes then let us have a review. What is the harm in doing that? I pose that challenge to the members on the opposite side of the Chamber. Another reason for a review is I think that realistically the impact of these changes is not on the elderly demographic. The biggest impact of these changes will be on the demographic that probably is not well represented by claimants at present. The impact will be on my generation and on the generations that will follow it not on the generation of those in this Chamber who have had continuous no-fault accident compensation coverage for a number of years. Those young people are unlikely to know about the true impact of the accident compensation scheme until these changes have been in force for at least a year. So why do we not give them the chance to see that impact as well? I pose that challenge to the Ministers opposite. I would have thought that having a review would appeal to the Government. 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 It is a great pleasure to rise and speak in favour of the amendment proposed by the Hon David Parker to insert new Part 3 in the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. I think as other colleagues have said that it is a very important proposal to undertake annual reviews of the impact of the various changes that are being forced through this House under urgency. The changes which we have been arguing about now for probably close to 8 hours include many that are arbitrary changes that are patently unfair and changes that are discriminatory. It seems to me that very much part of any review of the changes should be making sure that we identify circumstances where unfairness has occurred where blatant examples of discrimination have been found and where cost shifting has taken place under the changes proposed by National. 
I find it deeply disturbing that in the course of this debate there have been so few speakers from the Government side of the Chamber. It is particularly annoying that we have a Minister in the chair who amongst her other responsibilities is the Minister of Women’s Affairs. I have raised a number of concerns about this legislation being discriminatory. I have raised the fact that the Human Rights Commission has raised some very specific concerns about the discriminatory impact of the proposed changes. I have raised the fact that the National Council of Women has raised concerns about the disproportionate effect of these changes—a whole number of them—on women. Has the Minister of Women’s Affairs who is also the Associate Minister for ACC bothered to get up and justify these changes or explain to us why in fact these changes are not discriminatory and will not disadvantage women? No she has not. I think that is absolutely appalling. The women of New Zealand should note this and certainly we will make sure that they know about it. 
But likewise there is a Minister of Labour who I now see is back in the Chamber. This is the Minister of Labour to whom I specifically posed a number of questions earlier this morning in relation to holiday pay and the provisions of this legislation that effectively ensure that some people will fund at least partially their own earnings-related compensation. One would think that the Minister of Labour might have a view on this matter— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: A clue. 
CAROL BEAUMONT 
: —yes a clue or a view really on this matter because frankly this is one of the examples of a patently unfair provision. 
Let us take the case of two workers who both get injured. One happens to have fortunately taken a paid holiday and enjoyed a holiday that he or she had accumulated leave for. Another has not had the chance to take a holiday or is about to—nobody can predict when an accident occurs. Those two workers will have very different outcomes and one of them will have to partially fund his or her own earnings-related compensation. Now that is just unfair. Where is the Minister of Labour to answer that question? She also has not bothered to get to her feet to comment on that and I just think that is appalling. It is appalling behaviour by Cabinet Ministers when they will not get up to defend the legislation that they are pushing through this House under urgency. 
There are many many examples throughout this bill of matters that are arbitrary unfair and discriminatory. Let me give members another one: the 6 percent hearing loss threshold before people have coverage for work-related hearing loss. This is an arbitrary provision. There is no medical scientific or other good reason for the figure of 6 percent. It could be 26 percent or it could be 2 percent; it is an arbitrary figure. But it disentitles people and that is a serious matter. Potentially it returns to workers the right to sue which I do not think New Zealanders actually want to have. It will disproportionately affect older workers; probably men who work in primary industries or manufacturing will be particularly disadvantaged by this provision. Among them will be many Maori workers many Pacific workers and workers who have worked in places like meat plants and shearing gangs. Are we hearing any response to the concerns that we are raising? We are not. 
The reality is that this Government will force this legislation through the House so let us at least review its operation. Let us find out what has happened to these people because this legislation is about people. The failure to respond to the concerns that we are raising that submitters have raised and that advisers to the Government have raised is just appalling. 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 I am really pleased to take a call on the amendment to insert new Part 3 in the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. If a Government member stands up in this Chamber and takes a closure motion again without following the principle of responding to the argument raised in the debate I say he or she can expect big-time criticism from this side of the Chamber. We have seen two Ministers— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am very reluctant to do this during a call by one of my own colleagues but it appears that the Government whips have gone on strike and are refusing to take points of order. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: That is not a point of order. The whips have the discretion to determine when they want to take calls and it is up to them. There will be no inference or guidance from either you or me as to when a Government whip wishes to take a closure motion. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I had not actually got to the point of order. I was only indicating that I was being of assistance to the Government in this particular point of order. I thought that this was probably an opportune time to point out to my colleagues that when the Chairman has made a ruling on a closure motion even if it is a ruling that is supportive and the member is being supportive of the Chairman in his role it is not appropriate for a member to comment on that. I would say my colleague should take some care. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I do not need any further help on this. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. This is a new point of order which is quite separate from the interesting observation and intervention of my colleague Mr Mallard. It relates to the Government whip. From time to time throughout the course of the debate it is necessary for whips on both sides of the Chamber to approach the presiding officer in the middle of the Chamber. I have noticed that the senior Government whip is making many many trips to consult with the Minister in the chair to talk to you and to ask questions of you and the Minister. That has to happen but it is just the frequency with which it appears to be happening that is causing some dismay. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: You are bringing the integrity of the Chair into question when you—[ 
Interruption 
] Well I am the sole judge and if the senior Government whip wishes to come and talk to me then I will accept that. If you wish to come and talk to me I will accept that. But I can assure you that there is no interference or anything untoward occurring when the senior Government whip comes to talk to the Minister in the chair or to me. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I seek an assurance and I do this in a way that does not reflect on you in any way because there is no suggestion—or I hope there is no suggestion—that the senior whip has been asking you for procedural advice because that would of course be— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: No. I have made my position very clear. I am the sole judge and that is how it stands. Lynne Pillay has the call. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Speaking to the point of order Mr Chair I think my colleague Trevor Mallard— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: No no. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: I want to clarify something Mr Chair. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I am giving you the call and I ask you to continue. You have 4½ minutes left. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Thank you very much Mr Chair. I urge members of the Opposition to take a call on this bill— 
David Garrett 
: You’re in the Opposition. Have you forgotten? 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: —members of the Government I am sorry. I am just jumping ahead 2 years. 
In speaking to Part 3 I say it is very important that with our amendment that asks for a review we are not asking for just one review to be held after 1 year. We are asking for a review to be held every year thereafter. As the ACT member very clearly pointed out to me we are not in Government currently. But when you are in Opposition— 
David Garrett 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I know what the member is going to say because I had to bring this point of order yesterday. The member cannot bring the Chair into the debate. This is a one-clause debate. It is not a wide-ranging debate; this is on clause 60. It is a very very narrow clause and the member cannot bring the Chair into it. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Let me address just the review. In terms of the review we are requesting a commitment to conduct a review within a year and every year thereafter. 
My colleague Sue Moroney talked about what could be the unintended consequences of this legislation. I put it to this Committee that it is not even the unintended consequences that we are worried about; it is the intended consequences. The intended consequences will cause real havoc. We have seen two Ministers sitting in the chair whose portfolios are directly affected by this legislation. As my colleague Sue Moroney said it will be very much to the detriment of women of women workers and also as I said before to the Minister of Labour it is an attack on the right of workers to take a holiday— 
Hon Member 
: What did she say? 
LYNNE PILLAY 
:—What did the Minister say? That is my point. That is the point I was trying to make. It was not about the closure motions but about the fact that members on the other side of the Chamber are not engaging in this debate. My view and the view of the Opposition is that if you feel very strongly— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Order! 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: If the Government feels very strongly that this is the right thing to do then the Government should take a call. 
We are the first to accept that yesterday Nick Smith really showed the Government’s true agenda. I suspect that the other Government members have said they have actually let too much out of the bag about how callous their attitude is towards workers and injured people in New Zealand so they should all be quiet. But this amendment is something that the Government can respond to. It is about accountability. It is about accountability for changes that the Government is pushing through under urgency that will cause much heartache anxiety and stress in our communities right throughout New Zealand. I would urge Government members not only to consider very carefully this amendment—I think it is a very good amendment on the part of both David Parker and Ruth Dyson who has expanded on the amendment—but also to consider taking a call to explain their view of it or to give us a clue. They should give us a clue as to the Government’s attitude towards the amendment. If Government members do support the amendment they should take a call. 
My big concern is as has been outlined about hearing aids. When we see that people with 6 percent hearing loss will not get support from the accident compensation scheme we know that will be very much to their detriment. I want to draw attention to the National Foundation for the Deaf which has a very good magazine. What did it say? What is its cover story? “ACC delivers a cruel blow to older people.” It talks about the absolute unfairness of that change. 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 It is great to be able to take a second call on this. I echo the calls that come from the Labour members to the Government challenging Government members and perhaps the Associate Minister sitting in the chair Pansy Wong to respond and to actually set out a position on the proposed amendment because on the face of it we have here a dispute about some of the effects of provisions of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Bill. Labour members and the Green Party say that some of the provisions in the bill will shift costs from the scheme and from the State on to injured people and their families. We are not entirely clear whether the Government accepts that that is the case. I think Government members probably do accept that. I am not sure whether they would be prepared to admit it in the Chamber. If there is a dispute about that then surely the sensible way of resolving that dispute is through some kind of review mechanism as David Parker has proposed in his amendment. It would make sense for the Government to take a call to set out its position about that sensible proposal. 
I want to come to this business of “must” or “may” because to me that is one of the kinds of provisions that are in the bill that in fact give rise to some of the concerns about cost shifting that we are moving from a situation where the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) must take into account certain considerations to a situation where it may. If it may as has been pointed out in the debate on earlier parts then also it may not. That means that a much greater degree of discretion will be required from ACC officers. What we know about the exercise of discretion is that it may be subject to pressure from Ministers. I think what we have seen in the ACC portfolio in recent months is exactly that kind of problem. We have seen the kind of problem where provisions in relation to mental injury in the case of sexual abuse for example have given rise to a different interpretation of the provision. 
Why this is important is that we will see more and more of that kind of problem in the future over the provisions of this bill because ACC will be required not simply to be implementing the law as it exists but to exercise discretion. So if there is cost pressure for example on the corporation that may lead it to start making decisions that significantly change where costs fall. If that were the case then it would represent a significant cost shifting that is not set out in the bill but has resulted from it. 
It may well be that my fears about this could be answered by the Minister or perhaps the Associate Minister. I would very much like the opportunity to ask the Minister in question time today about the Government’s intentions on those issues. Sadly that will not be possible; there will not be a question time before the Government intends to push through this bill so I am not able to address that. 
What I want to come down to is the issue of discretion and the discretion that is opened up by the bill and therefore the increasing possibility of cost shifting that cannot be quantified at this point. In recent months we have seen not only those changes to sensitive claims processing where ACC has changed its interpretation of what the law says about mental injury and about the way that that test is applied. That has resulted in a significant shifting of cost from the State on to the victims of sexual abuse effectively re-victimising them. The bill opens up the possibility—in fact the probability I would say—of very much more of that occurring. 
We have seen an increased incidence in recent months of claims being turned down. We have seen an increased incidence of compensation payments being abruptly terminated. I remember the bad old days of ACC when this used to happen routinely. In the 1980s and early 1990s I took a particular role in advocacy around ACC standing up for some of the people who had been victims of accidents or who had sustained injuries in all sorts of ways. 
Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. 
Debate interrupted. 
Visitors 
United Kingdom—Rt Hon Lord Hunt of Wirral House of Lords 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I have much pleasure in informing members that the Rt Hon Lord Hunt of Wirral MBE of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom is present in the gallery. I am sure that members would wish that he be welcomed. 
Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed. 
New Part 3 Requirement to undertake annual reviews of impact of various changes 
 (continued) 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. It relates to Standing Order 320 which requires that amendments to bills that can affect or have an impact upon the Government’s fiscal aggregates need to be lodged with the Clerk at least 24 hours before they are considered by the Committee. New Part 3 and I believe subsequent parts do not meet that test and most certainly do have an impact on the Government’s fiscal aggregates. 
Hon Member 
: How so? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: It is the fiscal aggregates of the Government that we are talking about. 
Hon Member 
: Rubbish! 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I am reading from the  
Standing Orders of the House of Representatives 
. Standing Order 320(1) states that an amendment that may have an impact on the Government’s fiscal aggregates—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Points of order will be heard in silence. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: That will be novel for those people. An amendment that may have an impact on the Government’s fiscal aggregates etc. must be lodged with the Clerk at least 24 hours before the House meets on the day on which the amendment is to be proposed. This part does not meet that test. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I presume this matter can be dealt with relatively quickly. “Fiscal aggregates” is a term that has been used on a number of occasions for a long period of time and any suggestion that a change as minor as this one would have an effect on the fiscal aggregates of the Government goes to the point of being absolutely ridiculous. The effect would be within the margin of error—1 percent of the size of the fiscal aggregates of the Government. There is clearly an ability to veto on the part of the Government if in fact that is the case. That again is something where no Minister of Finance would ever pretend—is the Hon Gerry Brownlee an Associate Minister of Finance? 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: No economic development. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: He is the Minister for Economic Development. No Minister of Finance would ever pretend that this amendment would have an effect on the fiscal aggregates because it is such a small number. For example if the member had moved an amendment to bring forward the close-off date from 2019 to 2015 there might be an argument that that would affect the fiscal aggregates of the Government. It might or it might not; even a number of that size might not. But this amendment is so minor that when the Government’s spending is brought together—aggregated—no one could pretend that it would have an effect. 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 The point of order raised by the Leader of the House ought to have to been raised at the beginning of the debate on this part when the amendment was first moved. Instead no point of order was taken the Chair accepted the amendment and debate commenced. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I thank members for their contributions. I think there are four points that I can see arising out of this point of order. 
The first point is enshrined in Standing Order 320 and in Speakers’ rulings 119/1-4 where there is quite a raft of information about it. On the strength of that the point of order is upheld. 
I think there are three other points that I need to comment on as well and I will deal first with the point of the Green Party member Mr Hague. At no point do the Standing Orders define a lapse time for a point of order if it is relevant. That the member did not raise his point at the time the amendment was moved is not a reason for ruling out the point of order. Had we voted on this part and moved on we could not return to it. In that regard it is perfectly relevant to raise the point of order at this time. 
The third point that springs to mind— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Springs to mind. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: —sorry that comes to mind—in relation to this matter is when the day actually starts. Because we are in urgency and the sitting day stays the same it would be my ruling that the day started at 2 p.m. yesterday. I have inquired of the Clerks and I find that these amendments therefore would have had to be lodged at 2 p.m. on Monday. Even given another interpretation that it was a chronological 24 hours the amendments do not fit. 
The fourth point is whether the amendment is a trivial matter in terms of its effect on the financial aggregates. The Standing Orders do not required the Chair to rule on that; that is the prerogative of the Government. It is not the Chair’s job to rule whether the effect is trivial; it is simply to rule whether the amendment has a fiscal implication. In that regard I am bound to uphold the point of order. That would mean that new Parts 3 4 and 5 are ruled out of order in relation to the ruling I have just given. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The words you used then were that it was not for the Chair to determine whether the impact on the fiscal aggregates is large. Speaker’s ruling 119/1 states: “During the committee of the whole House the Government will be able to make a submission to the chairperson that an amendment or a change proposed to be moved appears to have more than a minor impact on the fiscal aggregates …”. It goes on to say that if there is doubt whether the effect is more than minor then the amendment should be ruled out. I suggest to you Mr Chairperson that there is no doubt that the impact of this amendment is minor. This is the most minor sort of review and I cannot see how it could have a more than minor impact on the fiscal aggregates. In order for you to rule it out Mr Chairperson you have to be satisfied that there is at least doubt that the impact is minor. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 The other point that I would like to draw your attention to Mr Chairperson is Speaker’s ruling 119/4 where it is made clear that it is quite proper for the Minister to raise the issue on official advice. I want to ensure that you have sought confirmation from the Minister that there is official advice. If there is official advice we know that it is always obtained in writing from Treasury. That is the way that that advice occurs. The Opposition wants to ensure that there is that official advice. If that is the case we are happy to go with it. It was always tabled in the past. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The Hon Gerry Brownlee should respond to that. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I am advised by Treasury that the cost of this provision would be somewhere between $600000 and $1 million. Whatever way members like to look at it that is an impact. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson.  
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I will rule on this point first. Can I say that the Chair does not have at his disposal the kind of information that the Leader of the House has just given. It is part of the process of this institution that the Chair accepts Ministers’ advice on that matter and the Leader of the House has confirmed that he sought advice. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Could we ask the Minister to confirm that that advice is written advice? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: As far as I am aware it does not have to be. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. That is something that is very clear and very important. Ministers when they have advice that is required by the Standing Orders have always got that advice in writing. It is part of having a record. It is a protection for the Minister and it is a protection for this House. I am not doubting that there is such Treasury advice—because the Minister has assured us that there is—but I want to know that it is available and that it is in writing because it is something that will have to be tested going forward. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I think in response to that that there are layers to the reasons why an amendment can be ruled out. This is not a financial veto which probably has a higher level of standards around it. But the 24-hour rule is a requirement. I remind members again that all members in this Parliament are honourable members and if the Leader of the House gives me his word that he received advice it is not in my opinion my responsibility to then require him to present to me written evidence of his having had that advice. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I have several points to raise with you. I will first take the point you have just raised. 
With regard to Speaker’s ruling 119/4 the ruling contains the phrase “official advice” and the inclusion of the word “official” must mean something. As Mr Mallard has said to you we have now had the Leader of the House say verbally that the cost of the amendment would be between $600000 and $1 million. What happens if down the track the official information is found not to have existed and the Leader of the House has said in the Committee that it does exist and has said what the advice is? When Mr Mallard asked about it Mr Brownlee waved a piece of paper that is acting as his bookmark in his copy of the  
Standing Orders of the House of Representatives 
. It is a handwritten note on paper that has been ripped out of a notebook—it is perforated along the side. That note cannot possibly constitute official advice to the Government of New Zealand about this matter. So I raise that point with you. 
I also raise a second point Mr Chairperson about the fact that when we read Speaker’s ruling 119/4—and Mr Mallard has quoted the first part—we see that it continues: “It is quite proper for the Minister to raise the issue on official advice” and finishes off: “although it is finally for the chairperson to rule.” That is a very important point for you Mr Chairperson because I noticed that when the point of order was taken at 2 o’clock you had a lot of information at your fingertips. You were able to give four points to us when you were ruling on it. But the ability of the Opposition to propose amendments to legislation whether they are in support of or in disagreement with the law is quite an important point. 
The reason I raise that is that previously it was totally out of order for an Opposition to put forward any amendments that had any fiscal impact whatsoever. The changes to the Standing Orders at the end of 1995 which came into effect in 1996 altered that so that an amendment could come from the Opposition that might have some costing associated with it. But rather than use the term “financial impact”—that is $1 or more—the term “fiscal aggregates” was used so that it was clear that amendments that involved costs that were small as a percentage of the Government’s total spend would not simply be ruled out or dismissed. It is very hard to accept that in a Government Budget of about $60000 million a review costing half a million dollars is somehow some extraordinary change to the Government’s fiscal aggregates. A stay at a hotel in Tonga or a trip on the Interislander 
does not have a big impact on the Government’s fiscal aggregates either. Those are the sorts of figures we are talking about. 
This is a device being used by the Government to try to stop the Opposition from being able to propose amendments to the legislation—amendments that the Government can vote down. It will have that option shortly; we have spent about an hour discussing Part 3 and Government members will have the option of voting against it to show that they are not in support of it. 
Mr Chairperson the Speakers’ rulings make the point that it is finally for you to rule on this matter. If you as Chair accept that a Minister who feels frustrated at the length of time of a debate and says “Oh look that amendment is just too expensive.” is not required to supply you with any written advice that is then available for the Committee to look at and if the Minister does not give any detail about what the advice is then the Opposition could have all of its amendments ruled out for all time. There is a cost even in the simple fact that when an amendment is accepted by the Committee it forces a printer to go into action somewhere within the Government. That is a financial cost. If the Government goes down the path of not only stopping us from having question time but also stopping the Opposition from proposing amendments because by their very nature there will be a cost of some amount—a fiscal impact—that is different from an effect on the fiscal aggregates which is the way in which our Speakers’ rulings and Standing Orders have been written. 
I think that this is a really critical point Mr Chairperson and the Opposition respectfully seeks your assistance with it. Otherwise there is no point in doing any of these debates because as soon as the Leader of the House loses his temper about these matters the ball will be thrown and we will all have to go home. That seems preposterous to me. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I refer you Mr Chairperson to Speaker’s ruling 136/4 and go back to the question of the perforated piece of paper from a notebook which the Leader of the House is relying on. I quote: “An official document is not just a piece of paper with notes for the Minister’s guidance but is a more formal piece of writing conveying a message or memorandum or recording some matter between officials of the Government or between the Government and other persons.” That is the sort of document that in my opinion advice consists of. That is the way that Ministers get advice. It is official. There is a proper record of it. I do not know in whose hand the note on the perforated piece of notepaper is but it is my submission to you Mr Chairperson that in that form it cannot be an official document and therefore it cannot be the source of the advice that the Leader of the House has received. 
Just as a matter of guidance on fiscal aggregates my memory is that as far as Dr Cullen was concerned an amendment had to have an effect of more than $10 million before he would— 
Hon Members 
: Oh! 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Can the member just sum up? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The next point I am making as to an effect on the fiscal aggregates is that Dr Cullen’s view was that a figure of $10 million was the point at which he would start being interested as to whether there was an effect on the fiscal aggregates. Dr Cullen used to make clear that the Government had a majority in the House and if we did not like an amendment we voted against it rather than attempting to have it ruled out through this method or through a financial veto. What he saw as an effect on the fiscal aggregates sufficient to trigger this mechanism or to trigger the financial veto—generally an effect would have to be bigger in order to trigger the financial veto—was something much more significant than the cost of this amendment which at most would be $1 million with the best estimate being about $200000. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: OK. Let me deal with what I think are three points that have come out. I think that this series of points of order on the process around this stuff is useful. I regard it as quite valuable. I will deal firstly with the last point that the Hon Trevor Mallard raised in terms of amount. There is no guidance for me anywhere that I can find in the Standing Orders Speakers’ rulings  
McGee 
 or anywhere that actually defines an amount. That is the prerogative of the Government. If it were $10 million or any figure it would be enshrined somewhere. That is my difficulty. Moving away from saying “This doesn’t fit.” or “That doesn’t fit.” I tell the Committee that there is no documented evidence for me to go to in order to determine what amount is trivial. 
Let us now go to whether it was appropriate or proper for the Leader of the House to have raised this matter and again we go to Speaker’s ruling 119/4 which states clearly in the second-to-last sentence: “It is quite proper for the Minister to raise the issue on official advice”. The member raised the matter of whether the paper was an official document but the ruling does not say “official document”; it states “official advice”. Again in the time that I have had at my disposal to look at this matter nowhere have I found a specification about what is official advice. As I said earlier I have to accept that the Leader of the House has received advice and I so rule on that. 
Then we come to the matter of the responsibility of the Chairperson which is my responsibility. I go to the latest edition of  
McGee 
 at page 381 and the fourth paragraph states in regard to this matter: “The chairperson does not determine such a matter on a balance of probabilities; a possibility is sufficient.” So I am guided by  
McGee  
on this matter in terms of ruling in favour of the point of order raised by Gerry Brownlee. 
We move now to the vote on the schedules. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am sorry but a lot of discussion was taking place while you were giving your ruling. Are you declining to rule on Speaker’s ruling 119/4 which sets out that it is quite proper for a Minister to give official advice? You are accepting the torn off bit of paper that is perforated down the side— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Yes I am. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: —and handwritten as official Government advice? You are ruling against Speaker’s ruling 136/3? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I am accepting that the Leader of the House has had official advice. That is what I am accepting. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: On what basis? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: His word. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: His word. So what recourse does the Opposition have if it turns out that that advice does not exist? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I remind the member that all members are honourable members and if at a subsequent time any member is found to have misled the House there is a course of action which is substantially Draconian for dealing with the matter. Well it rules justice in a way that members understand. There are matters of privilege; there is a whole range of things. Members have that course open to them if it is subsequently found that any member has misled the House and this issue is no different. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I am about finished with this issue unless there is new material. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: You have ruled out of order the addition of Part 3 in my name. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Correct. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I have not heard any rulings about the other amendments. Are you now ruling them out of order also? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Yes. I did say when I responded in the first instance that I was ruling out the amendment in your name currently under debate and also the amendments to add Part 4 and Part 5. I have already given that ruling. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Are we to take it then that the advice you have received from Mr Brownlee is that each of those amendments of itself causes cost that would materially change the fiscal aggregates or is the advice that in the aggregate the amendments would cost between $600000 and $1 million or whatever the figure was? By the way I accept the Minister’s word as to the amount. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I think there are two points there. Let me clarify the member’s first point which was about advice that I as Chair have received: the Committee of the whole House has received that advice; it is not pertinent to me only. The second thing is that I have accepted that advice in relation to the three amendments before us to add new Parts 3 4 and 5. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am not trying to be difficult. My confusion about the amount that the Committee was told is material. Is it the cost of each of these reviews or is it the cost of all of them? It is a relatively simple question that I thought we should be able to get an answer to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: This is my interpretation of it. We have trolled through this area and established some principles around it. The Leader of the House has said to us that each of the amendments has an impact on the fiscal aggregates. We have also established that there is no threshold of triviality so we simply accept it. The Leader of the House of his own volition gave some numbers. I am prepared to accept his word that each of the amendments has an implication for the fiscal aggregates. I have accepted it on that basis. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I want to check that you have had an assurance from the Leader of the House that these amendments could not be done within the baselines that are currently available—that they would require an extra appropriation as opposed to using current appropriations—because if they can be done within the baselines they will not affect the fiscal aggregates. In my view in a vote the size of the one we are talking about there is not a bolter’s show in hell of these amendments affecting the baselines of the Accident Compensation Corporation. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Let me affirm again to the Committee of the whole House that I am not privy to any information. When the member raised the point of order he asked whether I had been told information by the Leader of the House; he told the Committee. That is the first thing. The Leader of the House told the Committee that these amendments will have an impact on the fiscal aggregates. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I do not want to show disrespect Mr Chairperson but you came to the Committee with the answers to a series of questions. I cannot accept that you did not have some sort of briefing on this matter before you came to the Committee. I have enormous personal respect for you Mr Chairperson I have known you for a long time and I respect your integrity but I do not think you should attempt to tell the Committee that you had not been briefed and you were unaware of this matter. You clearly were aware of it. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Let me respond to that. Every day before I come to the House I spend time with the Clerks. They are whom I spend time with. When I came into the Chamber Mr Brownlee was sitting next to me and I said “Do not talk to me.” He may or may not wish to confirm that but I think the member will accept my word. So I am dealing simply with some anticipation—because this is developing into a filibuster—as to what the probabilities would be— 
Moana Mackey 
: It is not. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: It is taking somewhat of an interesting twist—let me put it that way. I do not want to accuse anybody of anything and I apologise for that. It is the right of the Opposition to explore every possible avenue and it is my responsibility to make myself conversant with the pertinent Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings and  
McGee 
. Also we have spent some 25 minutes on this matter and there has been an opportunity for the Clerks to advise me and give me some quotes like the one I took from  
McGee 
. I did not prepare it before I came here. Members have to accept that I am dealing with this matter in the most straightforward manner that I can. We will now put the vote on the schedules. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. First I echo what Mr Mallard said about the personal respect we have for you. Mr Mallard and I would like to invite you to join us for lunch tomorrow when the House will still be in urgency to make sure there is not a single chance of Mr Brownlee getting to you. He will be in quite a mood by then I predict. 
I want to take you to the point where you referred to your role as the Chair of the Committee. As a presiding officer you have a number of functions but the protection of the rights of the minority is one of the most important ones and it is one that you do very very well indeed. You referred to your view of the proceedings of the Committee at the present time and it is probably correct that things could have taken an alternative parallel path to the one they are taking at the present time. But there are three amendments that propose three new parts. I would not describe them in the language you did—although you did withdraw it. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I rescinded it. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: But it goes to the fact that just because the Government is unhappy with the process that has been followed by the Opposition is no reason for our amendments to be ruled out. If every single one of our amendments is going to be ruled out because of a claim that it will have an impact on the fiscal aggregates—and you yourself have said that the triviality or otherwise of the cost is irrelevant—it actually means that the Government could rule out every single amendment that the Opposition seeks to put to this legislation which affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders. That is why I bring you back to Speaker’s ruling 119/4 and to the very last few words—the last seven or eight words—“although it is finally for the chairperson to rule”. If the Government is allowed to get away with this behaviour—and the great irony is that we had spent an hour on Part 3 and we would have had the vote by now and we would have moved on; we have lost time on procedure because of the Government’s management style—if every single amendment is ruled out because you are saying that triviality is not important then the Opposition has lost its voice. That is why we are appealing to you Mr Chairperson as the defender of the minority in the Chamber to make sure that that does not happen. I am not confident that the Leader of the House will not try to bulldoze the legislation through the House because he has the pip about something that is far beyond my intelligence to understand. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Is it a fresh point of order? I should rule on the current one. Are you speaking to it? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I think I should speak to the point of order. There has been a degree of emotive expression that is somewhat disappointing. I would like the member to consider that although it is the right of the Opposition to try to put forward views equally it is the right of the Government to govern and to go about its business in the House and our protections both yours and mine lie in this book the  
Speakers’ Rulings 
. I ask the member to look at Speaker’s ruling 119/3 which is of no lesser import than 119/4. It has in fact been endorsed by former Chairperson Pettis and former Speaker Hunt. It states that Standing Order 320 “is not neutral as to whether an amendment is out of order. If a member fails to give 24 hours’ notice and there is any doubt or possibility that it has a fiscal impact the amendment is out of order.” That is all we have raised. These Speakers’ rulings are here for the House to be guided by and I think we should get on with our business. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I will now rule on the matter that the Hon Darren Hughes raised. I thank him for his expression of respect and I will look at taking up the luncheon offer. But I want to correct him on something that—[ 
Interruption 
] Points of order are heard in silence. I want to clarify—because the member picked me up wrongly—that I said that it was not for the Chair to rule whether something is trivial. The member said that the Chair ruled whether something was a trivial matter. There is a pertinent difference. I have not ruled whether this matter is trivial; I have simply ruled as per  
McGee 
 that the possibility exists. I have therefore chronologically followed through that process in determining that. So I have not ruled that it is trivial. 
The fundamental point that the member made is that the Chair can rule out amendments. I pick up on Speaker’s ruling 119/3 which Mr Brownlee raised. It is there for good reason and it is not neutral. I think it is just a little wake-up call that where there is a possibility of a fiscal aggregate implication anyone putting in an amendment simply has to obey the 24-hour rule. That does not rule out the possibility of debate at all. I will now put the question on schedule 1. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I think we have just about addressed every— 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: It is a different point of order. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Well I will listen with interest. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: We strongly contest the approach that is being taken—it leaves us with very few rights in the way of posing amendments—but if that is the way it is going to be ruled then we have to do our best to advocate and articulate for the people we represent. But we rely on the protection of the Chair for these matters. 
One of the difficulties is that the House as you mentioned before is in urgency. Urgency was signalled to the Opposition very very late in the piece—far later than more recent practice under Mr Brownlee’s tenure as Leader of the House. This particular amendment to create a new Part 3 was lodged 23½ hours ago. We did our best to comply with the information available to us at the time we put these amendments forward. There is a point where it is impossible for the Opposition to comply with the 24-hour rule. If the Government operates in this fashion it curtails the ability of the Opposition to comply with that rule. 
As you can appreciate these are serious amendments. They create three new parts—three important parts to do with injury prevention. I do not think anyone could argue that they are not serious amendments. The Government might not like them but they are not ridiculous. They are not frivolous amendments; they are proper ones. We have to write them to make sure they comply with the Standing Orders and to have them tabled and if the ability is not there to do so because the Government has moved urgency without that happening— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: They had brought this matter up the Order Paper compared with where it had been. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: That is right. This bill was moved higher up the Order Paper than it had been as my colleague rightly says. It was set down at about No. 4 or No. 5. We arrived in Wellington on Tuesday we were advised that the House was going into urgency and the bill became No. 1 on the Order Paper. It became impossible for us to comply with the 24-hour rule. The Leader of the House is losing a lot of time that he need not lose if he were operating in a slightly different way. It does not have to be this way. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I will respond to that point and say that the second reading of the bill was on the Order Paper last Thursday so members could have assumed that it was going to be dealt with this week and they could have applied themselves to the sort of exercise we are in now. But given that that is not the case the final Order Paper would have been printed by 10.30 on Tuesday morning at the time when caucuses are having their powwows about process—or whatever caucuses do—so there certainly was an opportunity. Thirdly— 
Hon David Parker 
: Where was it on that Order Paper? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Just let me finish. Thirdly this meets neither the urgency day rule nor the chronological rule. It does not meet either of those. But the member has raised a point to which some consideration may need to be given but not at this point. I suggest that the Standing Orders Committee would be an ideal vehicle for that matter to be teased out because in this case I can rule only on the Speakers’ rulings the Standing Orders and other literary records that I have in front of me. 
Schedule 1 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That schedule 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Schedule 1 agreed to. 
Schedule 2 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That schedule 2 be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Schedule 2 agreed to. 
Clauses 1 to 3 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 Amongst the Supplementary Order Papers that are on the Table in respect of the title of this bill is a late proposal by the Government to change the name of the underlying legislation from the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act to the Accident Compensation Act and I want to explore that proposal. I think we need to look historically at why the current bill name came to be. In my mind there is not much doubt that if members look historically they will see that following the passage of the original accident compensation law New Zealand took its eye off the ball when it came to injury prevention. Prior to accident compensation of course there was a fiscal cost to employers through the risk of court action as a consequence of injured workers suing them which meant that they kept a good eye on injury prevention. 
After the accident compensation legislation came in there was a period when New Zealand’s accident rate in the workplace did not follow the same trend as was the case in overseas jurisdictions. For that reason Governments of the day including the Labour Government decided that there was a need for more interventions to make sure that we achieved what I think everyone in this Parliament would want to achieve which is lower accident rates. 
One of the things that was done was that more focus was put on the enforcement of appropriate workplace safety through the Department of Labour using its regulatory function to ensure better workplace practices so as to reduce accidents. But another thing that was done was a change within the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) to a greater focus on injury prevention and it has worked. Following the changes that the last Labour Government made in terms of both more regulatory action via the Department of Labour and more focus within ACC on injury prevention that combination of efforts has meant that rather than the trend in New Zealand workplaces going in the wrong direction—that is separating from the international trend where New Zealand workplaces were not improving in their safety at the same rate as was being achieved in other places including Australia—we actually had improved outcomes and less injury. 
I will give an example of where the Government is now reversing that trend and I think this is a shocking example. It relates to a programme that was developed at the University of Otago Faculty of Medicine and has now been rolled out through most parts of New Zealand. It is the Otago Exercise Programme for falls prevention. We heard the Minister acknowledge in this Chamber in just the last few days that more than the work account it is the non-earners account that has increasing costs largely as a consequence of the elderly growing older and many of those elderly falling over in their homes and breaking a hip. 
Sandra Goudie 
: Oh what a generalist statement. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: That has additional medical costs and home-care costs. Sandra Goudie derides that but it has been acknowledged by ACC at recent financial reviews that one of the great problem areas is the growth in falls by the elderly in their homes. 
A programme developed by the University of Otago Faculty of Medicine is directly targeted at the most at-risk group which is made up of people who are more than 80 years old who have already had a fall and who have been identified by their doctor as needing an intervention. It is an inexpensive intervention and unlike most of these programmes it has had extensive peer-reviewed studies by scientists as to its efficacy. That has led to articles in the  
British Medical Journal 
 no less highlighting the programme as an example of injury prevention work that is cost-effective. Indeed the cost-benefit analysis shows that for every $1 spent $2 is saved in the health system in the year following. Yet this Government has cut the funding saying that the programme cannot be afforded. It is nonsense economics. This will see the costs of the accident compensation scheme going up and that is one of the reasons why the Government wants to go back to talking about this being the Accident Compensation Amendment Act rather than the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Act. 
The reality is that we are now heading back to the time in New Zealand when insufficient attention was paid to injury prevention. As a consequence New Zealand will go back to where it was under the last National Government. The trends in respect of injury prevention will be bad and therefore the trends in terms of the growing number of injuries and the growing costs of injuries will remain. As a consequence costs will go up rather than come down. 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 Clause 1 of the bill that came back from the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee is: “Title: This Act is the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Act 2009.” At the initial stages in tabling the bill for the first time the Government clearly did not think it was an issue to keep the name as it had been. At the select committee and the second reading the Government clearly did not think it was an issue to keep the name the same. Come the Committee stage the Minister in charge of the bill the Minister for ACC lodged a Supplementary Order Paper to change the title to the Accident Compensation Amendment Act 2010 and proceeded to perform like a seal about how important it was that the bill would now be called the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill. He made a song and dance about it and he enunciated in the most exaggerated terms he could possibly manage that people on the street would not know what the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act was. Now it is imperative that it be called the Accident Compensation Act! 
My question to the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister for ACC is why this change suddenly became important. I say to the Associate Minister that it leaves the Opposition thinking that there is an agenda. I quote somebody who is rather more famous than me: “What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet;”. There is as much difference between the names Labour and National as there is between the names Montague and Capulet which is what Shakespeare was talking about. There is as much difference between Labour and National over the title of this bill as there is between the names Montague and Capulet. 
This change raises questions about the agenda and I would like to ask two questions apropos of this name change. What are we to read into this change? If the legislation is to be called the Accident Compensation Act are we now to understand that there is to be no injury prevention rehabilitation or compensation? Or are we to understand that anything that is an accident will be covered by this legislation? I ask whether the Minister has considered—and whether this has an impact on fiscal aggregates—the term “cerebrovascular accident” commonly known as a stroke. Does this change in the name of the bill indicate that the Government is looking to include strokes otherwise known as cerebrovascular accidents in the coverage of the compensation? If so the Government should say so and it should prove that there is no fiscal aggregate impact from that change. 
My second question is: if only accidents are to be covered by this legislation and not injuries where does that leave sexual abuse victims who sustain injuries but never by accident? Sexual abuse does not occur by accident; it is perpetrated upon victims and it creates injuries. At the very least it creates mental injuries. Are we to assume by this change of name that there is some agenda to move stealthily and without any recourse to the public to take sexual abuse treatment out of accident compensation? That is the impact already of moves this Government has made in changing processes on treatment of sexual abuse victims. Already there are people who cannot get treatment and who risk suicide because they are unable to get treatment in a timely way because people are waiting for decisions to be made about whether there is an injury. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 While we are on the subject of quotations I would like to offer the Committee one of my own. In response to a correspondent the great writer Mark Twain stated: “I notice that you use plain simple language short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English—it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective kill it.” 
I will follow up with another quote because of all of the discussion we have had about the royal commission’s report. Owen Woodhouse wrote these words and I think they are the most enduring of all of them: “Injury arising from accident demands an attack on three fronts. The most important is obviously prevention. Next in importance is the obligation to rehabilitate the injured. Thirdly there is the duty to compensate them for their losses.” Having stressed that injury prevention was obviously the most important component of any framework Owen Woodhouse then called the royal commission report  
Compensation for personal injury in New Zealand 
. He did not need the “fluffery” of adding “injury prevention rehabilitation and compensation” or this that and the next thing. He called it by a simple title. 
The House of the time in passing the legislation did what? Did it give the legislation an extra-long title? No it did not. In highlighting the importance of injury prevention it said “Let us call this Act the Accident Compensation Act 1972.” It is pretty simple stuff really. There is so much more about that Act that does not need to be packed into the title. In 2001 when it was given the present name which was so long that the front page of the Act needed a concertina sort of shape what was done was done nobly I think. I do not think that anybody was under any illusions that the priorities were changing and that the goal of preventing injuries remained. Sadly we did not seem to have much luck; injury rates have continued to climb and rehabilitation rates have dropped which is obviously the reason why we are in the Chamber debating this bill. 
But let us call the legislation what it is. The Act should be the Accident Compensation Act. Nobody on the street understands it by any other name. They know “ACC” by what it. Let us call it what it is and let us resist any of these nonsensical suggestions that by giving it a simple name the Government diminishes the importance of injury prevention. That is simply not the case. Nobody believes it; not even the Opposition believes it. I really strongly support this change. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 I begin by asking the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister for ACC a question but I doubt very much whether she will answer it because she seems to have been unable to find a contribution to make at all in this debate despite being the Associate Minister. Her arm is moving; that indicates some form of life. But she does not seem to think that it is part of her responsibility—despite collecting quarter of a million dollars with a car and free travel credit card and all the other trappings that go with being a Minister—to stand up in the debate and say why this is happening why we are having this debate. But the question I have immediately for the Minister is where Gerry Brownlee is when you need him. Where is the Leader of the House who felt obliged to come to the Chamber and have my Supplementary Order Paper ruled out of order on the grounds that it would nearly bring the Government to its knees— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Let us keep this reasonably good-natured but the member is straying into two areas. The first is implying that a member is not here and secondly speaking about a ruling that has been made. The member cannot do that. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: So where is Gerry Brownlee’s contribution when it is needed? Clearly it is not being provided at the moment because if Gerry Brownlee was able to make a contribution in this debate I am sure he would look at the amendment to the title and think about the huge impact on fiscal aggregate that this amendment from the Minister the Hon Dr Nick Smith will have. How much will it cost for every single letterhead every single logo every single front window every single car every single business card and every single bit of paper—including ones with perforated sides—that currently have the existing logo and brand “Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation”—to be altered? Gerry Brownlee is likely to be considering a contribution to this debate and having this amendment from the Minister ruled out. If it is good enough for the previous amendments to be ruled out it is certainly good enough for this one. But if we were able to put aside the huge impact on fiscal aggregate that this amendment will have even though it will be debated and then voted on by the sounds of the current lack of contribution from the Leader of the House then the Committee would be asking why we are doing this. 
At the very time when the focus of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) has moved from looking at accidents as things that just happen and we pay out compensation for them why are we not moving that culture to say that a prime responsibility of the corporation as outlined in the original Woodhouse commission report was that injury prevention should come first? That is what the commission said. That is why the name was changed to reflect what should be the primary responsibility and focus of the corporation as it should be for the leadership position of the Minister and the Associate Minister to drive injury prevention. I do not think that anybody in the Chamber would want to see anyone injured; even in the most heated moments of debate we would not wish any harm on any of our political opponents. But without that focus in the name the corporation lost its way. It did not refer back to the original intent of the commission. Now it has looked to the title of its mandating legislation and said injury prevention comes first. 
What should be the second responsibility of the corporation? It should be rehabilitation. It should make sure that when people have the misfortune of an injury despite the best efforts of any injury prevention programme there is a fundamental responsibility to try to restore injured people to the greatest extent possible to their pre-injury earning capacity. We must make them as well as we can make them and restore them from their injury to as much as possible their pre-injury situation. So injury prevention should be the corporation’s No. 1 focus. Rehabilitation should be its second and compensation for loss of earnings or earning capacity should be its third role. 
Under this amendment and under the now new title—yet another leap backwards into the 1990s—we see that the title of the Act will be the Accident Compensation Act. What does that say from this Parliament to the corporation? What does it say to the general public? What does it say to the leading injury prevention and rehabilitation specialists? The message from the Hon Dr Nick Smith and the Hon Pansy Wong is: “We don’t care any more about injury prevention and rehabilitation. We don’t care about it to the extent that we’re even prepared to change the name of the mandating legislation so that the message is ‘accident compensation’—end of story.” That is not a good enough message. We have people day in day out who are injured often permanently often severely. People lose their lives in incidents that we could prevent such as children who are killed on quad bikes and children who drown. People lose their limbs in incidents that could be prevented. 
My colleague the Hon David Parker spoke of a fantastic programme that was funded in part by ACC and in part by local authorities and other Government departments and agencies. The programme focused on a group of people who were often neglected in the past in terms of injury prevention. The reason they were often neglected was that they do not cost the corporation much money because they do not receive earnings-related compensation—that is people over 80. People over 80 often fall and break their hips. They do not cost much so they were never in the past a priority. The previous Labour Government changed that. We said that those people were important in society. They have contributed all of their lives to our country and to their communities. They have raised families many of them have fought overseas on our behalf and we should not write them off just because they are over 80. So we put a focus on a critical area of injury prevention for those people through the National Falls Prevention Strategy. I say all credit to Otago University for the amazing work—led in particular by Professor A John Campbell—that was done with that injury prevention programme. 
The programme stopped large numbers of senior citizens falling over and often breaking their hip. If older people fall and break their hip they have a lot of pain they have to have a lot of surgical intervention and the most telling thing is that they never fully regain their confidence again. They rapidly decline in terms of their ability to get up get out of bed and get out and about because that fall has shaken more than their bones; that fall shakes their confidence. Why would we want to let that happen when we know that it can be prevented by a very simple internationally well-regarded falls prevention programme? I do not know the answer to that question because the National Government scrapped the programme not the Labour Government. This Government said to over 80-year-olds that it does not care any more about their falls prevention programme and that it does not care about injury prevention at all actually. It scrapped the small amount of funding that was keeping so many of those people out of danger and out of hospital and giving them an opportunity to lead a much fuller life. 
Those issues are at the heart of my concern about the change in the title. Many people might ask who cares about the name change. Well if we cared as little as that then we would not be debating it in Parliament. It is more than the name of a statute on the books of this House. It is about the message we give about what is important as the legislative mandate for the corporation and its staff throughout the country. It is about what this Parliament thinks is a priority. I do not think we should say that if it is an accident it just happens. I think we should say that these are injuries and in many many instances they can be prevented. It should be a moral responsibility of this Parliament to make it a legislative responsibility of the corporation to have injury prevention as its highest priority. None of us wants to see anyone being injured so we should take the next logical step to make sure the law reflects that. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I want to explain to the Government why Labour feels so offended about this proposed name change. The name of the principal Act was changed by the previous Labour Government as members have pointed out. What was the name of the law relating to accident compensation before that? 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: It was the privatised name. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: That is right. It was the Accident Insurance Act which described exactly how National saw accident compensation then and how those members still see it. They see workers’ livelihoods and their injuries as tradable commodities. We are upset about the new name because it means that National has not changed. We know that before the last election National was meeting with business and the insurance industry and we know that it was making promises about privatising the work account. 
The message that we receive from Supplementary Order Paper 111 is that the focus is coming off the things that the previous Labour Government worked so hard on which my colleague Ruth Dyson so eloquently described and is going back to the accident compensation scheme being opened up to competition and to private insurers. We heard that kind of language. We heard the statement that it is not supposed to be a welfare scheme; it is an insurance scheme. That is what the Government says all the time. That is what Government members like to say about this scheme all the time. So we are worried about the change of name. 
I ask members opposite what is so complicated about the existing name. What is not simple about the words “injury prevention”? 
Sandra Goudie 
: I know we’re doing the right thing when we know you’re worried. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: What does the member Sandra Goudie not understand about injury prevention? Maybe she does not have any idea about what it means why it is important or why Labour made it the first priority of our accident compensation scheme. The first priority is to prevent accidents particularly in the workplace but what are we seeing from this Government? We know that the priority has gone off injury prevention. We know that Government members do not care about it. They are cutting cutting cutting— 
Sandra Goudie 
: She didn’t care about how she wasted billions of dollars. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Is it a waste of millions of dollars to prevent injuries? Due to funding cuts training for workplace health and safety representatives has been cut from 6000 places down to 2000. What did we hear in the last quarter? The Minister of Labour said that she was worried about the increase in workplace accidents. Well surprise surprise! If we take the focus off injury prevention and start making cuts to workplace health and safety training then we will see more of that. It is an utter disgrace. 
The second word is easy to understand. It is a simple word: “rehabilitation”. What is so hard to understand about it? Why do members opposite not like this word? They want to ignore the fact that our scheme is trying to get people back to work back to their ordinary jobs and back to being productive members of the community. That is what rehabilitation is. That is why rehabilitation is the second platform of the previous Labour Government’s requirements of the scheme. 
The final word must not be hard to understand because National has retained it in the changed name. It is compensation. It is the last resort. When people can no longer go back to work or are recovering from an accident they are compensated so that they can feed their families and put their lives back together. They can plan for the future. 
Those three terms in the current title prioritise the purpose of our 24-hour no-fault accident compensation scheme. People can understand why members on this side of the Chamber are particularly upset about the change in name because it indicates the change of focus that we knew was coming. From the kind of language that has been used from the discussions that have happened in the debate we knew that the change was coming and the Minister for ACC has confirmed that with his Supplementary Order Paper. 
I will be putting forward some amendments to the title and I suggest a few alternatives. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Hope they don’t have any fiscal impacts. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: That is right. One alternative for example would be the “Injury Prevention Rehabilitation Compensation and Experience-Ratings Amendment Act 2010”. We have talked about experience-ratings in the debate. We are concerned about what risk rating meant in the 1990s when we had experience-rating and how it affected people. It affected the behaviour of employers and workers but it did not bring the accident rate down; it increased. 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 I congratulate my colleague Darien Fenton on reminding us about the name change made under the previous National Government in terms of our accident compensation scheme. I join with my colleagues in questioning the Government about why this current change is necessary. Members opposite may call us suspicious but I ask why when this amending bill came to the House called the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill suddenly there is a need to change the title of the principal Act by cutting out those words and calling it the Accident Compensation Act. 
The Minister for ACC got to his feet yesterday—I note that he is not speaking as much on the bill today—and said that the reason is that is what the Act used to be called. That is the National Government’s answer: that is what it used to be called. 
Darien Fenton 
: This is the brains trust. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: The brains trust came up with that. 
I am sure that all MPs care about communities. Surely they want to build on and improve on what was there before. I know that that is what inspired members on this side of the Chamber to come to Parliament: to advocate to improve the lives of New Zealanders. The Act was called that before. Improvements have been made over the years—though admittedly only under the previous Labour Government—to this wonderful social contract for New Zealanders. But this Government is intent on cutting back those improvements. 
My colleagues have asked what the Government’s removal of the words “Injury Prevention” from the title tells us. What does “injury prevention” mean? We have already seen cuts to injury prevention schemes. We have already seen that happen under the current Act. We have already seen cuts to education programmes for older people about avoiding accidents. We have already seen much of the funding cut for schemes that worked. What does that make us think? I note what else we have seen cut. We have seen cuts in training for the delegates who are involved in health and safety in the workplace. They are involved in working towards ensuring that people have a very healthy workplace. The removal of the words “Injury Prevention” might make us think that this is what this Government is about. 
Why would a Government remove the word “Rehabilitation”? It is absolutely the key principle of what is behind any social contract to do with accidents. It is not about rewarding compo. That view is so old-fashioned it is not funny. Yes people must be compensated. We note that but we have already drawn attention to the fact that many people will not receive the compensation that they are entitled to particularly if they have committed suicide. There are already claw-backs to do with compensation for seasonal workers and holiday pay especially the provision that means people will have to use their holiday pay before they receive compensation. 
But as well as those claw-backs it seems to this side of the Chamber that the Government is saying that it does not want rehabilitation in the legislation. All it says to me and my colleagues is that this Government does not believe in investing in rehabilitation. We are already seeing examples of that under the current Act. But when it is no longer part of the title of the Act—when and if the bill goes through which it will unless there is a big change of mind from the Government and the ACT Party—then I make no bones about the fact that rehabilitation will go further and further down the agenda. 
It just makes a mockery of a scheme that has worked and that has delivered for so many New Zealanders. It has assisted them to be work-ready to be working and to fully participate in our society and workplaces and to effectively support their families. I too have some amendments. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am happy to take a call on the title and commencement clauses of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. I will first remark on a comment that was made by the Hon Tony Ryall the Minister of Health. When my colleague Maryan Street was using an analogy from  
Romeo and Juliet 
 the Hon Tony Ryall said: “Yes but they ended up together in the end”. That is true I say to the Minister—but they were dead. In terms of the analogy for accident compensation I think it is particularly worrying if the Minister of Health thinks that is a good outcome. It is everyone’s happy ending; it is great—apart from the small fact that they were both dead. I think that sums up Labour’s concerns about where this legislation is taking us. 
My colleagues have talked about the Minister’s insistence that the name of this legislation needs to be changed. We worry about a seemingly innocuous move on the Minister’s part because the mere fact that a Supplementary Order Paper is put forward will lengthen the debate in this part of the Committee stage. The Minister in the chair the Associate Minister for ACC and the Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee have already been in the Chamber desperately trying to shut down the debate and shut down the amount of time we spend debating. It is not a small move for a Minister to come here with a Supplementary Order Paper and put it on the Table—it opens things up for a longer debate so there must be some reason that he is doing it. 
The Hon Pansy Wong the Minister in the chair has refused to take a call in this debate. I think someone should place a mirror under her nose and check that she is still breathing just so we can be certain there is not something more serious going on because normally the Committee stage is about debate. It is the one time that the Opposition gets to question a Minister and hopefully get a response and she has refused to do that. Therefore we have to try to ascertain why the name is being changed from Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act. 
The reason I think is that the Government is softening up accident compensation for privatisation. We know the Government wants to privatise accident compensation. It did so the last time it was in Government and it desperately wants to do it again. It got a lot of campaign donations from Australian insurance companies that will benefit to the tune of billions of dollars from picking up the work that is currently done by the Accident Compensation Corporation in New Zealand at a cheaper lower administrative cost and a lower cost to the levy payers. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am again reluctant to do this with one of my colleagues. But it has long been the case that the motives of the Government cannot be challenged. The linking of direct donations for policy is something that would certainly indicate a lack of integrity on the part of the Government. Although the Government whips and the Minister in the chair at the moment the Minister for ACC might want to accept that as a fact I think it is a reflection on the House. Any suggestion that this is a policy-for-money approach as has been made by my colleague is in my opinion out of order. I know that you were temporarily distracted Mr Chair. The Minister was clearly listening. I know that the junior Government whip was clearly listening. She appeared to be nodding; I am not sure whether she was going off to sleep or agreeing. But it does seem to me that impugning the motives of the Minister and saying that he and his party are getting cash for the policy is something that implies corruption and probably should not be allowed to continue. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: The first point is that Government members did not raise a point of order because we give little credibility to this assertion which has been made on repeated occasions. Furthermore Mr Chairman I think you should take note that the reason Mr Mallard chose to raise a point of order far from actually upholding the principles of the House was to do exactly the opposite. It was simply to give him the opportunity to recite those quite wrong and unparliamentary allegations. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Firstly can I say in response to Mr Mallard’s point of order that questioning people’s motives is not a unique event in this Parliament. In fact a time when members’ motives for putting forward legislation or amendments were not spoken about would be a remarkable period of time. So motivation in my view is a legitimate part of debate for this Committee. The second point that the member alludes to but not directly is that it is contrary to the Standing Orders to imply or say directly that people in this Chamber are controlled by outside interests. I do think that the member speaking fell well short of that. I take the point that has been made by Mr Mallard that this House is brought into disrepute by some of those assertions or that implication. I will not pull the member up on it but I do think the member should be circumspect. An attack on any particular member’s motives in the House is an attack on all members of the House. I think the member should be mindful of the decorum of this place and the standard of debate that the public would expect. The member will continue. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Thank you Mr Chair. I am happy to do so. I think we are very lucky that we have the Hon Trevor Mallard as a moral conscience of this Committee to keep us all on the straight and narrow when the Government fails to do so. I say to the Hon Nick Smith that if he is so upset about these allegations he should stop hiding the money in trusts and let New Zealand people see where the National Party’s money is coming from. 
I will carry on. The reason I believe that the Hon Nick Smith wants to change the title of the Act from the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act is so that when he privatises the scheme there is absolutely no onus on the new Australian owners of the scheme to carry out those activities. He is clearing the decks and making it clear that all they will have to be in charge of is paying out money. Let me preface that comment by saying that insurance companies make money by not paying out and by refusing claims and that is the future for New Zealand workers under this National Government when it comes to workers’ compensation. 
The Hon Nick Smith is sending a very clear message that the new owners will not have to carry out injury prevention and rehabilitation. All the niceties and all the weasel words saying that that is not right and the Government still thinks injury prevention is fantastic does not hide the fact that injury prevention is being cut by this Government now. That sends a very strong message. If all the National members who took calls—and there were not many of them—were genuinely concerned about saving money then surely they would see that injury prevention is the way to do that. 
It makes far more sense to spend a bit of money keeping people well. Let us be clear that every single piece of analysis of the programmes that were in place—my colleague Ruth Dyson mentioned the falls prevention programmes—were working. They were saving money. So to say that this is all about saving money is ridiculous when we consider that this Government has cut the very programmes that do save money. 
If I were to come up with an alternative title for this piece of legislation I think I would probably come up with a title along the lines of the “ACC (Kiss Your Holidays Goodbye) Amendment Bill”. I do not think the Minister for ACC is being completely up front with people. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 I wonder in speaking to this part which seeks a name change to the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill whether I could divert the Committee with a little homily on pre-parliamentary experience. It is relevant. Before becoming a member of Parliament I was a management consultant and worked for an insurance company over the ditch that specialised in accident insurance. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Not HIH? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I could not possibly comment but no it was not that one. The key point to make is there were three functions that needed to be undertaken that fit nicely with the name that is proposed by our side: the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. In looking at injury prevention rehabilitation and compensation we see that the first of those functions speaks to getting upstream and making sure that the environment is safer that people’s costs are minimised and that personal harm is minimised. A stitch in time saves nine and the investment in public information and public education pays huge dividends. So it proved to be. 
The second of those functions rehabilitation is absolutely critical especially on claims that are required for moderately serious injuries. A very small injury can often be fixed on the day within 24 hours and out of the door at a walk-in clinic. A moderately serious claim may require many weeks months or sometimes years of rehabilitation to get people back to work so that they can pay their way. 
The third category was the very serious claims that required intensive often lifetime management and compensation. That company was able to minimise the cost to its shareholders and the Crown by undertaking all three of those functions diligently as does I believe our accident compensation scheme. 
The issue with this name change is that it underplays two of those absolutely vital functions. It collects the burden on the organisation under the third function. Compensation should be the last cab off the rank not the first. If it does that it will not be good for New Zealanders who either are not educated to avoid accidents before they occur or are not rehabilitated to the same extent after they occur and we are left with what will be both increased human suffering and increased fiscal risk because the organisation will not be fitted as well to do its job. 
We can imagine that the motivation for National in suggesting the name change that Dr Smith has suggested in his amendment is not drawn from the library of Mark Twain. I suspect that it is not a stylistic amendment. By all reports this is a busy Government that has much on its plate. Would that Minister really spend his time on a purely semantic amendment? Quite obviously there is a broader game afoot. Things are not always as they seem and I think New Zealanders are finding that the penny is already dropping for them. Here is a Government that is bent on cutting and trimming the services that our accident compensation scheme makes available that it has interpreted in the most negative way. From the chair on down in regard to the financial circumstances of the corporation it has put the most pessimistic assumptions before the public and has used that as a pretext to undertake a rash of cuts. New Zealanders are deeply disturbed that the social contract is being broken. As well as that it makes absolutely no sense to do it in economic or management terms as this name change suggests. Each of the functions of preventing accidents rehabilitating those who are injured and only then fairly and fully compensating those who cannot be rehabilitated are equally important. 
If there is no human interest reason for the proposed change and if there can be no managerial or economic reason for it I ask what it is. One of my colleagues has suggested that perhaps it is a pretext for privatisation. We know and there is nothing outside the Standing Orders in recalling for the Parliament that Merrill Lynch a firm not unknown to the current Prime Minister advised its clients in the insurance industry that there were hundreds of millions of dollars of profit to be made should this Government proceed with privatising the New Zealand accident compensation scheme. That would be a tragedy for New Zealanders. The only beneficiary would be those Australian insurance companies or their like and that cannot be allowed to happen for the sake of New Zealanders. 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I have a couple of questions for the Minister for ACC. I will give them at the outset and then spend a little time trying to convince him that it is not a bad idea to answer them. The first question is: why change the name? We have been saying to the Minister that we think he has changed the name for this reason that we think he has changed the name for that reason and that we think he should have left the name alone for the other reason. We have been at that for a while and we have had no response. 
The second question is: when was the name changed? The last time a National Government took the axe to the accident compensation system was in the 1990s when the Rt Hon William Birch had a go. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Nick Smith was there too. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Nick Smith was there I was there and a few others in the Committee were there. The name change which put the word “insurance” in the title was made up front at the outset. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Always. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Maurice Williamson agrees with me. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: He’s not old enough to remember is he? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Maurice Williamson is old enough to remember. It is clear that the Government had a policy shift afoot and wanted to reflect that policy shift in the title so it did. It was upfront which gave us months to say that it should not have done it as it is not an insurance scheme; it is a social contract. That debate continues to this day. 
But not this time. This time the Government is taking the axe to the accident compensation system in all its totality. It is changing the first couple of words of the title of the bill from “Injury Prevention” to “Accident Compensation”. I would like to know when the Minister decided to do that and I gently challenge the Minister with the proposition that he had decided all along that he would change the name. He has after all had to be across this portfolio very tightly because he was the person who said that the accident compensation scheme was broken. No one else agreed with him but he said it and he stuck with it. He ran that line hard and fast. He then decided to proceed with the legislative changes that are in front of us today. 
The Minister started this issue so he has been across the issue for about 15 months. I wonder whether it is within the bounds of credibility that within that time he did not at some stage have some conversation either with himself or someone else about the name change. I suspect he did yet the legislation as introduced into the House was the same and no change was made to the title by Government members of the select committee. I am not aware of submissions calling for a name change. There may have been some; it would be interesting to know if the Minister would like to tell us about them. I suspect that the Minister had the name change in his back pocket all along. I think the Minister decided that he would do a little quickie and make the name change on the floor of the Chamber towards the end of the legislative process. That is my challenge. I would not call it as strong as an accusation but I would like the Minister to get up and give us his side of the story. 
Those are my two questions: why did the Government believe that a name change was a good idea and when did the Government—or indeed the Minister—decide to change the name? I wonder whether the Minister would care to indicate whether he would like to respond to me. If he does not want to respond I am happy to continue with the debate and I thank the Chair for allowing me the opportunity to do so. However as soon at the Minister twitches a muscle I will happily sit down. I am just making that clear to the Minister and to the Chair. 
On the substantial issue of the name change I think an important point to make is that as with the health system prevention is where the cheap benefits come. Prevention is a cost-effective activity; compensation is not a cost-effective activity. I want to know from the Government why it has chosen something that is determinedly and systematically inefficient. This Government is preoccupied with economic growth and with catching up with Australia yet with this name change it has arguably chosen an approach that is known to be less efficient. If there is to be a downturn a downsizing or a reduction in attention to injury prevention or if more programmes of the ilk of the University of Otago Faculty of Medicine falls prevention programme are to be cut I want the Minister to explain to the Committee why he thinks that will be economically efficient. I tell members to notice how I am choosing my language. In essence this is a social portfolio but I ask the Minister why he thinks that would be more economically efficient. 
JO GOODHEW (Junior Whip—National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to add my concern to the concerns that have been raised about why we are removing very important words from the title of this bill—words like “injury prevention” and “rehabilitation”—but I want to take a slightly different approach. I intend in this contribution to tie this issue back to some of the strategic priorities of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) because I wonder what the implications of this message the Minister is sending are for the corporation and its work. 
In relation to injury prevention I say that that is clearly the way we could make a real difference to cost containment. Cost containment is supposedly one of the major drivers for many of the changes in this bill; there is very little other justification for some of the arbitrary unfair and discriminatory provisions in the bill. When it comes down to it we are told that the reason for the bill is cost containment. The provision around holidays will save $1 million a year so that is a cost containment measure but even Treasury wonders whether such a small saving is worth it for the unfairness of the provision. That was the advice given. 
But I go back to the words “injury prevention”. These are the most fundamental words that should be in the name of this bill and of any bill to do with accident compensation because injury prevention is where it should start. Injury prevention is more than just cost containment. Obviously it is the most effective way of containing cost but more important it is about ensuring that people do not have accidents—that people do not get hurt that they do not die at work and that they do not lose their parents spouse or child through workplace fatalities see them severely incapacitated through workplace accidents or see them lose income from being off work for a period of time. Injury prevention is about people’s lives and protecting people yet submitter after submitter has said that injury prevention is what is missing here. 
I will finalise my comments in relation to injury prevention by noting that a strategic priority of ACC is to work to reduce injuries and occupational diseases. I wonder what this title is saying in relation to that strategic priority. Thank you. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: We have a number of amendments in the name of Darien Fenton which propose to change and amend the title of the bill. I draw members’ attention to a Standing Order on page 27: “preliminary clauses means the title clause and the commencement clause and if applicable a principal Act clause”—so this preliminary clause is the title clause. The second issue here is that the amendments that are going to make changes must not to be an attempt to criticise the contents. They must be a serious or objective description of the bill rather than simply being an attempt to relitigate issues and criticise the contents. Accordingly the following amendments have been ruled out. These are the amendments that insert words as follows: “Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation (Reduced Emphasis on Rehabilitation to Reduce Costs) Amendment Act 2010” “Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation (Primary of Cost Reduction) Amendment Act 2010”— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am sorry to interrupt you but just from the point of view of being helpful could you repeat the Standing Order you are quoting; 27 I thought you said is— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: No page 22. I am ahead of myself a little bit on that because this will come up later— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: So you are going to move through the different amendments to the amendment in the names of the different members and say which ones are not consistent in your view as Chairman. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The first ones we are dealing with here are amendments that attempt to criticise the contents of the bill; amendments have to be serious and in order. If they are an attempt to relitigate issues or criticise the bill the Speakers’ rulings are that they are out of order. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: And you are going to do that— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I am going to go through and explain them. In the first amendment I have ruled out just the words in brackets “(Reduced Emphasis on Rehabilitation to Reduce Costs)”— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: In whose name is that one? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Darien Fenton. I am dealing with ones by Darien Fenton at this stage. The amendments that seek to insert the words “Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation (Experience Ratings) Amendment Act 2010” “Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation (Alignment with Commercial Insurance Practices) Amendment Act 2010” “Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation (Alignment with Australian Practices) Amendment Act 2010” “Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation (Non-Work and Work Account Cost Shifting) Amendment Act 2010” “Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation (Holiday Pay Exhausted Before Compensation Paid) Amendment Act 2010” “Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation (Removal of Cover For Those Who Attempt Suicide) Amendment Act 2010” “Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation (Reduction of Cover for those With Hearing Impairments) Amendment Act 2010” and “Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation (Removal of Cover For Those Who Attempt Suicide Reduction of Cover For Those With Hearing Impairments Holiday Pay Exhausted Before Compensation Paid and Non-Work and Work Account Cost Shifting) Amendment Act 2010” are ruled out. 
I now move to the amendment that is in order from Darien Fenton—that is the amendment to amend the title of the Act to “Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation (Rebalancing Between Non-Work and Work Accounts) Amendment Act 2010”. That is in order. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I accept your comments about any titles or amendments that might be deemed to be taking away from the meaning of the bill’s title as it currently stands. But in relation to amendments such as “Alignment with Australian Practices” I note that we have a bill in the urgency motion relating to trans-Tasman proceedings and alignment. I do not mean to be flippant—any reference to Australia by some New Zealanders would be considered offensive—but I think I can say that this is a serious amendment and it fits in with other bills that are on the urgency motion. It is hard to see how an alignment with Australian practices would be somehow demeaning. 
Equally Mr Chairperson the removal of cover for those who attempt suicide and a reduction of cover for those with hearing impairments are statements of fact; that is what the legislation does. If it said “The Terrible and Unfair Removal of Cover for Those with Hearing Impairment” I think that would be inconsistent with the Standing Orders with regard to the way in which we would be putting a conjecture on the title. But simply for you to say that “Reduction of Cover for Those With Hearing Impairments” is “criticising” when there are clauses that state exactly that in the bill proper makes it hard for us to see how that can be inconsistent. 
I am not going against the other points you have made. We accept that those are out of order—the “Non-work and Work Account Cost Shifting” provision for example—but not those three particular ones. I would have thought that “Alignment with Australian Practices” was a very neutral phrase and the “Reduction of Cover For Those With Hearing Impairments” is—political differences aside—what the law does; the Minister has given speeches about that. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: In response to the member I make two points. Firstly the Chair’s decision is final and no correspondence is entered into but in this case I am happy to accept a point of order. The issue here is that the title is to describe the whole bill. This phrase describes an aspect of the bill; it is not an attempt to describe the whole bill. The title has to be an objective description of the bill and when an amendment picks out just an aspect it is to make a political point rather than to objectively describe the bill. The bill’s title has to be a wide generic term rather than contain specifics in the bill. 
The point I make again is that amendments are also ruled out when they attempt to highlight a point of difference in the debate or political differences over the bill. On that basis I ruled out the amendment. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Thank you for your ruling on that—that clears that aspect of it—but can you advise the Committee? These are all amendments to the amendment. The Minister himself Dr Smith has put forward Supplementary Order Paper 111 which is a significant Supplementary Order Paper and which in itself renames the legislation. I think it renames it the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill when clearly there are clauses in respective parts of the bill that cover injury prevention and rehabilitation. So the name that the Minister’s amendment chooses highlights just one aspect of what his law is doing—because it is about accident compensation; it will give weekly compensation to people who have accidents—but it takes away the words “Injury Prevention” and “Rehabilitation” which the Minister’s law also covers. So how does it work when a conjecture is put on an Opposition amendment but the amendment itself that we are trying to amend does equally the same thing? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Well in respect of the member’s point I tell him that one of the amendments that he objected to for example was the alignment with Australian practices. That is not a particular aspect of compensation; that relates to a point of view that people in this Chamber have or do not have. I come back to what I ruled: the amendment generally has to be an objective description of the bill not a relitigation of particular points. 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I have listened quite carefully to this and of course it is your ruling and I understand that you alone get to rule on it. That is clear to me. What I am seeking to understand however is whether an amendment to a title that said for example the “Accident Compensation (Reduction of Certain Rights and Services) Act” would be in order on the grounds that although it points out something that the Government may not wish to see pointed out from a political lens it is nonetheless a broad description of the essence of the legislation that is in front of us. Would a title of that ilk be deemed to be within the Standing Orders on the basis of your ruling? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Speakers’ ruling 112/4 states: “An amendment to the title of a bill must be a serious or objective description of the bill rather than an attempt to criticise its contents.” The point the member has made is that it is an attempt to criticise the contents. Whether the member believes it to be entirely true or not in the way the member has described it it is a negative and therefore a criticism of it. 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. That gets us somewhere further. What then if the House were generally to agree that this was a reduction in services and certain rights? If the Government held the view that that title was accurate would that influence the Chair? How does the Chair decide whether a reduction in certain services and rights is an accurate but nonetheless pejorative entitlement for a piece of legislation? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: If the Government was of that opinion it would have moved it. 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 Oh no that is not the point. If I might gently contest your view I say to you that that is not an answer to my question either. The question is: if an Opposition moves something that is in essence accurate—that is to say accurate in the terms that it is serious—but is nonetheless pejorative in the sense that it is critical because Oppositions do that sort of thing does that fall within the Standing Orders? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The member has answered his own question. I will pick up Speakers’ ruling 112/4 and read it: “An amendment to the title of a bill must be a serious or objective description of the bill rather than an attempt to criticise its contents.” A pejorative by definition is a criticism; it is a negative. So by the member’s own words his objection fails because it does not meet what Speakers’ rulings have ruled before. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I think we are getting somewhere on this so please just hear me out. I think Mr Hodgson is putting to you the question of whether there is any test for an amendment to the title by a Government Minister on a bill. Supplementary Order Paper 111 changes the name of the principal Act and gives it an emphasis that does not marry off the other two things that the existing law does: injury prevention and rehabilitation. I think we are trying to ascertain whether an Opposition amendment can be struck out on the basis that it could be perceived as being a negative criticism. In a couple of ones that have been ruled out of order there was no criticism; they were just statements of fact. Does Speakers’ ruling 112/4 apply equally to Government amendments because once we have voted on the amendments to the amendments we are going to shortly vote on an exact example of this from the other side of the Chamber? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The member is correct in that a Government amendment that was negative would be ruled out accordingly. But as I see the Government’s amendment it is not a negative. It might not traverse the ground the member desires to have in it but it is not in itself a negative. 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I appreciate that we are testing your patience but let me see where we might need to go. We might need to go to the Speaker now or at some later time to try to get clarity around this. 
The Speakers’ ruling has two parts to it. You have read it out to us more than once and I thank you for doing so. The two parts are that the amendment must achieve several things. It must be a serious amendment to the title. It must be a serious amendment that describes the legislation on the one hand. Then the Speakers’ ruling goes on to say that it must be that rather than a criticism of the legislation. Well the problem the Opposition has is that a serious description of the title an accurate description of the title may be—and we would assert in this case must be—critical. So it is no fault of yours dear Mr Chair because it is a Speakers’ ruling from earlier times. But the Speakers’ ruling has two parts to it as if one of the two must be true. In fact it is easy to show that an accurate description of legislation must in order to be accurate also be critical. That is in the essence of it our conundrum. I say that the problem for you Mr Chairman if I may be so bold is that you are obliged to choose one of the two parts of that dichotomy. We would assert that you should choose the other. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Well it is the Chair’s decision. I have heard plenty on this. I want to make the point again that the amendments to the title are to be serious and objective descriptions and are not to attempt to criticise the contents. Many of the amendments I have ruled out do exactly that; there is no question about that. There are some and I am just coming to them that are serious amendments in my opinion and that do not attempt to directly criticise the contents. I want to move on to these. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Darien Fenton to the proposed amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of the Hon Dr Nick Smith to clause 1 be agreed to: 
to omit “Accident Compensation Amendment Act 2010” and substitute “Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation (Rebalancing Between Non-Work and Work Accounts) Amendment Act 2010”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment to the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment to the amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Darien Fenton to the proposed amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of the Hon Dr Nick Smith to clause 1 be agreed to: 
to omit “Accident Compensation Amendment Act 2010” and substitute “Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation (Urgent Changes) Amendment Act 2010”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment to the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment to the amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: We now move to the amendments in the name of Lynne Pillay. These too propose to amend the proposed amendment to the title of the bill and are also ruled out of order as being either a criticism or a non-objective description of the bill. Those are the views of the Clerk and I support the Clerk’s views. 
The following proposed substitutions in the name of Lynne Pillay are also ruled out of order: “Accident Compensation (Reduced Emphasis on Rehabilitation to Reduce Costs) Amendment Act 2010” “Accident Compensation (Primary of Cost Reduction) Amendment Act 2010” Accident Compensation (Experience Ratings) Amendment Act 2010” “Accident Compensation (Alignment with Commercial Insurance Practices) Amendment Act 2010” “Accident Compensation (Alignment with Australian Practices) Amendment Act 2010” “Accident Compensation (Rebalancing Between Non-Work and Work Accounts) Amendment Act 2010” “Accident Compensation (Non-Work and Work Account Cost Shifting) Amendment Act 2010” “Accident Compensation (Holiday Pay Exhausted Before Compensation Paid) Amendment Act 2010” “Accident Compensation (Removal of Cover For Those Who Attempt Suicide) Amendment Act 2010 “Accident Compensation (Reduction of Cover For Those With Hearing Impairments) Amendment Act 2010 and “Accident Compensation (Removal of Cover For Those Who Attempt Suicide Reduction of Cover For Those With Hearing Impairments Holiday Pay Exhausted Before Compensation Paid and Non-Work and Work Account Cost Shifting) Amendment Act 2010”. Further amendments to change the bill’s proposed title back to the bill’s original title are ruled out of order as that is a direct negative. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. One of the amendments to the Minister’s proposed amendment that you ruled out of order was the Accident Compensation (Rebalancing Between Non-Work and Work Accounts) Amendment Act 2010. There was a similar amendment in Darien Fenton’s name which had that same language about a rebalancing between the non-work and work accounts and which you allowed previously. 
Maybe while you are checking that Mr Chairperson I will also raise a point about the reference to “Experience Ratings”. Does that fall into the same category as your earlier ruling about it—that of being only one part of the bill? It seems to me that that is not pejorative in any sense; it is a scheme that is funded by that method. But my primary point of order certainly relates to the amendment with regard to “Rebalancing Between Non-Work and Work Accounts”. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 One of the rules of the Committee is that members cannot put the same question twice. The amendment that was put forward by Lynne Pillay with regard to that name change was absolutely identical to that which was put forward by Darien Fenton and put to the vote. The normal practice is that it is the first version that is put forward and voted on. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 The difference between the two amendments is that one was for an Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation name for the principal Act and the other one was for an Accident Compensation name for the principal Act. So they were two different amendments. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I have sought advice gone upstairs to the “TMO” and asked them to look at it. The Hon Dr Nick Smith is correct and Lynne Pillay’s amendment is substantially the same as the one before that was allowed. Normally it would have been ruled out as having been voted on but there is a minor but sufficient difference between them. The Clerk has now considered the advice and the amendment in the name of Lynne Pillay to omit all the words after “substitute” and to insert “Accident Compensation (Rebalancing Between Non-Work and Work Accounts)” will be put. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Thank you for your ruling. There is just one point that I would like to draw to your attention. Although you are again attempting to inject a sense of humour into the Committee we should make it clear that the judgments that have been made in this case are your judgments Mr Chairperson and not the Clerk’s judgments. It is important to keep that clear even though there is whispering into your earpiece. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The member has made the point. Of course the member knows that in the end the decisions are the Chair’s decisions but as the member also well knows the Chair and the Speaker consult with the Clerk regularly and take the Clerk’s advice which I have done on this particular occasion. We now come to the amendment in the name of Lynne Pillay that I have reinstated. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Lynne Pillay to the proposed amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of the Hon Dr Nick Smith to clause 1 be agreed to: 
to omit “Accident Compensation Amendment Act 2010” and substitute “Accident Compensation (Rebalancing Between Non-Work and Work Accounts) Amendment Act 2010”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment to the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment to the amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Lynne Pillay to the proposed amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of the Hon Dr Nick Smith to clause 1 be agreed to: 
to omit “Accident Compensation Amendment Act 2010” and substitute “Revised Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2010”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment to the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment to the amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Lynne Pillay to the proposed amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of the Hon Dr Nick Smith to clause 1 be agreed to: 
to omit “Accident Compensation Amendment Act 2010” and substitute “Accident Compensation (Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation) Amendment Act 2010”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment to the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment to the amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Lynne Pillay to the proposed amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of the Hon Dr Nick Smith to clause 1 be agreed to: 
to omit “Accident Compensation Amendment Act 2010” and substitute “Accident Compensation (Urgent Changes) Amendment Act 2010”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment to the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment to the amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: We also have a number of amendments in the name of Carol Beaumont. These also propose to amend the Minister’s proposed amendment to the title of the bill. A number of the amendments are also ruled out of order for being either a criticism or a non-objective description of the bill. I will read them out: “Accident Compensation Corporation (Reduced Emphasis on Rehabilitation to Reduce Costs) Amendment Act 2010” “Accident Compensation Corporation (Primary of Cost Reduction) Amendment Act 2010” “Accident Compensation Corporation (Experience Ratings) Amendment Act 2010” Accident Compensation Corporation (Alignment with Commercial Insurance Practices) Amendment Act 2010” Accident Compensation Corporation (Alignment with Australian Practices) Amendment Act 2010” Accident Compensation Corporation (Non-Work and Work Account Cost Shifting) Amendment Act 2010” “Accident Compensation Corporation (Holiday Pay Exhausted Before Compensation Paid) Amendment Act 2010” Accident Compensation Corporation (Removal of Cover For Those Who Attempt Suicide) Amendment Act 2010” Accident Compensation Corporation (Reduction of Cover For Those With Hearing Impairments) Amendment Act 2010” and “Accident Compensation Corporation (Removal of Cover For Those Who Attempt Suicide Reduction of Cover For Those With Hearing Impairments Holiday Pay Exhausted Before Compensation Paid and Non-Work and Work Account Cost Shifting) Amendment Act 2010”. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Carol Beaumont to the proposed amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of the Hon Dr Nick Smith to clause 1 be agreed to: 
to omit “Accident Compensation Amendment Act 2010” and substitute “Accident Compensation Corporation (Rebalancing Between Non-Work and Work Accounts) Amendment Act 2010. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment to the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment to the amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: We come now to an amendment in the name of Carol Beaumont to change the name of the Act to the Accident Compensation Corporation (Urgent Changes) Amendment Act 2010. But that title is so close to one in an amendment in the name of Lynne Pillay that we have already voted on—to change the name to the “Accident Compensation (Urgent Changes) Amendment Act”; the title is almost identical—that I rule the amendment out of order. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of the Hon Dr Nick Smith to clause 1 be agreed to. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I seek your advice about the order in which amendments are dealt with. Is this the Minister’s amendment that deals with clause 1 only— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Correct. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: So the amendments set down for clauses 2 or 3 will be considered subsequent to these ones? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Correct. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: And there is only one set of Minister’s amendments in his Supplementary Order Paper—is that correct? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: We are dealing with the Minister’s amendment relating to clause 1 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 and not with amendments to clauses 2 or 3. OK? 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Amendment agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 1 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Clause 1 as amended agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Steve Chadwick to clause 2 be agreed to: 
to omit from subclause (1) “1 July 2010” and substitute “1 November 2025”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I have taken advice members and the ruling will be that as the Committee has rejected the proposal to change the commencement date all other amendments are substantially the same and inconsistent with the Committee’s earlier decision and are therefore out of order. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The Opposition views this matter quite seriously because it is a continuation of an approach that has been taken around amendments being submitted by the Opposition. The only mechanism that Opposition parties have in order to have influence on legislation in the Committee of the whole House is by way of amendment. 
There is a series of points to be made here. First of all these are all individual amendments. The value of the next amendment cannot be determined by the fact that there might be several other amendments that contain dates that are different from the one in the amendment we are currently voting for. They are separate amendments. 
Secondly this is legislation about the accident compensation scheme. There is significant political debate about the timing in regard to the dates in the scheme. It has been subject to debate and to submissions during the select committee process. During that time the concept of dates becomes critical to the passage of the bill through Parliament. To rule out all the amendments that have been made simply because a decision has been made about one particular date when there are so many dates around this area I think is very unfair on the Opposition and I do not think it is in the spirit of the ability to make amendments to legislation. 
It follows on from what happened previously when the Opposition put up well-thought-out amendments that were dismissed because the Government said that there might be some sort of fiscal impact on it. Those were taken out as well. What has now been ruled from the Chair is that there will be a determination on Opposition amendments that will deny the ability of the Opposition to make amendments to legislation before Parliament. I regard that as very very serious indeed considering that not only is this important legislation but also from a process point of view the rights of members of Parliament to bring amendments to the legislation before the floor of the Committee is a very very important right and the Chair is proposing to take that away on the basis that there are simply too many. I think that is the wrong way to come towards that determination simply on the balance of other work before the Committee. 
These amendments that have been put in and that are in order ought to be voted on by the Committee on their own merits and the Government can vote against them. That is the choice before the Committee. But forcing the Committee into a position whereby Opposition amendments are considered only on the basis of what is going on that day which appears to be what is happening I think is a hugely retrograde step and it actually takes away rights from the Opposition that I regard as being quite serious. I ask you to give some serious consideration to that Mr Chairperson because it may be an issue that we need to seek the view of the Speaker on. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 The senior Opposition whip is being rather cute here. We have 1066 amendments that would involve the Committee in many many hours of debating. The purpose of this Parliament is to have good robust debate. If you allow these amendments Mr Chairperson you are saying that the Opposition can effectively stall the parliamentary process by simply listing a forward date—1 day 2 days or 3 days—and can technically table 20000 100000 or 200000 amendments and force this Parliament to a standstill for what is actually not a principled argument in this Parliament doing as it should which is robustly arguing issues of concern. 
What it effectively will do is say that the Opposition can bring the Parliament and its work to a halt. It can make a farce of the process and it can tie this institution which costs of tens of thousands of dollars every hour in meaningless votes over a whole lot of different dates when really the principal issue is that Labour does not agree with the bill not that it somehow wants to defer it off to 1066 different dates when it might be implemented. We cannot allow our Parliament to be made into a farce. I think the ruling we have had from the Chair is absolutely fair and proper. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 There is a kernel of truth in one of the points made by the Minister. Of course it is technically possible for this Parliament to be flooded every single day it meets with unlimited numbers of amendments by Opposition parties. That is true every single time it meets. It is within the purview of Opposition members to take points of order if they wish all during question time. Indeed the Minister himself made quite a feature of that during 9 years in Opposition. It was quite an art that he had perfected. All those things are possible but the reality is that they do not happen because Parliament operates on a series of understandings and conventions and a will to get things done 99 percent of the time. [ 
Interruption 
] If the Minister wants to use his open microphone to interject he can but the point I make to you Mr Chairperson is that these things do not happen because Parliament’s business must go through and the Opposition cooperates with that. 
But what has become very clear is that the Government is trying to roll over the top of the Opposition this week shutting down parliamentary question time for example so that there is no question time between now and 17 March. We have had amendments that were ruled out by way of financial veto. The Minister who himself talked about the ability to have robust debate in this Parliament did not take a call at any stage today in order to defend his own legislation so we could accuse him of a breach of parliamentary protocol. 
What I am saying is that it is very unusual for the Opposition to lodge this number of amendments but the fact that it has happened and the fact that there are so many and that of course it involves a lot of work for a lot of people does not undermine the fact that these are amendments that are in order and it is within the ability of Parliament for the Opposition to do this. You are being asked to take into account a far wider gamut of things than would normally be the case. For example many times during a normal day where the Government orders of the day take precedence the Opposition puts up amendments. It could be argued that some of them have some level of fiscal impact but we do not see the Government running around like it did at 2 o’clock today with the Leader of the House coming in and ruling out all of those amendments. In that case there were only three amendments—all three very substantial amendments; in particular the amendment of my colleague Mr Anderton who put up a new part around for example suicide. 
They were very sensitive and serious matters and I think that what has been done here is for the fact that there is a feeling there is some time pressure and the Government is unhappy about the fact that things are going slower than it would have liked to see—and let me assure the Committee that it is the master of its own destiny in that particular respect; the Opposition had a reasonable deal to cooperate on all these matters. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: We would have finished this by now. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: One of the ironies is that this bill would be law by now if the approach that Dr Smith and Mr Brownlee had taken had not been the case. It would have passed its third reading so there is a degree of irony in that. 
But all of that is just by the by. What is important is that amendments that are in order that are submitted to the Clerk’s Office should be able to be voted on on their own merits and not be held up in wider political concerns that are not your responsibility as Chairman. Your responsibility as Chairman is to the Committee and to make sure that the rights of the minority can be advanced here. I think the fact that this is something that happens rarely should be a message in itself to the Government but to the Committee it is simply a case of our amendments being able to be considered by the Committee of the whole House and I do not think that other matter should be taken into account. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. [ 
Interruption 
] Before I do so I ask that you deal with David Bennett and Gerry Brownlee who interjected after I was given the call on a point of order. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I am not going to deal with anybody. People on both sides have been guilty of making comments and interjecting on points of order. It has not yet got to a level that I have found objectionable. If the member wants complete silence on points of order then I suggest to the member and to his own party that they set that standard for themselves and I will judge the rest of the Committee accordingly. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The first thing I refer you to Mr Chairperson is the rulings made on 7 April 2005 in regard to the Hon Dr Nick Smith and his approach at that time. It is something that I think does need to be looked at. The second point is to ask you: when the Government has a remedy—[ 
Interruption 
] What is happening now Mr Chairperson? The Minister is talking into an open— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The member will sit down. If I want to talk to the Minister and ask him a question as an aside I can do three or four things at once. I do not need that member to tell me not to do so. Secondly I had my finger on the microphone. It was not an open microphone. This is the second time the member has interrupted his own point of order. If the member wants to raise a point of order he should stand make the point of order and be terse and direct. I will listen to it attentively. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Of course I accept that you can do more than one thing at once. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The member well knows that one is not allowed to refer to a ruling on a point of order that has been dealt with. The member is relitigating the issue that he raised before. I ask the member to come to his point of order and make his point of order tersely. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: There is a long-established method of dealing with changes in commencement dates for a Government that is awake and that is for itself to move an amendment that rules the amendments out. That has been done here in the past; it was done last year and the year before by a Government faced with this situation. 
The fact that John Carter is not here to run things for Mr Brownlee and that the Government was caught flat-footed should not be an excuse for it to hide behind this approach. I am sure that the Speaker will be involved in this matter—well I am not sure because you might see reason but it is likely. There is a precedent in this matter. The precedent in the past has always been that the Government deals with this through the tools that it has rather than having the amendments ruled out. It has been caught flat-footed and it is my view that it is not your job Mr Chairperson to protect them for that. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 That was not a point of order; it was a highly political statement and an attack on you Mr Chairperson and the Chair. No one would seriously believe that the series of amendments that the Labour Party has put up are the work of people who are strenuously engaged in trying to get better legislation. It is the ultimate filibuster. I think the fact that the Government is able to set aside some of the silly defensive moves that need to be taken because of what the Opposition should do is something that New Zealanders should be proud of. They need to see the Labour Party for what it is and what it is doing right here today. 
The fact is that Labour members are shrugging their shoulders and saying that we will be here for ever—well that is OK—and that we should have had a question time today. We should also have had select committees sitting today if there was going to be a question time but the Labour members do not consider them to be important at all unless it is something that they want to do themselves. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The member is straying into the very area he accused the Opposition of straying into: being political. I have given the member as much latitude as I am going to on this matter. If the member wishes to make a point of order he should make the point of order be terse and be direct to the point he is seeking to make. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: My point is that I think for the good order of the Committee if there has been by way of a vote an expression about the desire of the Committee to accept a particular date as being the date we work with then it becomes utterly frivolous for the Committee to continue suggesting other dates. That is the way you have ruled and I think it is absolutely appropriate. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I think there are two points to be made from that. They are simple and it is easy to do so in a terse manner. 
The first point is that the House has not accepted a date; it has rejected a date. There has not been any acceptance whatsoever of a date by this House; there has not been a vote on that question. The second point I should make regards a reflection on you Mr Chairperson. Saying that the Government wishes to set aside these amendments as time-wasting as Gerry Brownlee did— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: No I didn’t. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: That is exactly what Gerry Brownlee said: that the Government wants to set aside these amendments. This is a decision for you to make Mr Chairperson and for the member to imply that you are doing the work of the Government is a reflection that I think is wrong and almost obscene. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: Oh this will be good! 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: We will have quiet. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: After you anything would be. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I call for order. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: There are a number of amendments in my name and I want to assure the Committee that they are not frivolous or time-wasting. They are serious amendments in my name and I ask to be taken on my word as an honourable member as we had to do for Mr Gerry Brownlee when he said he had official advice. These amendments are not time-wasting or frivolous and I reject that implication. They are serious amendments and I ask to be taken on my word as an honourable member. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I will not suggest that anybody is dishonourable; I will not make any of those implications. I will make several points about this. 
Firstly the ruling that I have made is I understand from the Clerk consistent with other decisions that have been made previously. If members doubt that then they are perfectly entitled to use the well-worn process of challenging the Chair’s decision. I also come back to the point made by the Hon Darren Hughes that this ruling somehow takes away members’ rights to move amendments. That is not the case at all. Members have the unfettered right to move amendments. Whether they are accepted by the Chair is another matter but it does not stop members’ ability to move amendments. 
The next point I come to is about the date and House procedure. Mr Mallard is not correct in saying that the House has made no decision about the date at all; the House has made a decision about the date at the bill’s first reading and second reading. The bill has been before the House and has been passed including the date on two particular occasions. A further point I make is that the bill has been before the select committee and has been through a select committee process. This bill is nothing new to the Committee. Whether or not members like it the fact is that the material has been through the House and has been well thought through. 
Another point I make about the date is that the amendment to change the date one day at a time would have meant that we could have had enormous numbers of amendments that do not change things particularly at all but are substantially the same. The Committee could find itself in the position of not only just changing the date. We could go through every minute of the day saying that instead of midnight it was 11.59— 
Moana Mackey 
: They could but they do not. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I am not saying they do; I am saying that we could get to this point. The issue here is substantiality in my opinion. Does it substantially change the issue or not? This sequence of amendments does not substantially change the legislation; it makes minor amendments to test it. As to the point made by Mr Mallard about the previous events those were tactics. They were not precedents; they were tactics to change things. 
So I think that the key part of this has been that the House has seen this legislation on two occasions before and has seen it through the select committee. The House is well familiar with it. The ultimate test will be whether the Committee accepts it as it is going to vote shortly on the actual date. That will be the test. If the Committee rejects the date it is over. The point is that the date is well understood. I propose to continue with the ruling that having voted on one amendment to change the date to have a succession of amendments that marginally change the dates is out of order. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I would like to get some advice from you about the advice that you are receiving. You make the point that you could change the commencement time from midnight to 3 p.m. or something like that. All those things are technically possible. As I said before those things do not happen because the place operates on understandings and agreements. When things are managed in a way that prevents that from happening for whatever reason—which is still beyond us—those things can fall away and the only— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: Shut down select committees; it’s simple! 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Order! 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I was helping. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: No the member was not helping. I ask the member to stand and apologise to the Committee for interrupting. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I apologise to the Committee for interrupting. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: The fact is that those arrangements have not been able to be arrived at. Then of course all that the Opposition can rely on are the rules and the procedures that are set out in the Standing Orders. For example it has been possible over time to get up and seek leave to table each individual Standing Order. The Leader of the House himself did that when he was shadow Leader of the House. In fact if you look at the  
Hansard 
 from Thursday 7 April 2005 you will see Nick Smith the Minister in the chair seeking leave to table individual Standing Orders. So these things are not new. 
But I am asking for your advice Mr Chairperson with regard to the child discipline legislation when it was a bill going through the Committee of the whole House. A member moved many hundreds of amendments around the commencement date of that particular bill. They were all accepted and were due to be voted on by the Committee and there was a mechanism the Government used in order to move its own amendment because it was set out separately from the way these amendments are with their reverse date order. There was no suggestion at all that the member’s amendments could not be considered simply because there were so many of them. I think that is the point we are trying to make to you. 
These are items where there is precedent for the way that Parliament votes. Just because we very occasionally—once last year and hopefully just once this year but we are in February so who knows—get into a situation like this I think it is wrong to say that the ordinary rules of parliamentary procedure cannot apply for the Opposition simply because there are so many of them and because that has led to a situation where there is some grumpiness on the other side of the Chamber. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. It follows on from that one and is related to it. My colleague has given you the precedent for amendments of this type being accepted. I will accept that there were not as many of them but there were a substantial number of them and they were accepted by the Chair. You have indicated to the Committee that there is precedent for things being ruled out. You indicated that you had had advice to that effect. All I would ask would be for a reference to  
Hansard 
 or 
 Speakers’ Rulings 
 for something as specific as this being ruled out. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I draw the member’s attention to  
Erskine May 
 page 401 on restrictions on contents of amendments: “Various considerations that render amendments out of order have been described earlier. An amendment is also out of order if it is inconsistent with an amendment already agreed to or if it is substantially the same as an amendment to the same motion which has already been negatived.” I repeat: “substantially the same as an amendment to the same motion which has already been negatived.” 
I would have thought that an amendment that sought to change 1 July to 1 November which was voted down and a second amendment to change 1 July to 31 October were substantially the same. We are talking about 24 hours. The point that is being made here is that the amendments have to be substantially different. These amendments in my view are not substantially different. If it was a matter on which the legislation turned dramatically and the legislation had not been before the Committee before and had not been to select committee the member might have an argument. 
The point I would make to members is that this legislation that been to the House before. It has been canvassed by a select committee and the select committee report came back without any particular sense of outrage about the date. I think the matter has been well canvassed by the House before and these amendments are not substantially different. I say to members that I am not taking any more points of order on that. I have ruled. I have ruled the points of order out and I will proceed to put the vote. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. It is a new point of order. Of course we disagree but we accept the ruling you have made. 
I raise a point of order with you for future practice about how Oppositions can have some certainty on their amendments and it may be something on which you will come back to us. This is a proportional representational Parliament; since 1998 the Government has been a minority Government and there are shifting coalitions of parties around different bills even within confidence and supply agreements. It has become a feature of our system that minority Governments can regularly be defeated on a particular bill in the House. It is not the end of the world because they have arrangements for confidence and supply elsewhere. 
Let us say you make that ruling because a majority of the Committee voted against for example the date of 31 October 2025 because there was not a majority for that—and there are a lot of amendments in there. If it was the case that a majority of the Committee was in favour of for example 30 April 2025 a 6-month difference which I think would be a substantial enough difference how can the Chair or the Committee know that if as soon as the first vote is taken it is assumed that there is a majority against every single amendment that has been put up by a member? In the shifting coalitions that take place around bills it may well be that a subsequent amendment quite further through the ones that are being put up would be able to find the majority of members of Parliament down the track. You cannot possibly know that at the point you rule out the first amendment. This is an example but it is a broader sort of issue which is why we would be keen for your view. 
It seems to me that the danger we could get into is that this is quite a first-past-the-post model. It assumes that once there is a defeat on the first amendment that is it and there can be no other chance for Parliament to support another style of the amendment that may come down the track. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I think the shadow Leader of the House raises an interesting point. If I can correct him I say that we have probably had minority Government in this country since about mid-1994. The point is though— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: No 1996. New Zealand First and National— 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: We have if we look at our history. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I want the member to sit down. Mr Hughes has interrupted the point of order. I want him to apologise to the Committee for interrupting. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: He is a young man and he probably does not remember back that far. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Order! 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I promise not to make fun about his size if he does not make fun about my age. I can do something about my problem. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Can I just say that I am getting a little bit frustrated by this. Members are to make points of order that are about the order. I am not interested in debating the pros and cons of MMP or the sweep of history. I am confronted here by a particular point and I am about to hold a vote. This is the only remit I have here at the moment. This point of order has to be about this matter. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I think your decision should stand because the argument that Mr Hughes has just advanced is that in the few seconds that might elapse between one vote being put and the other the arrangements in the Committee could be reconfigured such that people might consider 1 day’s movement in the dates proposed to be suddenly acceptable. That is utterly preposterous. As he says himself we have now had a long history of coalition Governments and I do not recall any such change in the midst of a vote. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. It is close to but not exactly on the point that my colleague Darren Hughes has raised. I think it is close enough that we do not have to start a new one. It goes to the question of what is substantially the same. I find a compelling logic in your suggestion that shifting the date by a day would not make a lot of difference. 
The question I have is whether a 1-month change or a 6-month change is in fact something that is substantially the same. I think that is what you are being asked to rule on. With some reluctance and I can feel some stares already from the members behind me I can accept a ruling that indicates that a day-by-day approach is— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: That’s not the ruling. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I ask the member to constrain himself. I want to hear Mr Mallard make his point of order. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The point I am making is that I can accept given the compelling logic we have had from the Chair on the point that a day-by-day approach is one where there might not be a lot of substance in the difference.  
The question I have though is that if something is a month apart—even a week apart but say a month apart—whether that is substantially different and whether the Committee should be given the opportunity to rule on that. What I am inviting you to do is to amend your ruling to probably rule out the majority of the amendments but to allow the Committee to vote on a sample of them say a month or a week apart with a ruling that that is enough of a difference for the Committee to be allowed to voice an opinion. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Can I just say to the honourable member that I am certainly not going to do that. The moment I draw a line and say that it is a month or 6 weeks I can hear another 3 hours of debate and points of order saying that I have got the snapshot wrong. I will not take any more points of order on this issue but I will make a couple of preliminary comments. 
Firstly it would seem to me that the substantiality argument would be a judgment that would be made at the time by any future Chair. It would be made on the basis of how important the date was in terms of the implications of the legislation. That would be driven by the debate about the issue during the Committee stage or during the discussion of the bill. I have heard no such debate thus far only at this particular point in time. In respect of the substantiality argument on some occasions it might be small numbers and on other occasions it might be big numbers but it would be determined by the debate. I will not hypothetically project into the future what substantiality would be. I think any ordinary member of the public would say that an amendment to shift the date from 30 November to 29 November is not substantial. I think the ordinary public would say that it is a minor technical amendment. I will not entertain any more points of order on this and we will now move to the vote. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: This has to be a substantial— 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: It is a motion. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: A motion. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: I move  
That the Chairperson report progress to obtain the Speaker’s ruling on the admissibility of amendments substantially the same as an amendment that had been negatived 
. 
Motion agreed to. 
House resumed. 
Speaker Recalled 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Mr Speaker during the Committee stage we had a number of amendments in the name of Steve Chadwick to amend clause 2. These amendments seek to change the commencement date and there is a whole sequence of them. The first amendment seeks to delete “1 July 2010” and insert “1 November 2010”. The next amendment seeks to insert “31 October”. We then move from 31 October to the 30th the 29th the 28th the 27th—a very good day in October I might add—the 26th and we go on. We tested the Committee on the first amendment and the Committee defeated it. I then ruled that the rest of the amendments were out of order. I ruled them out of order on the basis of Erskine May’s  
Parliamentary Practice 
 page 401 which states: “An amendment is also out of order if it is inconsistent with an amendment already agreed to or if it is substantially the same as an amendment to the same motion which has already been negatived.” I ruled that the amendment to insert “31 October” was substantially the same as the amendment to insert “1 November” as was the rest of the sequence of amendments. 
The Opposition has claimed that in doing this I am stopping its right to move amendments. I do not think I am at all. Opposition members are still free to move their amendments. I think the ruling I have made is consistent with previous Speakers’ rulings. 
The other matter raised by the Hon Trevor Mallard is that in actual fact the House has not had the opportunity to test the dates. My response to him was that the House has already seen this legislation at its first reading. It has been to the select committee which has also considered the matter of the date. The bill has come back for its second reading and the House has passed it on all three occasions. In doing so the House has determined that the legislation in general including the date is suitable. 
In my opinion the Committee has the ability to consider these amendments and I would have thought that if a member had an amendment to make to the date there would be quite a substantial amount of discussion on it during the rest of the Committee stage because points in parts of the legislation turned on this. I did not hear that. I would have thought that if there is to be an amendment to the date there would be a range of arguments that said that changing the date was substantially important because of these reasons. I did not hear that. I felt that the Committee was being tested piece by piece and that there was no substantial difference between one amendment and the next one. I have accordingly ruled out the amendment. I may wish to come back to you with some other comments later but that is the essence of the situation as I understand it. I am sure you will hear from both Opposition and Government members as to their views on it. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 Thank you for returning to rule on this matter. It is an area of incredible disappointment to the Opposition in respect of the treatment of Opposition amendments to this legislation. It falls into two areas but it is based on the idea that the only ability that an Opposition has to rely on through our Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings is the ability to make speeches in opposition to legislation or to propose amendments to offer alternatives to the Committee or to the House—in this case to the Committee—in respect of legislation before it. Taken to their extraordinary extent this could see the Parliament ground to a halt as both the Chairman and the Leader of the House have said while we were debating this issue previously. But that does not happen because although the rules might allow for an enormous amount of material to come by way of amendments points of order or seeking leave to table documents for example those things do not happen because there is a relationship between the Government and the Opposition that allows the smooth passage of legislation within reason. 
Occasionally that relationship does not exist and the Opposition has to use what is available to it in order to make its point. For example if there is an inability to ask Ministers questions at question time the Opposition has to use its only tools which are protected in its Speakers’ rulings and the Standing Orders and for which you have a responsibility as the protector of the minority in your position as Speaker. 
I know that you commented at the end of last year about the number of amendments on a particular piece of legislation but that was within the context of bills never having been seen before by the Opposition the extended use of urgency and things that impacted from a wide variety of angles on the proceedings and good management of the House either by actions from the Government or actions from the Opposition. 
There are two points. The first is the issue of the use by the Government of the Standing Order for fiscal aggregates. There was a discussion earlier and I want to briefly bring you up to date with that— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I urge the member to stay focused. I have not yet actually heard the particular point of order that I have been recalled to rule on and fiscal aggregates is not the matter that I understand is currently the procedure that has been delaying the Committee. I urge the member to focus on the issue of order that he wishes me to rule on. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Thank you Mr Speaker. I am sorry. That will be a matter about amendments that we do quite genuinely wish to take up with you. But let me come to the matter for which you have been recalled. It is the ruling out of amendments that of themselves are in order that have been submitted by members—in this case by the Hon Steve Chadwick and Moana Mackey. After the first vote on the first amendment the Chairman then moved to rule out all subsequent amendments. There is an argument about whether they are substantially different; I know Mr Mallard has a view about that. 
But the reason I wanted you to be recalled is that it is our view that amendments must stand on their own merits and that if there is the ability for an Opposition to put forward an amendment that amendment itself should be judged regardless of what other environmental factors are going on that day with regard to how many amendments there are. An amendment must be considered by the Committee regardless of how many other amendments there are. 
I can give you a very recent example of that from 13 March 2007 on the child discipline legislation. There were amendments to change the commencement date of that bill once it had received its third reading and its Royal assent which would change the date on which it would become law. There were many many amendments that shifted out by a number of months the date when that legislation would come into force. All of those amendments were accepted by the Clerk’s Office and were put to the House. It is all available in the  
Journals of the House 
. The only time when that was interrupted was when the Government chose to support one of the amendments in order for the other ones to become inconsequential because a decision had been made by the Committee. The Committee of the whole House has faced exactly this sort of situation before and it has upheld the process of its rules to allow the Opposition to be able to take those amendments through. 
Our argument is that if these amendments are simply wiped out because they are considered to be similar then that takes away a right of the Opposition to signal its disagreement with legislation. But also in the position where the Government is a minority Government the Chair cannot possibly know whether further down the list of amendments there is a majority for a different date. I guess that is where Mr Mallard will comment on the substantially different argument because in these amendments there are differences that are spread over many years. It may well be that in the position where the Government is in a minority as it has been since 1998 there will be a time when one of the amendments might be successful. It seems wrong to me to rule one out or to rule them all out on the basis that the first one happened not to be accepted by the Committee. 
I will end by reiterating what I said at the beginning that an Opposition has very few protections in the Chamber and to ride over the top of those because on a particular day it happens to be inconvenient due to the amount of work by way of the number of amendments that has been put forward is quite wrong. This is not something that happens regularly in our Parliament. There is a self-correcting mechanism to the whole thing and I think that it would be wrong to take away the last protections that an Opposition has when we are in the Committee of the whole House in a minority sense. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Before I call the next member I urge members in making points of order to keep them terse. These are not speeches. I realise that members are covering issues that are interesting territory but I would ask members to keep their point of order brief. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 My colleague has outlined the issue very broadly Mr Speaker and I would prefer to make just a couple of very specific points. 
There are three points that I want to make.  
Erskine May 
 is quite clear. If there were a lack of precedent in New Zealand that would be the fall-back position but there is some precedent for this sort of amendment being accepted. My colleague has referred to one instance and I think that if you cast your mind back you would remember that this procedure has been used in the past. Generally it has been negated by the Government; the Government has moved in the way that it can in the Committee to shift the day sometimes by only 1 day. In that way it means that none of the further amendments can be considered. 
I disagree with the Chairman’s suggestion that amendments can be made at the first and second readings in this House. This House as a full House has not had the opportunity to look specifically at that question. This is the time for any amendment to be made. The Chairman is quite right that the select committee could have considered it and possibly if the House was of the mind to then the House could have sent it back to the committee after the report back in order for the date to be reconsidered. But this is the first time that this matter has been specifically addressed. 
My point essentially is that  
Erskine May 
 is a fall-back position that I can accept. My view differs somewhat from that of my colleague in that I think that amendments shifting a date day by day are amendments that are substantially the same. But where there are big gaps between the start and the end point and a wide range of options my suggestion is that the proper thing to do would be to rule many of the amendments out—I could even say most of them or three-quarters of them—but there is enough difference between some of these amendments if we accept the “substantially the same” argument for a range of them to be put to the Committee. 
I know that the ruling being given here is one that will no doubt appear in a green book in the future one way or the other because we are into unprecedented territory and it is my view that in doing so the Speaker should make a ruling that protects the very few rights that the minority has as long as the minority is not being totally unreasonable. I can accept that putting all of these amendments to the Committee would be totally unreasonable but that does not mean that all of them should be ruled out. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Mr Speaker I think that in the opening remarks made to you by the shadow Leader of the House on this issue there was a little bit of a betrayal about why we find ourselves in these positions and I say this only because those remarks went unchecked for quite a long time. The reality is that I understand his disappointment but there we are: we are in this situation. I want to— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I just urge the honourable member please—the contributions have been of good quality and I do not want to see a deterioration of this procedural discussion under points of order. It is an important procedural issue and I ask the member to respect that. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: It is indeed a very important procedural issue but I would ask that you check the  
Hansard  
just to assure yourself as to that quality in relation to the opening statement from the shadow Leader of the House. I think that two Speakers’ rulings are relevant here. As well as the conclusion reached by Chairman Rick Barker this afternoon which I strongly support there are two Speakers’ rulings 112/6 and 113/1 that are also relevant. 
The first one goes to the issue of relevancy. The most important point there is 112/6(4). The issue has been ruled on by Speakers continually over a long period. I note that obviously there was a problem with this sort of thing in the late 1800s and early 1900s but the point remains that if an amendment is in conflict with the provisions of the bill then it is not relevant. Further coming to Speaker’s ruling 113/1 that ruling states: “A bill can be amended only in ways that are relevant to the text. It cannot be turned into something that it is not and did not start out as.” The text reference in that ruling is most important because we are repeatedly reminded in this House that there are occasions when the courts will turn to  
Hansard 
 debates select committee reports and a range of commentary on the passage of legislation through this House for some guidance as to how it should be read. 
I would suggest that it has been abundantly clear for a very long time that this legislation is to commence on 1 July 2010 and to have its effect from that point. We know that there is a need to have some provisions in this bill dealt with by 1 April as well so that the people dealing with it have a fair and reasonable amount of time before that. To accept a series of amendments that of themselves do not substantially change the initial intention of the preceding amendment and to let that run out for some thousand amendments—or in other words nearly 3 years’ worth of date changes—I think contravenes the idea that it is not turning the bill into something that it did not start out as. I think that it is also in conflict with the provisions and the purpose of the bill in the first place. 
As to the issue of there being no certainty about the voting support for any one amendment or another that would be assuming that in the few intervening seconds between a vote being put for one date and a vote being put for the next an entire Government coalition could deconstruct and there could be some sudden change that no one in the Chamber knew about. I think that is an implausible position and it is an argument that cannot be run too strongly. But on those other two longstanding Speaker’s rulings I think that the conclusion reached by Chairman Barker today is the correct one. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will accept the Hon Dr Nick Smith as long as he is brief. Interesting issues have been raised and I am ready to rule on the matter. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 As the Minister in the chair I want to make a brief point. In the sense of the relevance of Parliament I would suggest that this is a bit of a try-on. We have 1066 amendments tabled most of which shift the commencement date by 1 day. If the House were to allow every one of those amendments to be put it would take 15 or 16 hours of the time of the 122 members of this House a House that costs over $15000 an hour to run being spent not on debate. New Zealanders expect issues to be robustly debated in the House and I welcome that. But as a pragmatic speaker who has been interested in the quality of this institution of Parliament serving the interest of the public at large I ask whether that interest is best served by spending 15 hours on amendments that would vary the commencement date by 1 day. 
The second point I make is in response to those that have been made by Mr Mallard who said that what the Government needs to do is move the very first amendment to change the date from the date that is in the bill and that way if that is agreed to then the procedure is quite OK. 
My response to that is if that is to be the procedure of the House then that says to Ministers that they should introduce a bill to the House without its intended commencement date then bring it in confusing the public and everybody and then when we get to the Committee stage move an amendment to shift it. In terms of the public purpose of this Parliament for the people of New Zealand I ask how that procedural approach would help the relevance of this Parliament. We would get people submitting on a bill that does not have the date that was intended because we Ministers were forced into a position of cute amendments during the Committee stage to overrule what is nothing more than a sophisticated mechanism that is being attempted to create a filibuster of voting. That is why Mr Speaker my plea to you is to support the Chair and for common sense to prevail. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I thank honourable members for a very interesting procedural discussion under point of order. I agree with the Hon Trevor Mallard that we are in territory without clear precedent in New Zealand’s parliamentary practice; therefore it is important. That is why I have listened very carefully to the points being made. I think very good points have been made by both sides in the last few minutes. 
I assure the Hon Darren Hughes that my thinking in this is certainly not governed by the number of amendments in itself. There could be any number of amendments that are different from each other to a piece of legislation. Opposition members or any member have the absolute right to put amendments that the Committee has not already decided upon. That is not the crucial issue. There are more substantive issues involved in this particular ruling that I am about to make. I think the crux of the whole thing comes down to the issue which was recognised by the Hon Trevor Mallard that if we look at what has been the practice in New Zealand in the past as was mentioned by the Hon Dr Nick Smith we see that when the Government—usually it is the Government—moves an amendment to a date and the Committee votes on that once that is accepted then any other amendments are ruled out. We have had that as a clear precedent in New Zealand. 
What has not been such a clear precedent in New Zealand and this is an issue that I am going to rule on at this stage and suggest a way forward for is the other side of that mention in  
Erskine May 
 which the Chair the Hon Rick Barker has emphasised and that is that  
Erskine May 
 also emphasises that a Chairperson has to also consider the admissibility of amendments that are substantially the same as an amendment that has already been negatived by the Committee. That is something that has not been our common practice in New Zealand I think it is fair to say. Yet what the Hon Dr Nick Smith pointed out in his point of order is that in the past our not having accepted that practice has led to a fairly unsatisfactory situation whereby it may lead to the Government doing exactly what the member suggested which is leaving out a date so that an amendment can be moved by the Government to put a date in and any other dates are then ruled out. 
I think the Hon Trevor Mallard has made an interesting point in accepting the basis of Erskine May’s advice on page 401. The Hon Trevor Mallard pointed out that the issue is what is considered to be substantially different and he pointed out that when it comes to dates 6 months’ difference is substantial compared with a difference of 1 or 2 days. I make it very clear to members that I will rule in favour of the Chair’s position on this. The Chair has found that the amendments are not admissible because the Committee has already negatived an amendment that is substantially the same as those other amendments. Therefore the Chair the Hon Rick Barker has ruled them out and I will support that ruling. 
In doing so I suggest to members that this matter be looked at further by the Standing Orders Committee. I think that what is different in our practice from the practice at Westminster is that at Westminster the Chair can select from a range of dates two or three amendments that are substantially different and test them. Once they are tested the rest are out. It may be that we should look at something similar. In our procedures in this Parliament we do not have the ability for the Chair to choose from a lot of amendments that are very very similar some that could be considered to be different. I think it is something I would like to have the Standing Orders Committee look at for the future. As Speaker I am genuinely concerned in the interests of the minority and that would overcome any concerns about the Chair deciding what might be substantially different because then the Committee would have decided that in the matter of two or three amendments that could be voted on in a reasonable space of time and that would then resolve that matter so that the Chair is not having to make that judgment totally on his or her own. That is what I want the Standing Orders Committee look at. 
But at the moment I am ruling in favour of the position adopted by the Chair of the Committee which is that because the Committee has already negatived an amendment that is substantially the same as these further amendments they are ruled out. I thank all the members. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I speak not in any way to litigate your ruling; it is in one that I think we will consider carefully and I hope the Standing Orders Committee does as well. I seek leave for there to be a question time at 2 p.m. tomorrow 25 February on outside time with the normal arrangements for the lodging of questions. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I did not hear objection. I saw a nod but did not hear a word. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There is a concern about whether I correctly ruled on the matter. I am very happy to put the leave again. Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is objection 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I want to make it very clear that we are always open to negotiate these matters with the Opposition when it behaves— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am not sure— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: That was just playing politics. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am on my feet and that was not a point of order. The member is perfectly at liberty to negotiate with whomever he wishes but that was not a point of order. 
I declare the House back in Committee in consideration of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill. 
In Committee 
Debate resumed. 
Clauses 1 to 3 ( 
continued 
)  
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Moana Mackey to clause 2 be agreed to: 
to omit from subclause (2) “on the day after the date on which this Act receives the Royal assent” and substitute “1 November 2027”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I am now confronted with exactly the same decision as I was before. I am mindful that the Speaker has supported my previous ruling which was to rule these amendments out because they are substantially the same as the amendment the Committee has already negated. I am of a mind to test the Committee’s opinion. I have two conundrums here. One is that the Speaker has said that the matter will be referred to the Standing Orders Committee so as to give the Chair discretion. I will stick with that decision because I think the Standing Orders Committee needs to make a decision about the ambit of the Chair’s discretion in this. As I see the matter at the moment I have full discretion. However I make the observation that the practice in other places was for the most radical amendment to be taken first and the least radical after that and if both are negated then all in between go. I have taken from Moana Mackey’s amendments the least radical which is to amend the date to 2007 and the most radical which is to amend the date to 2015. I will now put the latter amendment. If the Committee negates both I will rule out all subsequent amendments in between those dates. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. That sounds like an excellent suggestion. Just to clarify you referred to the least radical amendment as being 2007 and the most radical as being 2015. I think you meant the reverse way round: that the least radical would be 2015 and the most radical would be 2027—just so we are clear about what we are voting on. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: That is right. The House has negated the most radical 1 November 2027 and the least radical is 10 August 2015. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Moana Mackey to clause 2 be agreed to: 
to omit from subclause (2) “on the day after the date on which this Act receives the Royal assent” and substitute “10 August 2015”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I rule all the other amendments in the name of Moana Mackey out of order as they are substantially the same. Next is an amendment in the name of the Hon Steve Chadwick. All her amendments relate to the year 2025. I will put one amendment to test the opinion of the Committee. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Steve Chadwick to clause 2 be agreed to: 
to omit from subclause (2) “on the day after the date on which this Act receives the Royal assent” and substitute “1 November 2025”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I rule that all the subsequent amendments in the name of the Hon Steve Chadwick are out of order because they are substantially the same as the amendments that have already been disposed of by the Committee. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 2 be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Clause 2 agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: There are amendments to clause 2 in the name of the Hon Steve Chadwick to insert a new clause 2A. There are 1066 of these amendments and I rule all of them out of order because they are not consistent with the Standing Order that defines a preliminary clause as a commencement clause and if applicable a principal clause in the Act. These amendments propose an expiration clause and should have been in the body of the legislation. They are ruled out of order. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of the Hon Dr Nick Smith to clause 3 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Amendment agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 3 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Clause 3 as amended agreed to. 
Bill reported with amendment. 
Report adopted. 
Accident Compensation Amendment Bill 
Third Reading 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 I move  
That the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. This bill comes down to something very simple: what scale of increases in levies can New Zealanders afford? This bill halves the scale of the increases in accident compensation levies that would be required of motorists workers and businesses. The most extraordinary part of the Committee stage debate on this bill was that there were over 100 contributions from members of the Opposition but not once did they mention the issue of levies for ordinary New Zealanders for motorists and for businesses. 
I ask a simple question. Can New Zealanders afford an extra $74 per car for their car registration? I say to people who do not support this bill that that is the scale of increase required under the existing Act for the motor vehicle account. Can New Zealanders right now afford an additional $300 a year in terms of the earners levy for a person on the average wage? Members on this side of the House say no they cannot. Members on the opposite side of the House want to impose that additional cost on to the normal house owner. 
The third question I ask—because I hear so many speeches about jobs today—is whether the businesses of New Zealand can afford a 25 percent increase in their accident compensation levies on 1 April. Members on this side of the House say no they cannot. Members on the opposite side of the House seem ignorant of the sorts of pressure that businesses are under and the sorts of costs that would be imposed on them if we did not proceed with this amendment bill. 
You see members opposite are in a state of denial. It is a statement of fact that Maryan Street the previous Minister for ACC signed off on a $2.4 billion loss in the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) in June 2008. But it is worse than that. After declaring a $2.4 billion loss in a cynical political exercise members opposite then extended the accident compensation scheme in an additional dozen areas without providing any funding. That is what members opposite did and despite repeated challenges from National members to provide some explanation for that reckless and irresponsible act we have not heard a single member respond to that challenge. 
The reality is—and no member opposite has denied these facts—that the cost of accident compensation claims over the last 4 years has increased by $1.3 billion or 57 percent. The cynical part of the Opposition members is that they get on the steps of Parliament and they protest against increases in accident compensation levies. They also participate in protests against reductions in entitlement. Well the twain do not meet. Those members cannot have it both ways unless they are financially illiterate. 
Green Party members have promoted a view that the accident compensation scheme should change to a “pay as you go” basis. That would be fair. That argument is a credible argument and I will be happy to have the debate about that. But where Labour members are all over the paddock is that in one breath they use figures for a “pay as you go” basis but in the next breath they say they want to have a fully funded scheme and despite repeated challenges as to whether Labour policy is for a fully funded scheme or a “pay as you go” scheme they will not answer. They do not know. Frankly if they cannot answer such fundamental questions about our accident compensation scheme they are unfit to be the Opposition let alone the Government. 
Let me go through the key changes that we are making in this bill. The first thing is to push out the full funding date from 2014 to 2019. That provision will reduce the volatility in levies and take the pressure off levy payers. Members on this side of the House simply ask whether we should push the full funding date out to 2019. We say yes; they say no. 
During the Committee stage I made a change to the title of the principal Act—that is I called it what I think common-sense New Zealanders would call it: the Accident Compensation Act. In an exercise in political correctness that speaks volumes about the previous administration after 28 years of the principal Act being called the Accident Compensation Act members opposite wanted to call the Act the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act. They believed that changing the name of the Act would somehow deal with the important issues of injury prevention and rehabilitation. 
The irony is that after changing the name of the Act in each and every year rehabilitation rates got worse and injury prevention actually did not work because injury rates continued to increase. I make no apologies for saying we should forget political correctness and call the Act what common-sense New Zealanders would call it—the Accident Compensation Act. However I wish to make plain to the House just as I did when I launched the programme of injury prevention in homes that injury prevention is an important area of focus. 
One of the areas in which the differences between the Government and the Opposition are so clear is in the area of criminal disentitlement. Members on this side of the House say that the accident compensation scheme is not for the purpose of providing compensation for those who commit crimes. In the debate I had with Mr Parker about Mr Graeme Burton Mr Parker vigorously argued that Burton should as a matter of basic human rights receive support from ACC. Members on this side of the House have no sympathy for Graeme Burton and make no apologies for the changes in this bill that disentitle criminals from accident compensation when they are committing offences. 
I come now to other provisions in the bill and I want to make a point in respect of holiday pay. Members on this side of the House say that people should not be able to be better off by drawing both holiday pay and ACC income compensation at the same time. Do we live in such a generous nation? Are we so well off that people should be better off after having an accident than when they were working? Members on this side of the House say no; members on that side of the House say yes. 
That is equally so with the provisions in respect of seasonal work. On this side of the House we say it is wrong that Labour changed the law in late 2008 particularly after declaring a loss of $2.4 billion and said that seasonal workers will under Labour’s amendments end up better off in the long term on income compensation than they would be if they were working. What sort of signal do we send to people when we say they are better off on accident compensation than they would be if they were working? That is not a signal that members of the Government want to send New Zealanders. That is why we are making that change to the law. 
There has been the sensitive issue of self-inflicted injuries and suicide. I remind the House that Owen Woodhouse said that that was not appropriate to be included in the scheme. Again that was a provision that was introduced at the last moment by the previous Government. A simple common-sense policy was made by this side of the House. Suicide is a tragedy but it is not an accident. 
In conclusion I say that this bill is about being fair to levy payers and accident victims. It is about securing an affordable 24/7 accident compensation system for New Zealand. It is the sort of reform that sadly this Government needed to do because of the poor way in which the previous Government managed the scheme. This bill deserves the support of the House. 
Debate interrupted. 
Business of Select Committees 
Meetings 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 My apologies to the speaker who is about to make a contribution to the debate but commensurate with a Business Committee decision I need to seek leave of the House for the Health Committee to meet outside New Zealand with its counterparts in Australia from 8 to 11 March 2010 as part of the annual joint committee exchange with Australia. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is anyone opposed to that course of action? It appears not. Leave is granted. 
Accident Compensation Amendment Bill 
Third Reading 
Debate resumed. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I will begin by refuting some of the assertions that the Minister for ACC Dr Smith made knowing them to be wrong. The first is his claim that the current Labour Opposition opposes the date for the extension to full funding. He knows that his statement to that effect in his speech a minute ago is totally incorrect. He knows that it was Labour Party policy at the election to extend the date for full funding. He knows that I have had a member’s bill in the ballot all of this year that could have made this happen a year ago. He knows that in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee report on the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill we said in our minority report: “We support the extension of the date for full funding of historic claims but oppose the bill overall.” 
What Dr Smith said in his speech was the opposite of what I have just said. Listeners to this debate can judge for themselves as to whether there was a fair representation of the Labour Party position by Dr Smith. It clearly was not. We know that most of the levy reductions saved by this bill the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill are of a consequence of extending the date for the full funding of those historic claims that have not yet been fully funded. Yes this party still stands for full funding. We agree with the extension of the date for full funding. We know and the Minister knows that that is the most substantial cause of the levy reductions occasioned by this bill. He likes to hide from that reality. That is the reason that he has not extended the date for full funding until now. He tries to use the levy reductions that are occasioned by extending the date for full funding of the tail as an excuse to cut other parts of the scheme. 
Which are the other parts of the scheme that Dr Smith is cutting? Well they are real cuts. They will hurt people. They will hurt people who have had accidents at work especially. At present someone can be put off accident compensation cover. When that happens the person’s earnings-related compensation comes to an end and rehabilitation treatment physiotherapy orthopaedic interventions etc. come to an end after he or she is deemed to be ready to return to the workforce. Currently people can be deemed to be ready to come back to the workforce only if they are well enough to work for 35 hours a week. Most people need to work for 35 hours a week in order to keep the wolf from the door. This bill changes that. It says that people can be pushed off accident compensation when they are capable of working for 30 hours per week. 
That works in concert with another change to the rules which says the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) will no longer have to have regard to pre-accident earnings. The combined effect of those changes is that someone’s income could halve after he or she comes off accident compensation. Someone can be put off the scheme when he or she is capable of working for only 30 hours a week and that person can be put into a job where he or she is earning the minimum wage. We had the example which I think is quite a moderate example of a moderately paid person in the banking industry who gets a computer overuse injury. He or she can be off work for a substantial period of time so the employer needs to have someone else in that position. The contract of employment is frustrated through no fault of the employer or the employee. That person loses his or her job and goes on to accident compensation. Now that person can be forced off cover when he or she is in a position to work as a stacker in a supermarket working for the minimum wage. That person could be working for 30 hours on the minimum wage as a shelf stacker and his or her income could halve when compared with that in his or her prior occupation as a bank teller. That is what this bill does. 
We are told that this legislation is necessary in the name of the affordability of the scheme. That is nonsense; that is wrong. The Government did not present any information regarding the relative costs of this scheme compared with similar costs in Australia until the Opposition as is its right asked the officials to prepare some information comparing the costs to employers of New Zealand accident compensation with costs in the Australian schemes. I had thought that information would be prepared by the Government or for the Government by departments but no we did not have it. I had thought that submitters that came from business organisations that were multinationals or their representative organisations which have access to that information from multinationals operating in jurisdictions like Canada Australia the United Kingdom and the United States would provide that information to us. But no we did not have any information on that from those submitters despite requests from the Opposition that they provide it. The only information we got was that which the Opposition requested from the officials. When it came it showed that levies for employers in Australia for employee risks are significantly higher than in New Zealand sometimes twice as high. On average they are 50 percent higher than those levies are in New Zealand. There is no justification on that basis for making accident compensation provisions more miserable for New Zealand workers than they currently are. 
Let us not pretend that accident compensation is great now. Being deemed fit for work does not mean to say someone gets a new job. Already more than 50 percent of the long-term claimants that go off cover are not in full-time work. A significant proportion of them languish on the dole queue at a cost to the State rather than to their former employer through accident compensation levies. Already a significant proportion are without any income probably because they cannot get a job and their husband or wife is employed. Already a significant proportion are in only part-time work. The majority of people do not get back to full-time work for a very very long time. So the Government should not give us the affordability line because the only information we had is that accident compensation remains cheaper here than it is in Australia. 
The Minister talked about accident rates and said that we have not done any work on accident prevention in New Zealand. That is rubbish. The previous Government improved the performance of the Department of Labour in terms of workplace inspections and maintaining safety standards. That did see an improvement in safety records in New Zealand. That was necessary because it is fair to say before then the trend was wrong. It is also true to say the work that was done on road safety including improvements through better highways better safety standards for new vehicles educational programmes and drink-driving enforcement etc. saw a drop in accident rates per 100 kilometres driven—I think that is right is it not Annette? [ 
Interruption 
] Yes it is true that total accidents may have increased but during that 10-year period a lot more kilometres were driven because of the higher population which was driving further because the economy at least under us had improved. 
There is no doubt that this legislation makes the accident compensation system worse. In my opinion some of the egregious changes will be taken advantage of following the privatisation of parts of the scheme. One would have to be naive to think that a private insurer will want to contribute to accident prevention work in the same way that can be achieved through a State-owned monopoly. One would have to be naive to think that one would not use the right to push people off cover once they were deemed to be work-ready for 30 hours’ work a week if one did not have to have regard to their pre-accident earnings. One would have to be naive to think that an insurance company that has the right to push someone into a lower-paid job will not do so. The insurance companies will do so; they will act as they do in other spheres of insurance. The companies will do what is permissible within the letter of the law and within the letter of the policy to the extent that they can in order to minimise their costs. These changes together with looming privatisation which is the price that the ACT Party has exacted for its support of this legislation mean that New Zealand workers will once again be worse off as a consequence. 
Time and time again we have heard from this National-led Government that its ambition is to improve the lot of New Zealanders especially New Zealand workers in order to approach the position that Australian workers are in. Yet in this area despite the facts that in New Zealand levies are cheaper for employers by quite a margin and that we already have a system that is the envy of Australia we see that the lot of workers is to deteriorate. Their lot will deteriorate because the generosity of the provision that they get is to worsen. 
I will say something briefly about Dr Nick Smith’s accusation that Labour is in favour of Graeme Burton and other criminals. That is not correct. Labour does not favour any compensation being paid to Mr Burton. He should not receive earnings-related compensation; he should not receive lump-sum compensation. He has neither of these. That issue is an absolute sideshow. 
David Garrett 
: You think he deserves a $10000 leg. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: But we have David Garrett—and other people who are as inhumane as he is—saying that not only should criminals lose compensation but they should not even get a prosthetic leg. That is where the Labour members disagree with those members because we say a man without a leg should have a leg. Maybe he should not be given an expensive titanium one but he should at least have a wooden leg to hold him up. 
I am quite happy to stand up and be judged for saying that because I think that that is fair and most New Zealanders agree with me. 
David Garrett 
: That’s not what you said last night. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I say to Mr Garrett that that is exactly what he said and I tell him that he should reflect on the inhumanity of his position. That is not to deny that Graeme Burton is a bad and terrible person. But the whole issue regarding him is a sideshow created by the National Party to deflect attention away from the reality that with no justification this legislation decreases the compensation and rehabilitation services that are needed by New Zealanders when they are injured. They gave up their rights to sue in exchange for receiving those services and they are substantially losing them through this legislation. 
Debate interrupted. 
Maiden Statements 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora. I feel extremely privileged to stand here. My first words in this House will be about hope for as a Green Party member what motivates me is hope for a fairer and more prosperous future. As a father I am hopeful for a safer world for my son to inherit and as a young person I am hopeful for a New Zealand that I can continue to be proud of. This evening I will introduce myself and use my personal story to illustrate why I am passionate about Green politics and optimistic about the future. 
As the youngest member in this House I represent a generational shift both in this Parliament and in the Green Party caucus. I was born in 1981 in a very different New Zealand. Twenty-eight years ago we had 3 million people and 7 million sheep. New Zealanders needed to get a doctor’s prescription to buy margarine and we had a very different National Prime Minister—one who was thinking big if also a little sloppily. Like the rest of New Zealand in 1981 my home town was split by conflict over the racist Springbok Tour. It was also in 1981 that the honourable Leader of the Opposition entered this House. Like other people of my generation I do not remember the 1984 general election which ushered in so much change. That revolutionary transformation of the political and social consensus in New Zealand was on a par with the Liberal Vogel and first Labour Government reforms which were such historic milestones. That year was a long long time ago. In 2010 I am hopeful we are on the cusp of another change—another revolutionary transformation. I am looking forward to the opportunity to work with the Green Party and this Parliament to shift us from a dirty unfair old-fashioned economic model to an innovative sustainable and fair economy. 
I grew up in Gisborne more boy racer than bohemian. I loved cars wanted to be an All Black and remember laughing at my recently turned vegetarian friend saying he was just a poser and that I would never be vegetarian. Although environmental issues were not top of the agenda at home at school or in the media I was acutely aware at the time of social issues like inequality and unemployment. In the late 1980s due in part to the Rogernomic reforms my father along with many locals was made redundant at the local freezing works. I worked from an early age—as a pamphlet deliverer pushing trolleys at the supermarket and in a fish and chip store—because it was necessary. It was not until I left home to study religion and history at Victoria University and to personally contribute my $30000 to the more than $9 billion national student debt that I was exposed to the most radical political idea of the last 50 years: the Earth is not growing. Sure it sounds simple and common-sense but when one stops to think one sees that our entire economic system is dependent on infinite growth on a finite planet. 
The most serious symptom of our addiction to growth is climate change. We do not need a weatherman to say which way the wind blows and we do not need a climatologist to say to which way the temperature goes. We need better ways of living because we do not have a planet B. To quote George Monbiot “Humanity is no longer split between conservatives and liberals reactionaries and progressives though both sides are informed by the older politics. Today the battle-lines are drawn between expanders and restrainers; those who believe that there should be no impediments”—to growth—“and those who believe that we must live within limits.” From this understanding I became a passionate environmentalist. In my twenties like so many ordinary Kiwis I became active and I campaigned: from helping to stop genetically engineered food sneaking on to our dinner plates through sailing on the  
Rainbow Warrior 
 and directly stopping bottom trawlers from wiping out amazing undersea worlds to most recently coordinating the Sign On campaign for Greenpeace in which more than 200000 Kiwis called on the Prime Minister to do the right thing for the climate. 
The 1999 election was a turning point for me. It was so exciting and empowering to see people like me talk in this House about the things I cared about. MMP meant decisions were no longer just made by white middle-aged men in smoky back rooms. MMP helped more people to be represented in the House of Representatives and I contend that it also helped form better decisions. 
I grew up in the region known as Poverty Bay which 241 years ago had a different more hopeful name. On 6 October 1769 Nicholas Young the surgeon’s boy on the ship  
Endeavour 
 sighted the coastline of New Zealand and also the thriving settlement of Turanga-nui-a-Kiwa. We teach the discovery of New Zealand in schools but like an embarrassing family secret we prefer to forget or to downplay that on first contact on that day Te Maro of Ngati Oneone was killed by English musket fire and as petty recompense three iron nails were left on his corpse. 
History is a passion of mine and can sometimes reveal inconvenient truths. Many New Zealanders would not know that Maori had a Declaration of Independence would not know a Treaty clause and would not know that tino rangatiratanga—sovereignty—was not ceded in the Treaty but taken at the point of a musket. To take my seat in the House last week I had to pledge allegiance to the Queen. I look forward to the day when we can reform our constitution to ditch the monarchy decentralise our political structures and see genuine tino rangatiratanga for tangata whenua. 
Two years ago I became a dad and I want my son to grow up knowing his history eating safe food and enjoying a stable climate and a prosperous economy. Though our politics differ I know all members in the House want these things for all Kiwi kids. But why are Governments of both colours failing? This Government like Labour before it ignores the warnings of the end of cheap oil; blithely builds more motorways; chronically under-invests in public transport walking and cycling; and perpetuates the housing crisis that sees people of my generation forced out of affordable homeownership. As different from each other as Coke is from Pepsi both parties ignore the crisis in the oceans depend on debt to fuel growth and continue to support growing inequality. In desperation the current Government is hunting for coal in the last protected places. Mining companies can already mine in 87 percent of New Zealand and by opening up the last 13 percent the National Government is undoing its own wise decision from 1997. Mining the national parks is like burning the furniture to keep warm. 
As a career I have been privileged and proud to be a climate campaigner. I am passionate about working towards finding the solutions to climate change. It is one of the most fascinating issues facing humanity at the moment. In a way it is a tragedy that it is seen just as an environmental issue. Last year former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reported that right now 300000 people die every year as a result of climate change. Man’s massive and growing release of greenhouse gases is a people issue. It is an economic issue a social justice issue and a spiritual issue. It is not just about the polar bears and penguins; at issue is the future of humanity as we know it. 
With the growth in emissions—especially from more cars cows and coal—will the New Zealanders of my son’s generation rightfully ask of us who are tonight in this House what we did when we had the chance? Could future leaders accuse us in this House of wilful neglect? Could Ministers be put in the dock for crimes against the planet? From Kupe to Cook to Sir Ed we have been a can-do forward-looking nation. As Kiwi as pavlova Kiwis are prepared to play our part and to do the right thing. Yet when it comes to the climate crisis a crisis bigger than Mount Everest Governments both Labour and National instead of putting one foot after the other to scale the challenge get knocked off by the bastard. They put corporate and short-term interests ahead of saving the climate. As Sir Nicholas Stern pointed out it is expensive to tackle climate change but it is considerably cheaper than paying the costs. 
One person in particular who epitomised the hope and realism of the Green vision was Jeanette Fitzsimons. People keep telling me that they are big shoes to fill but I prefer to consider that I have strong shoulders to stand on. Jeanette was a pioneer and over the last 10 years the Green Party has grown from being the fresh-faced new kid on the block to being a respected effective and principled party. I am now the first Green MP who has not sat in the House with either Rod or Jeanette. The Greens are growing. There are new faces new energies and new issues but the same values. Surrounded by my colleagues I know that the vision of a peaceful democratic greener and fairer Aotearoa New Zealand will continue. 
It is an exciting time to enter this House. The time for bandages step changes and tinkering is ending; a new generation of young people is entering politics and they are optimistic about the future and turned off by the petty parliamentary point-scoring and vacuous visionless politics espoused by our leaders. I will work constructively on issues with any party in this House and with any person where we can. I am not here for the petty points or the tribal battles. I believe that my generation wants less partisan politics and is more open to new ideas and more flexible thinking. We are too young to remember the polarising politics of Sir Rob Muldoon Ruth Richardson and Sir Roger Douglas. I would like to float a proposal to the other young members in this House to form an inter-party youth caucus which would work collaboratively on the issues of youth crime youth suicide housing affordability intergenerational debt tertiary education issues and a host of other challenges facing our young Kiwis. 
We face both economic and ecological crises. More people from a variety of backgrounds—from progressive business leaders like Stephen Tindall and Geoff Ross to unions—understand that the answers to one crisis can and must be the answer to both. We need a Green New Deal. The Greens have costed out a suite of proposals that in a nutshell would put the economy from the red into the green. 
Next year will be my dreaded 30th. It is election year and it is also the year in which New Zealand has the privilege of hosting the Rugby World Cup. I am a rugby fan and I am keen to make sure the cup is a success. Although I know that I cannot—as in my 6-year-old boyhood fantasy—score the winning try in the final as the replacement for Sean Fitzpatrick I can help us make the cup a success and make sure that the tens of thousands of visitors come away with a positive view of New Zealand. The World Cup in 2011 will be the biggest event to come to New Zealand in a generation and our best chance to brand ourselves on the world stage as clean and green. With the prestige of the World Cup will come huge economic benefits but also massive risks to our important and valuable brand if we are seen to drop the ball on sustainability. 
Last year the  
Guardian 
 and the  
New York Times 
 ran very damaging yet accurate articles on our environmental performance. Just last week New Zealand dropped from 1st to 15th on Yale and Columbia Universities’ Environmental Performance Index. I am not suggesting we cancel the cup to avoid embarrassment and brand risk; I am suggesting we make “100% Pure New Zealand” a reality. The World Cup could add the urgency to a raft of cost-effective job-producing green initiatives from transport to housing and from energy to waste. At present we are sleepwalking towards the worst outcome: waking up the day after the final with a mess to clean up and nothing to show for the party. 
In summary I am not motivated to action by an apocalyptic nightmare of environmental crisis; rather I am inspired by a vision of pristine rivers; of clean fast transport; and of an economy that measures more of the things that really matter. I thank all the members in this House for their warm welcome as well as the cleaners the security guards and the staff who do such great work. I thank my wife Meghan: my soulmate best mate and source of strength. I thank my parents Ambrose and Gill; my parents-in-law Mark and Kerry; my stepmother Jill; and all my other family friends and colleagues here tonight and watching online. It is as much to their credit as it is to mine that I am standing here tonight. To my son Arlo who is my inspiration and source of hope I say: “You remind me that each and every day it is not enough just to live; you have to have something to live for.” To everyone whom I have had the privilege of addressing tonight and to all future generations I say that I wish I could change the science of climate change and the facts of inequality. I cannot so I am going to change the politics. Kia ora. 
Sittings of the House 
CHRIS TREMAIN (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I seek leave for the House to lift early for the dinner break returning at 7 p.m. to continue in urgency. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Sitting suspended from 5.57 p.m. to 7 p.m. 
Accident Compensation Amendment Bill 
Third Reading 
Debate resumed. 
Hon PANSY WONG (Associate Minister for ACC) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call in the debate on the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill. How wonderful it is to have legislation that people can remember the name of and say what it is. The previous Opposition speaker was the Hon David Parker and nothing distinguished more between National and Labour than what that speaker said and where National stands on accident compensation. The Hon David Parker apparently took the side of Graeme Burton. He is standing on the side of Graeme Burton. But members on this side of the House are so proud of our Minister for ACC the Hon Nick Smith who introduced legislation to remove lump-sum income compensation and non-essential rehabilitation for criminals. Members on this side of the House are very proud of our Minister for ACC the Hon Nick Smith who is standing on the side of law-abiding citizens having access to accident compensation unlike the Hon David Parker who is standing on the side of Graeme Burton. 
The reason why we are here today passing this legislation is the 9 long years of incompetent governance and financial monitoring of accident compensation by the previous Labour Government. Let me illustrate this with facts. In the year 2000 the Hon Michael Cullen came to the House and said that the Labour Cabinet had decided to set a levy for accident compensation in the years 2001 and 2002 at 31c to make the scheme fully funded by 2014. The Hon Michael Cullen said that setting the levy for the residual liabilities at 31c would make the scheme fully funded by 2014 so he set the levy at 35c and surely that would have made the scheme fully funded 2 or 3 years earlier. I as an accountant and most of the members in this House probably get it now that according to the Hon Michael Cullen the accident compensation scheme should have been fully funded by next year 2011. But here we are in this House today trying to pass legislation to extend the period before full funding which Labour says it supports and so it should. We are pushing back the year for full funding from 2014 to 2019. After 9 long years of Labour’s carefree attitude when it simply extended the scheme and the lack of due diligence monitoring of the accident compensation financial performance a fully funded scheme has to be pushed back by another 5 years. The original date was 2014 and the Hon Michael Cullen said the scheme should have been fully funded by 2011. We do not need to hear any more lecturing in the speeches made by members on the Opposition benches. 
I am looking forward to hearing from the former Ministers for ACC the Hon Ruth Dyson and the Hon Maryan Street whether they will take a call to explain to people why it is that once we used to have a world-class accident compensation scheme but after 9 long years of the incompetent governance and incompetent financial monitoring of those two Ministers we have been reduced to having to come to this House to push back full funding from 2014 to 2019 and the levy is going up; it is going through the sky. We are looking forward to see how those two former Ministers can explain why over 9 long years we have had to suffer and see the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) incur firstly a loss of $2.4 billion and then a loss of $4.8 billion. It is the largest loss ever incurred by any Government corporation. Those former Ministers have done something that I am not sure they should be proud of. We do not need to hear any lecturing from them because after the 9 long years of their governance of accident compensation we have to sit under urgency today in this House to pass legislation firstly to extend the timetable for full funding from 2014 to 2019 and secondly to reverse what was done in the dying days of the previous Labour Government when it pushed forward all these extensions without fully considering how those extensions were to be funded. 
We are fortunate that we have a Minister for ACC the Hon Nick Smith who took up the issue and took a responsible position. He has taken the hard decision to make sure that accident compensation can continue to be sustainable for a long time. I believe that the debate in this House and the rationale for this legislation are plain for everybody to see. I just remind the Labour Opposition that a National Government introduced the accident compensation scheme into the country. We are the ones who take every pride and have every interest in keeping it sustainable. We did not need the 9 long years of an incompetent Labour Government to put the scheme at risk. I have pleasure in taking a call in this debate to support this legislation to once again restore accident compensation back to a sustainable scheme. 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I would like to begin by saying that this legislation from beginning to end is a complete travesty. It is a complete abrogation of the responsibility that comes with a social contract which is what accident compensation used to be and will be until in about an hour’s time this third reading is concluded. It has been a travesty from the very beginning with its title with the amendment that the Minister wishes to pass to call it the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill. Funnily enough he did not want to call it that at the introduction of the legislation. He did not want to call it that at the second reading of the legislation. It has been only in the Committee stage that he decided suddenly to call it the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill and I wonder why that is. Taking out the words “injury prevention rehabilitation and compensation” from the title of this bill does not augur well. 
First of all it is an abrogation of those difficult bits—injury prevention that is successful and injury prevention that is long-term and sustainable—across those six areas of critical injury prevention activity that Labour put in place in those 9 years that it was in Government I say to Minister Wong. Injury prevention was beginning to take effect and the abrogation of this Government’s responsibility in that respect will see us going backwards. 
I want to recap on some of the principles of the scheme and talk about what Sir Owen Woodhouse and his fellow commissioners originally intended and the kinds of principles upon which they built the scheme to begin with some 40-odd years ago. The number of principles was about five and the first one of these was community responsibility. Community responsibility meant that everybody paid a little and everybody got a lot. Everybody put in something and everybody got a lot back as and when they needed it. That goes to the heart of the kind of scheme that the accident compensation scheme is. For me and for Labour it goes to the heart of the kind of society we want. That is what the scheme was about. This Government is shifting the basis of it away from community responsibility towards privatisation faster than one can think of. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Where is that in the bill? 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: Just because the word is not there does not mean that privatisation is not on the agenda. The Government is preparing for that on the basis of a private insurance model. Nothing could be more different from a social contract. The scheme will not represent a social contract underpinned by community responsibility any more and that is a tragedy. 
Real compensation was another principle that the Woodhouse report emphasised. Real compensation is offended against by clause 55 of the bill which takes the earnings of casual workers and divides them not by the weeks they have worked in order to achieve fair compensation but by 52 weeks in the year. That Minister comes from Nelson. I wish he would start to represent the people of Nelson because he seems to be ignorant of the fact that some 76 percent of the earners in Nelson earn less than $40000 a year and therefore made nothing from the tax cuts that the National Government trumpeted so loudly last year—nothing not a bean not a brass razoo. He wants to calculate compensation like this. If somebody works 40 weeks—as is often the case if the person is picking apples or trimming vines or harvesting kiwifruit in Nelson—instead of dividing his or her earnings by the number of weeks worked let us say 40 weeks he now under this legislation is dividing those earnings by 52 weeks in the year. Everybody knows that that is a smaller amount and when 80 percent of that becomes compensation I tell the Minister that that inflicts hardship on people in his patch. That Minister needs to front up to those people and explain what he has done instead of telling one story in Nelson and another story in Wellington. 
Complete rehabilitation is another principle and that has been offended against by this legislation as well. Clause 4 of the bill now has rehabilitation back into work happening at 30 hours a week. Never mind what people used to earn or the kind of job they used to be in now people will be assessed as being fit for work again if they can work 30 hours a week regardless of the occupation they used to be in or the salary they used to earn. 
Comprehensive entitlement is another principle that is being infringed and offended against by this legislation. That is apparent in clause 6 where it says that a person has to have a 6 percent hearing loss now in order to qualify for some accident compensation entitlements. A 6 percent hearing loss is significant; that was demonstrated at the select committee. It is not now just a matter of having a 1 2 3 4 or 5 percent hearing loss. If a person has that level of hearing loss I am sorry but that person does not qualify any more. Here we have levies going up and entitlements cut. 
Administrative efficiency was the fifth of the principles underpinning the scheme. There was nothing wrong with the administrative efficiency of the scheme. In fact PricewaterhouseCoopers of Australia determined that the scheme was run more efficiently than any other compensation scheme in the world. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: They did not. 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: They did so. The amount that the Accident Compensation Corporation expended on administration was minimal compared with other schemes. I say that it is absolutely minimal compared with the profit that would need to be given to private insurance companies which are poised and ready to swoop in at this Government’s behest. 
I would like to say something about some of the half-truths that the Minister has been continually perpetuating in the course of the passage of this legislation. One of the half-truths is about $2.4 billion lost in about 2008. The point is that the investments of the scheme have been performing above the international benchmark for the last decade. In 2008 a recession began in financial institutions overseas. I am not sure whether the Minister is aware of that but it did. It began to trickle through into the scheme’s investments. Instead of addressing that issue with the kind of hysteria that that Minister has been demonstrating from the beginning to the end of this process he just needed to take a long view and watch those investments begin to recover. Sure enough what did we see? Now the earnings on the scheme’s investments and on New Zealand superannuation investments are fuelling the Government’s coffers and improving the Government’s accounts. What do we hear from that Minister? Half-truths. 
I will talk about one other aspect about which the Minister has been less than fulsome and that is injury rates. I will draw to the Minister’s attention in particular some things to do with motorcycles and motorcyclists because some of those figures the Minister will never let the House know but these are official figures. In 1973 there were something like 77000 motorcycles on the road in New Zealand. By 2009 that figure had almost doubled. There were 114000 motorcycles on the road in New Zealand. But per 10000 motorcycles on the road what we see over that period of time from 1973 to 2009 is a complete falling away in the number of crashes the number of injuries and the number of fatalities. In 1973 per 10000 motorcycles on the road there were 511 crashes. In 2009 there were 122. The other figures bear that out. We have been fed a diet of half-truths by that Minister and it is not sufficient. Something is being broken here and it is a scheme that we— 
Dr Cam Calder 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. When I last heard about it a half-truth was akin to a lie and I do not think it is appropriate that anybody can suggest that a member is lying in the House. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: I have been listening very carefully and the test that the presiding officer applies in this case is whether such a statement is personalised. It is about the argument rather than the individual. It is kind of just inside the boundary of where a member may go—only just. 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: This has been a world-class system which other countries envy. It is affordable it is sustainable and if the Minister had moved faster and put in the residual levies extension of date clause a year ago he could have saved every motor vehicle owner in this country $80. There is something rotten in the state of this Government. 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 It is no secret I guess that the Green Party will be voting against the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill at its third reading. I will not repeat the arguments that I have made through the various stages of the legislation but I will touch on them and build on that somewhat. In the Committee stage I spent most of my time working through the various ways in which this bill erodes the Woodhouse principles. I have to say that I agree with the analysis that Maryan Street has just presented on that. The bill certainly erodes the principles upon which our accident compensation scheme is based. It cuts back on entitlements and in my view and in the view of Green members it goes back on the deal that the Government made with the New Zealand population at the time that the right to sue was given up. That was the focus of my comments during the Committee stage. 
In the second reading debate I focused on an area where the Greens have a different analysis I think from every other party in this House. That area is the issue of the funding basis for accident compensation. Other parties support full funding for accident compensation; the Green Party supports “pay as you go” funding. We ask why we would choose just this one area of Government activity accident compensation to fund in a full-funding way when we fund all of the other areas—education social welfare and health—on a “pay as you go” basis. 
If we look at the nature of the costs associated with accident compensation rehabilitation and injury prevention we see that in the future the nature of those costs will not be different from the nature of the costs that will be faced in the health sector for example. So there is no sound argument for using a different method for paying for this scheme—except one. This one rationale is the rationale that we believe the Government has chosen to use this approach to funding—that is using full funding as a funding mechanism for this scheme makes the scheme more like a suite of insurance schemes or insurance policies. Doing that enables the product of accident compensation to be comparable to those of commercial insurance companies and that will enable first of all competition from the private sector then ultimately the privatisation of ACC. We believe that is the agenda. 
I have to say that in the second reading debate it was heartening on the one hand to hear from the Maori Party that it will now be voting against this bill. It is heartening because the bill is a bad one and it should be opposed. On the other hand it is a double-edged sword because given that the Maori Party is voting against the bill the Government will now be relying on the ACT Party for its support. I think we all know in this House and outside the House what the price of that will be. National which said in its campaign that there would be no privatisation and no competition in the first term of a National Government will now be “reluctantly forced” to the point of saying that in order to get ACT’s support it will have to move on that competition now instead. It is a double-edged sword but I welcome the Maori Party to the righteous side of the issue. 
I will draw a quick parallel with a couple of other areas. The health portfolio is one of mine and I have pointed out in debates on health for example that the Government in requiring district health boards to contract out more surgery to the private sector is doing something that will draw specialised staff from the public sector into the private sector thus undermining the capacity of the public sector and leading towards greater privatisation in the health sector. In the education sector to draw a parallel with the United States national standards are a precursor to vouchers and vouchers presage privatisation in education. 
So what we are seeing is a change from the Government’s first year of office. I think it is fair to say that from right across the community there were many criticisms of the Government. People were saying that this Government was just engaging in a grab bag of unconnected populist issues. That is what people were saying in the first year and maybe that was a fair criticism. But now we start to see a programme. We start to see a programme that right across the range of social services sees a withdrawal of this Government from the role that the State has played. It is a Government that has an agenda of a smaller State with a bigger role for the private sector. 
It is no secret that the Green Party stands on the other side of the line on that debate but I recognise that it is a legitimate political philosophy to say that the State should be minimal and that social services should be provided by the private sector. If that is the philosophy that National wants to espouse it should do so. My objection to that is that we are seeing that philosophy and that approach emerging by stealth here in the second year of National’s term. It is not the basis on which that party went to the population and I say that it should be. 
Now I want to draw on some comments from a former Prime Minister of this country Michael Joseph Savage. When Savage was defending the Social Security Act across the House from attacks by opponents he said this: “The honourable gentlemen”—in those days of course they were—“on the Opposition benches want to turn back the clocks. I want to know why people should not have security—why people should not have security in the evening of their days or when they are invalided. What is there more important in Christianity than to be our brothers’ keepers in reality?”. I am not a Christian as members of the House know but I would substitute my own version of the latter part of that statement and ask what is more important in being part of society than taking a collective social responsibility for one another? That was one of the principles upon which the accident compensation scheme had its origins—one of the bases on which New Zealanders gave up their right to sue—and I say that this bill this approach to accident compensation represents a fundamental derogation of the principles. I say that the Green Party stands instead for a fair go for all. Thank you. 
JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) 
: 
 When we started this debate the Minister for ACC the Hon Nick Smith set out a number of reasons why we need to pass this bill. He talked about the big increase in levies that would be necessary were it not for the passing of this bill. In particular he referred to the fact that a person on the average income will end up paying a further $300 a year into the earners account through the earners levy. 
He went on to talk about the cost increases that the accident compensation scheme has incurred and the escalating costs of claims. He said the cost of claims had increased by some 57 percent over the last 4 years from $2.2 billion to $3.5 billion. He talked about the difference in the approach that both Labour and National were taking to full funding of the scheme’s ongoing liability. 
It was interesting that immediately following Nick Smith’s speech we heard from the Hon David Parker who accused the Minister of telling half-truths. In particular he said that the Labour Party’s policy on full funding of the liability to 2019 is well known and well documented. He said that Mr Smith was misrepresenting Labour’s position. He went on to say that it was a consequence of the delay of full funding that enabled those reductions in the levy—that if it were not for the delay in full funding the levies would have to go up by $300. So he attempted to answer—quite reasonably I thought—some of the comments made by Mr Smith. 
But what was interesting about Mr Parker’s response was that he was absolutely silent on the issue of the increasing cost of claims. Mr Smith said that the cost of claims had gone up by 57 percent in 4 years—five times the rate of inflation. What was Mr Parker’s response to that? He was happy to respond to some of the other claims the Minister made but he failed to respond to that. I take that deafening silence as an acknowledgment that Mr Parker knows full well that in the last 4 years the cost of claims has gone from $2.2 billion to $3.5 billion—a 57 percent increase. 
Mr Smith also said that when the Hon Maryan Street signed off on the accounts to June 2008 she signed off on a loss of $2.4 billion and I have not heard any denial of that. The Hon Maryan Street quite reasonably in my opinion has said that the year to June 2009 was impacted by the effect of the world financial crisis and I think she has a very valid point. However I note that the recovery in the world markets has not reversed that $4.5 billion loss. I also note that Mr Smith acknowledged the impact of the global financial crisis but he also made the point that of the $2.4 billion loss in 2008 only $1 million was a consequence of those financial losses. 
Why do we need this legislation? It must be patently obvious to anyone who has listened with an unbiased view to this debate that we need this legislation because the scheme has grown to such an extent that the country can no longer afford it. We cannot continue to live in a fool’s paradise where costs increase year after year by five times the rate of inflation. That model has been followed around the world. We see it in Turkey right now; we see it in Spain. We see developed countries in the Western World facing bankruptcy and not actually being able to go out into the world markets and raise money to pay for the running of those countries. Let us hope that New Zealand never comes to that situation. 
What has driven the significant cost increase? There has been an expansion of the scheme and a significant number of new entitlements. We have talked about suicide. When the accident compensation legislation was first brought into the House there was no provision for suicide. As Mr Smith said suicide is a tragedy—it is a real tragedy—but it is not an accident. He is absolutely right: it is not an accident but it is a tragedy. 
I come back to a point that the Hon Maryan Street made in her second reading speech which I have already referred to twice in this debate. She quite rightly said that because of the advances in medical science people who would have died in an accident 20 or 30 years ago can live today. That is one of the great things about medical science: people who in past circumstances would have died can today live. But there is a cost to that and the community is prepared to pay that cost because life is precious. People who survive accidents may survive in a paralysed state or they may be tetraplegics. As the Hon Maryan Street said the cost of keeping a young person alive in that state for the rest of his or her life may go up to $20 million. I heard her talk to the Committee this morning about that cost. 
As a society New Zealanders have been prepared to pay that cost because life is very precious. But we need to recognise that the cost to the country has been an increase in claims of 12 percent per annum—five times the rate of inflation—over the last 4 years. I think that is also important in terms of why we need to fund the costs as they fall. The ACT Party disagrees with the Green Party. 
The reality is that when the scheme first came into existence in 1972 medical science was such that people involved in major serious accidents were more likely to die than to survive. But as time has gone on the number of survivors of what would otherwise have been fatal accidents has grown and grown. One might start say with five tetraplegics and that number can balloon to 10 20 50 100 or 200. Members can imagine the escalating cost. New Zealand society has been prepared to pay that cost but it is a cost that falls when the accidents occur. 
I note that the Green Party campaigned at the last election with an image of a young girl. Green members talked about her future. They said we had her future in our hands. Well I ask Mr Hague why he would bequeath to young people the costs of the previous generation. He drew the distinction about fully funding education and health on a “pay as you go” model but that is not how we fund superannuation and it is certainly not how Labour would like us to fund superannuation. Labour’s plan of course was to have the Cullen fund—the Superannuation Fund. When the Government moved away from that model because it was not prepared to borrow to fund those investments we heard all sorts of criticism from Labour. 
I come back to the issue of competition and privatisation. Let us not forget that in 1998 the National Government finally had the courage to open up the earners account to competition. As a consequence of that premiums dropped by some 30 percent. The tragedy is that the National Government did not make that move 6 years earlier so that the benefits that flowed through from that could be well and truly embedded when Labour came to power in 1999 and so that Labour was not able to dispense with those huge benefits. 
Finally I come to the issue of privatisation. I know Mr Hague criticised privatisation earlier. Let us look at the situation with cataract operations. Life-restoring cataract operations give people the ability to see. The reality is that ophthalmologists working in public hospitals as Mr Hague will well know do three or four sight-restoring operations in a morning or an afternoon whereas the output is eight operations when the same operation is done by the same surgeons in a private hospital. That is the benefit of private medicine. That is the benefit of incentivising a surgeon. 
ACT members want to offer competition and choice so we will be supporting this bill. We do so proudly but we wish it had not been necessary. If National had had the courage to make the changes that were required in 1992 and 1993 the scheme would not be in the state of financial disrepair it is in today. Thank you. 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 The purpose of the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill is stated as seeking to improve flexibility in the accident compensation scheme. Flexibility is a wonderful thing. The definition of “flexibility” is “to increase movement with a bit of stretching”. Although physical flexibility may well be part of an effective accident compensation rehabilitation scheme the only stretching this bill appears to indulge in is stretching the truth. For in improving flexibility the bill is actually reducing entitlements and Crown costs which will in turn decrease access to accident compensation cover and lower the compensation for vulnerable populations. 
We in the Maori Party always say that our past informs our present. Two years ago in 2008 the Maori Party supported the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2) which improved access and entitlements to compensation for some disenfranchised groups. These groups were itemised as seasonal casual workers those in non-standard work those mentally injured by trauma those between work and young people who are injured. The responsibility to support all of these groups of vulnerable citizens is repealed today in the third reading of this bill. 
Although the context provided for the bill is to make accident compensation affordable and fair the changes will disproportionately impact on vulnerable workers and low-income families as the bill decreases access to cover and decreases the level of compensation to these claimants. We are on the record as supporting the right of all of these groups to receive entitlement to compensation and cover. We are hardly likely to turn round and renege on that support a couple of years on. But I think we cannot go any further into this debate without looking even further back into history at the very foundations of the scheme. Submitters from the Human Rights Commission went to the select committee and reminded Parliament of the origins of accident compensation as “a form of social insurance”. They discussed the original scheme as being “a trade-off between the right to sue for compensatory damages and comprehensive no-fault cover in the event of an accident.” 
As other speakers have noted the accident compensation scheme was established following a 1967 royal commission into workers’ compensation in New Zealand. The royal commission was established to address the inadequacy of workers’ compensation benefits as well as other anomalies around coverage. The report produced by the commission known as the Woodhouse report recommended replacing tort liability for personal injury with a new universal 24-hour no-fault approach to compensation and services to the injured. The Woodhouse principles remain important today: community responsibility comprehensive entitlement complete rehabilitation fair and real compensation and administrative efficiency. Some 40 years after the accident compensation scheme was introduced it is impressive that a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers on a review of it concluded that “the current ACC scheme is consistent with the Woodhouse Principles”. But the report went even further. It suggested that the scheme adds considerable value to New Zealand society and the economy and performs comparatively well internationally. In fact in the last 10 years the investment team of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) has been one of the top performers and has outperformed even the Cullen fund at far less the cost of fund managers. 
I remind the House of our policy position on accident compensation. The Maori Party supports the right of employees to be treated fairly and with dignity and their right to a safe and healthy workplace. Our interest is in holding employers accountable for preventable workplace-related deaths and injury. Indeed one of the members’ bills we have developed is a corporate manslaughter bill. This bill is based on similar innovative legislation in the United Kingdom the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 which has been described as a landmark in law. In the UK companies and organisations can now be found guilty of corporate manslaughter as a result of serious management failures resulting in a gross breach of the duty of care. 
Why would we put up such a bill? Quite frankly there has been a widespread acknowledgment in recent years that New Zealand has a serious problem to deal with. New Zealand sits in the 23rd position in the league table of fatal accident rates with much higher rates than the best countries. In fact in a 2005 survey of the annual reports of 100 large companies for the Department of Labour the following deficiencies were noted despite 13 years since the enactment of the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992. Only 30 percent of companies reported having arrangements for consulting employees on health and safety and only 15 percent of the companies mentioned setting targets in health and safety. So there are big issues around the very concept of injury prevention that need to be addressed. 
Of course a major one for the Maori Party is the fact that access for Maori has been consistently lower than for other groups. The data available demonstrates that Maori receive treatment at a lower level than non-Maori and where services are accessed they are accessed later and programmes are exited earlier. Even though ACC undertook initiatives to improve access through information programmes and better engagement with Maori communities these programmes have not demonstrated sufficient success to close the delivery gap. 
We have raised previously the fact that Maori are disproportionately involved in very dangerous occupations such as forestry roadworks construction etc. Our biggest fear about the possibility of privatisation is that private insurance companies would make the insurance premium higher than the current accident compensation levies especially for dangerous jobs because of the high possibility of getting hurt. The insurance premium would more than likely be too high for Maori to be motivated to take out that insurance. Then there is the problem of going to court as insurance companies continually try to go to court to try to resist making insurance payouts. The changes will then place the onus on the taxpayer to go out and find an insurance policy that will meet their particular needs—a change that I think would not be at all beneficial for the Maori community. In short transforming the levy into a premium will simply not give us as the advertisements say the peace of mind. 
Finally the Maori Party came to this bill conscious of a large range of concerns that had come in from our constituents. We were approached about opposition to increased levies especially from motorcyclists to sexual abuse compensation rules and to a threshold of 6 percent hearing loss before people are entitled to assistance with hearing aids. There were also concerns over privatisation and reduced coverage. Although many changes might seem to be minor the cumulative effect will undermine the concept of accident compensation as it is currently understood. Over and above all these changes we know that injury is the leading cause of death for Maori for the first three decades of life. Maori are over-represented in injury statistics across all age groups and in employment and sports. Most of these injuries are preventable. As Dr John Broughton reported in his 1999 report  
Injury to Maori: Does it really have to be like this? 
: “Although the frond will eventually die it need not wither or die so soon or before its time.” There are far too many issues associated with a full and comprehensive injury prevention scheme to approve the changes put forward in this bill. We must oppose this third reading. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I will not take long on the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill. I think we have canvassed a lot of the issues already during the last day or so. I thank members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee who worked very well to get this legislation through the committee in a timely fashion. I also thank all those who have taken an active role and interest in seeing the New Zealand accident compensation system become the best system it can be and one that will survive into the future. When we look at it we see that is at the heart of what the Government is doing here. We want to see the scheme survive and we want to see it be there for people. We want to maintain a system that gives New Zealanders the comfort that they expect and have seen in their accident compensation system for generations now. By doing what we are today we are allowing New Zealanders to have the security of knowing that accident compensation will be there for them in the future. I think the key thing that people in this House need to understand is that this bill is about saving the scheme. It is about making it sustainable over the long term. It has nothing to do with what the Labour Opposition members have been saying over the last day or so. 
I will go through two things but first of all I say there has been an abuse of process in this House today. The constant amendments that were put up when there was a particular issue there that is in the best interests of New Zealand are a tactic that Labour Party members need to reflect upon. The public out there will not want to see this House waste its time and resources when we are trying to do something good for the New Zealand people. Putting up frivolous amendments all day does not really endear the Labour members to the New Zealand public. That is something the Labour Party might want to take on board for future circumstances. 
Two very important things came out of today. The first one is that we heard a constant barrage from the Opposition members about the Woodhouse principles. They say the bill is contrary to the principles that were first adopted in accident compensation and that it takes away the principles that were there. I say we should look at that in a historical context: we had the Woodhouse report the accident compensation system and in the last term of the previous Labour Government the changes to the system. Those changes were not based on the Woodhouse principles but on the political whim of that Government. We are not reversing the Woodhouse principles. The Woodhouse principles set up the accident compensation system. What we are looking at are some of the changes that were made in recent years to the system and the legislation does not affect the Woodhouse principles. I think the public out there needs to be very much aware that the Woodhouse principles are intact that the accident compensation system is intact and that the National Government has made sure that is the case. We have not dealt with the Woodhouse principles in the way that the Labour Party has contended over the last day or so. 
The second very important thing that came out of the last day or so is the idea of full funding. The National Party is committed to that. We have extended the time frame in order to enable that to happen. The Labour Party started this debate not knowing where it stood on that. We looked at Maryan Street’s face during the debate. When she was asked whether she supported full funding she was deliberately quiet. She did not want to commit herself to supporting full funding. But what happened today? David Parker sat down beside her today and in response to a speech during the Committee stage he said the Labour Party was committed to full funding. That is what the Labour Party policy is and Labour members were backing this legislation but they could not vote for it. Labour backed this legislation but would not vote for something that was in the best interests of what New Zealanders wanted. That shows the state that the Labour Party is in at the moment. The Labour members do not know what they stand for and when they do know what they stand for they are not willing to stand up for it. That is the problem with the Labour Party. That is why it is polling so badly and why the public will see great credit in what National has done to retain the accident compensation system and will not be listening to the arguments that have been put up against this legislation today. 
I commend this bill to the House and I look forward to it being enacted tonight. I thank all those involved in the process especially members of the select committee and the officials involved. Thank you. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 The member who just resumed his seat David Bennett talked about ensuring that accident compensation will be there for injured New Zealanders. That is a good aspiration and I am pleased that the member spoke about that. What the member did not add to his great vision for the security of accident compensation in the future was “except if people have a work-induced hearing loss of less than 6 percent” because that is now a “gone-burger”. 
If workers are injured before they have used up all their holidays their holiday pay is a “gone-burger”. This bill takes away support for seasonal workers who make the foolish mistake of getting injured early in the season instead of later in the season. The same is true for part-time workers and those in middle or high income jobs who are injured and want the dignity of returning to a job where they can earn about the same as they used to. Their support is gone under this legislation. If one is a family member of someone who is so inconsiderate that he or she takes their own life then support for that family has gone as well. 
This Parliament in the third reading of this bill doctored by Dr Nick Smith will now make a moral judgment that the family of a person who dies in a plane crash a train crash or on the road or from any other injury is more worthy of support than the family member of someone who takes his or her own life. It will make a moral judgment about the value to that family of a person’s life. The person is still dead. The family still has to pay for the funeral. The family will not have that income coming into their home. The person is dead. 
The fact that the person took his or her own life actually makes it harder for the family. Most members in this House will know a family where one member has taken his or her own life. Most of us will have had that sort of experience. The family is often overwhelmed with grief as well as guilt because on a daily basis they think that something they may have done differently could have altered the decision of that person to take his or her own life. But let us not worry about that says David Bennett. Let us punish them again by not giving them any support for the funeral and not giving them any support for the lost income. So the wonderful words— 
Hon Sir Roger Douglas 
: Have you calculated the $9 million for physiotherapy? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: What was that noise from the grave? Oh sorry it was Sir Roger Douglas—the ghost of a lot of things past is still giving the same speeches. 
It is very interesting to hear all the scaremongering that goes on about how much money the accident compensation scheme has lost how much money it needs and how the rate of claimants’ costs has exploded. But Nick Smith never once mentioned the substantial change in the funding need the substantial levy reductions that would be caused by one alteration—that is extending the date for full funding. 
One alteration was actually all that was needed. David Parker had a member’s bill before the House. The Government could have adopted David Parker’s member’s bill and we would not have needed to slash the entitlement of people who have hearing loss people who have saved up their holidays people who are seasonal workers and people who are family members of someone who has taken his or her own life. None of that would have been necessary. 
The Minister has been caught out so many times with his half-truths about the accident compensation scheme being broke bankrupt and unsustainable that nobody believes it any more. He was also caught out when he said that motorcycle injury numbers have ballooned. Apparently just about everyone in New Zealand who rode a motorcycle was falling off and breaking something. Apparently they were all damaging themselves. 
At the end of my speech I will seek leave to table those figures but I tell the House that despite the increase in the number of motorcycles between 1973 and 2009—an increase of half again—the number of injuries between those dates went from 551 in 1973 to 86 in 2009 per 10000 on-road motorcycles. Those are the numbers: 551 in 1973 and 86 in 2009. The Minister looks as though he is trying to swallow his tongue; he has gone suddenly quiet. The number of fatalities went from 17 in 1973 to just under 4½. How can those numbers justify what Dr Smith told motorbike riders around the country? 
Those are the facts—as opposed to what Dr Smith was telling people—in the same way that the select committee report on the bill gives us facts about the comparative costs with the accident compensation equivalent in Australia. The figures have been adjusted to look at the differences in the schemes—what the cover is. So these are apples with apples comparisons. The South Australian cost per $100 in Australian earnings is $3.14 in New South Wales it is $1.94 and in Western Australia it is $1.51. The Australian average—an apples with apples comparison—as reported back by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee including the National members— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: What year? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: The year 2006-07. The Minister should have read the report. The Australian average is $1.72 and what is the New Zealand rate? It is 94c. PricewaterhouseCoopers a reasonably well-regarded organisation said that the New Zealand scheme was more efficient than any other scheme in the world. So the system is not broke. 
So what do we have in this legislation to consider? We have a bill that means people will now be paying more in their levies—employers and individuals—and they will get less because this bill is about cuts. We now have a new threshold that people have to reach for hearing loss in their workplace before they will get any accident compensation cover and support. A hearing loss of 6 percent is a big hearing loss actually. It does not mean that someone can hear 94 percent of things. It is a significant loss as the select committee heard and described to the House. But if someone has a hearing loss of 6 percent or less that is bad luck. So it is now all right for employers to injure their workers just a little bit as long as it is not more than 6 percent. This is an arbitrary figure and it is crazy. 
The vocational independence work capacity test has been absolutely gutted. There is no consideration of the person’s pre-injury earning capacity no consideration that the person needs to be able to work 35 hours a week rather than 30 and no consideration of the fact that he or she should have a real job to go to. The person who has been injured should have the dignity of a real job entitlement. 
Seasonal workers need to plan for their injury to occur during the later part of the season because if they get injured at the beginning then their non-work time prior to their starting the job is counted—no earnings less money. That is just a disgrace. It is bad luck for people who get injured and have holidays owing to them. If they have not taken some holidays and were looking forward to taking them in 3 or 4 months time it is bad luck for them. They will have to use up their holiday pay before they are entitled to accident compensation. 
So this bill is full of cuts despite the fact that all of us are facing accident compensation levy hikes this year. This is absolutely about paying more and getting less. The reason I am so angry about this legislation is twofold. First of all it is not necessary. The Minister has misrepresented the facts of the situation in order to justify major changes to entitlements. But the stronger reason for me is that this is about real people. It is about real people who have been injured. 
During the Committee stage I talked about one of my constituents whose family I have worked with a lot and I know that they will be devastated by this. The constituent I mentioned earlier in the debate was Jason Gibson who was a 29-year-old spray painter. He loved his job he loved his wife he loved his parents and he loved his little daughter. He went to his parents’ home one day and said he had hay fever - like symptoms and had had a nosebleed the day before. His father recommended that he have a blood test because as a painter he might have lead poisoning. Six days later Jason died from leukaemia caused by inhaling the solvents at his work. Injury prevention high-quality rehabilitation and compensation should be the focus not cuts. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I am grateful for a brief opportunity to promote this measure in its final stages through the House. It will be patently obvious to viewers and listeners around the country that we have been treated to some barefaced and shameful rewriting of history by members opposite during the various stages of this bill but the public is not fooled and will not be fooled by the spin because the substance is there for everybody to see. The substance is Labour’s legacy and it is an appalling one. The loss of $4.8 billion as reported in the 2008-09 annual report should leave all members of the previous Government collectively hanging their heads in shame. 
I commend this Minister for ACC and this Government for confronting the appalling problems that Labour not only ignored but also exacerbated during the latter period of its time in office. The options the Minister has confronted were unpalatable but unavoidable. The Minister is charting a prudent and responsible course to rescue and secure a vitally important aspect of our nation’s social infrastructure. New Zealanders will have every reason to be grateful for this measure in the years ahead. I urge all responsible members of this House to give it their full support. 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 I want— 
Carol Beaumont 
: Two minutes on such an important issue. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: —well I do not think it was 2 minutes—to talk about what all New Zealanders hold dear; that is the accident compensation legislation which is historic in this country. Under the Woodhouse report in 1974 it was about a social contract that delivered us a comprehensive scheme for looking after all who were injured whether it be at work in an accident at home on a sports field on the road or in special circumstances such as a victim of crime or in rare but tragic circumstance of suicide or sexual abuse. 
I say to Nick Smith that in the complex world we live in there have been changes to the scheme. Some were for good under Labour and some were for bad under National. Nick Smith wants to take us back 3 decades. The broad principles were a fair deal for all—the many not the few—and the fundamental belief in a society that believes in looking after everyone in hard times. But no the National Government wants to take us to the market model so that means that it is not fair. It means that we will pay more and get less. 
Chris Hipkins 
: You can say privatisation. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Well preparing it for privatisation. What did Woodhouse see in his report? He saw a New Zealand where the delivery of support and justice to all New Zealanders who were injured in any way was not left to the market with the only winners being lawyers and those who could afford to pay. Woodhouse said that in circumstances of injury disability death no matter how compelling or tragic it could not be left to the market. There would be minimal justice in that circumstance and certainly none for those who could not pay. We are seeing now in this House a National Government that is throwing away those principles that is demeaning any progress that has been made on the Woodhouse recommendations and on the original legislation and that is wanting to go backwards. 
Who will be the losers under National’s changes to accident compensation? They will be low-paid workers disabled people and predominantly women workers. My colleague Ruth Dyson talked about those with less than 6 percent hearing loss. Those people do not get any assistance with a hearing aid under National’s proposal. Who will be able to afford that? It is not about the 94 percent hearing that those people have; it is about professional people assessing the disability of clients and to drive in a 6 percent mandatory rule that no client will get assistance for hearing aids is nothing short of ridiculous. It is absolutely ridiculous. 
Who will win out of that situation? The only people who will win are those who can afford to sue because otherwise there is no support. Or people languish on the system that we have under the National Government at the moment to wait for some help from the Ministry of Health and those people will probably wait for up to a year at least. New Zealand legislated for a no-fault scheme. There was a very small levy across all New Zealanders. Whether they were employers business people sportspeople or workers it delivered justice for all in this country. It was not a matter of whether people could afford it; they received the support that they needed and deserved. 
It was the envy of the world. It put New Zealand completely on the map. It was never ever about choice which is what we hear so often from members on that side of the House especially the ACT members. It was never about selling our scheme off to the highest bidder which is what happened under the previous National Government. It was about a country that wanted to ensure a fair deal for all and for all New Zealand citizens to receive the support that they needed if they were injured. The National Government and the “Voucher Party”—the ACT Party—take advantage and say: “Let us work with the market.” Now we see that they are cutting into the rights—not privileges; they are rights—that every New Zealander pays for. 
These are their rights under our accident compensation scheme. The principles of that social contract of accident compensation were about social justice for all who suffered injury. It came down to an investment. New Zealanders gave up something. They gave up their right to sue for this scheme. New Zealanders collectively gave up their right to sue on the realisation that to have an effective scheme both socially and economically—avoiding accidents getting people back into work and all those things that are part of a progressive scheme—it would come at a cost. They could not get into the market that the ACT Party promotes about going to the highest bidder or employing lawyers and being able to sue. Through the electoral cycles we have seen what is so predictable. It happens every time we have a National Government. 
I have to ask Nick Smith this time why he is not going for the full monty and going for cutting lump-sum payments. Why is he not doing that? I ask why Nick Smith is not saying that he will cut lump-sum payments because that is what is in National’s heart. It is about privatisation. I will tell all National members that as long as you have lump-sum payments no matter how much you denigrate the rights that are entrenched in the accident compensation scheme which you are doing tonight in this House your agenda of privatisation— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member continues to bring me into the debate and I know that she knows she should not be doing that. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: I am sorry Mr Deputy Speaker. I know that you are blameless in this and I do apologise. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: And I am not part of  
The Full Monty 
 either! 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: I think that was directed! But if we look at the agenda of the cost cutting and the lump-sum payments of the previous Government we know we are up for a lot of cuts in the future. Members on this side of the House put up amendments and I think those amendments were very sensible. We said we should have a review to check how much devastation has happened. But it goes round and round. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Wait until next term. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: The member is right. But what will we see and where will we see it? We will see cuts cuts and more cuts. We will see that for workers instead of a requirement to return work for 35 hours a week it will be for 30 hours a week. The Government wants to reduce the return-to-work level to 30 hours a week. That is 30 hours a week when times are hard in a recession and when it is very hard to find work. What is this Government’s answer? It is to reduce people’s ability to get back into work. Apart from that it is for people to use their holiday pay. Holiday pay is actually a right. All New Zealand workers earn their right to holiday pay. They earn it. I tell members on the other side of the House that when people injure themselves at work it is not a holiday. I say to Nick Smith that it is not a holiday to sit there with a damaged back so one cannot spend time with one’s family. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 This has been a long journey. It is not one that started with the introduction of this legislation into the House; it started back in 2005 I think when the financial performance of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) began to deteriorate. In late 2007 the Department of Labour told the previous Labour Government that Vote ACC was not sufficient by a long chalk to meet the dozen or more extensions to the scheme that that Government planned to put in place. Three times the previous Labour Government was told in 2008 of the well-costed problems that the Department of Labour said would cost $305 million in that year alone and then $1.5 billion in the out-years. In breach of the Public Finance Act the previous Labour Government remained silent about that; it failed to put that into the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update. 
The principal finance change denier the former Minister for ACC Maryan Street had the audacity to suggest that it was she who sent the officials to Nelson after the election to inform the new Minister of the financial crisis. Well it was too late then. Of all the ranting we have heard from that member the one thing we have not heard from her and the one thing that this House and the people of New Zealand are owed is a single word: sorry. The second principal finance change denier Mr Parker challenged the Minister and had the audacity to challenge him on the financial justification for the changes made in this legislation. It is a pity his party did not hold itself to the same high standards of accountability that the member seems to demand of this Government. I simply reject the suggestion that those changes have not been rigorously costed—they have. They are inputted into the proposed levies for 2010-11 and thank goodness they are! 
Let me share the positive impacts of this Accident Compensation Amendment Bill on those levies. Without this legislation a worker on the average wage would have faced a $550 per annum increase in accident compensation levies. With it a worker will face a $150 a year increase. Car registrations would have gone up by $103 a year but with this legislation the increase will be $30 a year. Employer levies would have gone up by 44 percent without this legislation but with it the increase will be 12 percent. I find it absolutely amazing that in the over 100 calls that we had in the Committee stage of this bill not a single Opposition member once mentioned the levy payers. In fact Ms Dyson just mentioned them in her speech but there was no other mention of them. The Labour members cannot even bring themselves to use the word “employer”. When I was at ACC and the previous administration was in power it was called the employer account. Labour could not even bring itself to use the term “employer”; it had to change the name to the work account such is its animosity towards employers. 
There has always been a black a white and a grey area when it comes to accident compensation. There are those who suffer mishap due to medical conditions and there are those who clearly suffer the effects of an accident. There is always a grey bit in the middle. I hope you can hear me Mr Deputy Speaker; there is a really bad buzzing in my ear. Over the last 5 years that grey area has become thicker and thicker. It has become more and more difficult for the corporation to manage that grey area and I applaud these changes which bring clarity to the entitlements that every New Zealander has under this scheme. 
My final comment is to the staff of ACC. It has been a tough year for them. I encourage them to continue the good work that they do for the 1.8 million New Zealanders who are injured every year the vast majority of whom are cared for well are rehabilitated in a timely manner and enjoy a fast and lasting return to work or independence. But I also encourage them to continue to improve that rehabilitation effort and not to resile from the goal of rehabilitating claimants even when that goal is tough—tough for the claimant; tough for the staff. The Woodhouse report said it was necessary to have a bit of tough love from time to time. But that can be done with compassion to a high quality with clear communication and above all with consistency so that claimants from Kaitaia to the Bluff can expect to have the same level of service the same decisions being made and the same good-quality care from the corporation. 
I think this bill makes a very important change that will restore the scheme to its rightful place as a world-leading accident compensation scheme. I applaud it and I commend it to the House. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 I seek the leave of the House to table a document from the Ministry of Transport outlining the annual motorcycle numbers and injury and fatality statistics between 1973 and 2009—the facts of the situation. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: When was this document released? On which date? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: In 2009 by the Ministry of Transport. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Is this document already in the public arena? [ 
Interruption 
] Yes it is a point of order. Leave is sought to table this document? Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 I seek the leave of the House to table the report received by me as Minister on physiotherapy costs and the disaster that Ruth Dyson brought upon ACC— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: No we are not getting— 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: —in respect of— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: We are not getting into debate. The Minister has sought leave to table a document. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Accident Compensation Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Bill read a third time. 
Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 18 February. 
Part 2 Amendments to other enactments ( 
continued 
)  
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I have a lot to say on Part 2 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. I think Part 2 demonstrates the far-reaching effect of an issue that has been the source of quite a lot of discussion throughout the debate. That issue is the extension to capture 12 and 13-year-olds in the Act because that crosses over into the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act which we find amended in Part 2 and it has some impact on that Act. Those on the Justice and Electoral Committee will know that we have only recently made significant changes to the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act. The way that children and young people are captured in the Act was the source of quite a lot of discussion. I want to touch on that in my contribution. As Chester Borrows a member of the Social Services Committee has pointed out it was his view that the provisions around 12 and 13-year-olds being able to go through the Youth Court were essentially a matter of filtering and a matter of expediency. But I think this part points out that the provisions make much more of an impact than that. 
Part 2 cross-references section 8(1A) of the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act 1995. I want to quickly just reflect on that section which reads: “However a suspect who is a child or was a child at the time an offence in relation to which he or she may not be lawfully prosecuted (being an indictable offence other than murder or manslaughter) was committed may consent to the taking of a buccal sample as a result of a Part 2A request.” What we see there is that there are elements of compulsion available to police for the taking of buccal samples for offences such as murder and manslaughter because we acknowledge that as it stands the 12 and 13-year-olds charged with those offences in our system are already able to be taken through a higher level of court. That section essentially says that for everything else compulsion does not apply; it is voluntary. 
Then we come to Part 2 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. I do not recall there being great lengths of discussion in the select committee about this part but I want to talk about what is implied by this part. If we look at it we see that replacement clause 41(1A) of the bill says that “However a suspect may in relation to an indictable offence consent to the taking of a buccal sample as a result of a Part 2A request if the subject is a child or was a child at the time the offence is alleged to have been committed and cannot lawfully be prosecuted in relation to that offence because it is not an offence of any of the following kinds:”. Before in section 8(1A) of the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act we had just the offences of murder or manslaughter. Now we have an indictable offence as well. Also going on are two more criteria in clause 41(1A)(i) and (ii) of the bill: “that is alleged to have been committed when the suspect was aged 12 or 13 years; and for which the maximum penalty available is or includes imprisonment for life or for at least 14 years:”. I want to seek some clarity from the Minister for Social Development and Employment Paula Bennett on that clause. I accept that I may have misinterpreted it here but I do not believe I have. Prior to that we had the case where compulsion in respect of taking buccal samples could be applied for murder and manslaughter. Now we are saying that—outside of murder manslaughter and indictable offences with a penalty of up to 14 years—for everything else it is voluntary but within that compulsion can be applied to 12 and 13-year-olds. That is the only assumption that we can make by the reference in this Part 2. 
So I would like to seek some clarity from the Minister on that. The reason for that is this: when we discussed the bodily samples bill in the Justice and Electoral Committee the direction from the Minister of Justice was clear. That was that he held grave concerns about the creep that could have occurred on the basis of that legislation. Direct reference was made to the idea that we do not want samples being taken in the backs of police cars from young children without guardians who are there or available. We went to great lengths in that bill to make sure that we cross-referenced the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act and made sure that we carried over the provisions that apply to an interview situation where a guardian or a caregiver must be given the opportunity to be present. We carried over those provisions for certain classes of buccal samples when taken from young people. It seems to me that we did not discuss again those same kinds of protection for our 12 and 13-year-olds in relation to the broadening of that power for those groups. I have great concerns about that. I ask the Minister to clarify the intention and also whether the change was discussed with the Minister of Justice. I certainly think it is a clause and a proposal that would have been gratefully received and discussed by the Justice and Electoral Committee when we originally discussed the bodily samples legislation. I think we would have had something quite substantive to say on that extension that broadening of scope and power. 
I guess again that that all comes back to the flow-on as I mentioned of the broadening out of the way we treat our children in our legislation because this is not just a filtering or a streamlining of our Youth Court and Family Court processes; it has a much broader effect. The importance of this clause is reflected in the fact that we now as a consequence are in breach of our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I would like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on the impact of those changes on that convention because—very recently I know—the Government had an opportunity to appear before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva but did not mention this bill; it did not mention Part 1 let alone Part 2. Not only were we already in breach based on the way that our 17-year-olds are treated in the youth justice system but rather than fixing that the Government broadened the whole thing out and brought in 12 and 13-year-olds just for good measure. They are children; as we have continually highlighted throughout this debate they are still children. That is what I would like to put to the Minister. 
The reason why the UN obviously has a broad definition of whom it considers to be children in that convention and why it is important that they be treated differently is based on research and on evidence. It is based around the ideas of brain development the impact of young people being in what is deemed a pseudo-adult criminal justice system and the long-term impact on those children being exposed to an overtly punitive form of criminal justice. I would like to hear the Minister’s reflection on our obligations because Part 2 I think is in direct contravention of that convention as well. I know for instance that Simon Power either in the lead-up to or after his appearance before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva stated—and I think this is a good quote because I do agree—“It’s important to front up with our own situation so that we can credibly discuss the challenges facing other countries.” There is an acknowledgment there by the Minister of Justice that in order to maintain our credibility on the international stage we not only need to be present and be ready to be scrutinised but also have to hold our own in this forum. We need to make sure that we maintain the bar set by the United Nations. In many other respects we do but this is a fundamental failing. I think that it is slightly disingenuous to have said that we can credibly discuss the challenges facing other countries only if we front up with our own and then not even discuss what we were debating at that time back in the New Zealand Parliament and in the Social Services Committee as part of the parliamentary process—these fundamental changes made through the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. 
I ask the Minister for Social Development and Employment whether she would not mind addressing the points I have raised around the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act and the impact of changes in that legislation because it is reasonably detailed. The changes there mainly come through implication rather than direct reference so I would like a little more clarity around those provisions. I also would like to know what discussions were had with the Minister of Justice and the Ministry of Justice on those provisions because I think quite rightly that there have been concerns about the very swift broadening of powers around bodily samples and DNA testing in New Zealand. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 To be clear about Part 2 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill  clause 41 amends sections 8 18(1) 23(1) and 24C of the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act 1995. The amendments update the circumstances when children may be required or may consent to give bodily samples in order to reflect the changes to the principal Act proposed by the bill. 
Clause 42 amends section 142A of the Criminal Justice Act 1985. The amendment relates to a child who is serving a sentence of imprisonment whether that sentence was imposed before or after the commencement of this legislation. It ensures that after the commencement of this legislation the child may while he or she still is a child be detained under that sentence only in an approved residence as defined under the principal Act. 
This part of the bill is very narrow. It applies directly to those matters. I would be interested to hear whether Labour will support this part. It did support the original Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill and Part 2 merely brings the Act into line with the changes in this bill. Part 2 is a narrow part. We have debated the main part of the bill. I think the clauses in Part 2 are important additions to the bill that we must do. 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 I thank the Minister for Social Development and Employment for her contribution but I am afraid it did not actually address the issues that my colleague Jacinda Ardern had asked about with regard to her concerns around this part of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. In particular the Minister failed to address the concerns about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which in my reading of Part 2 of this bill does cause New Zealand some grief in terms of its commitments in that regard. I have had the opportunity to contribute to this debate in the earlier parts of the Committee stage and in the main I was very focused on whether the boot camp model was the right pathway to go down for our young people who are in trouble with the justice system and in trouble in the course of their lives in particular thinking about the very good model Te Hurihanga which has been established in Hamilton and which this Government is closing down. That seems to be a much better way to go in order to deal with these issues. 
When it comes to Part 2 of this bill I am interested in gaining some understanding from the Minister about what the implications are for clause 42 which amends the Criminal Justice Act and amends it in a way that has children subject to our youth justice facilities. I am particularly keen to know what that means in terms of residential facilities when it comes to 12 and 13-year-olds. I have to say that I am interested from a personal perspective as well because when I read this bill as a member of Parliament I also cannot help but read this as a mother. I cannot separate the two sometimes and I think that is probably a good thing. That is why we have women in this Chamber because it is important that we wear all of those hats when we are reading legislation. I am the mother of a 12-year-old. I read this part of the bill and wonder about the rights of my 12-year-old with regard to having compulsory samples taken. I tell members it is not something that I relish the idea of as a parent. What are the— 
Hon Member 
: It’s taking a cheek swab. 
SUE MORONEY 
: Mr Borrows seems to think that he has the answer to the anxiety that parents might have about the rights of children at the ages of 12 and 13 years. I am interested that at least Part 2 does call these 12 and 13-year-olds “children” because they are and there are other parts of this bill that pretend otherwise. We are talking about children who are 12 and 13 years old. For example if my son were in this position—if he were accused of a crime—would I be with him? Would there be a requirement for the parents to be informed? Would the parents need to give consent for bodily samples to be taken from a 12-year-old? Those are things that I think New Zealand parents will be contemplating as they hear this debate because they are very important issues to consider. Certainly being the mother of a 12-year-old I do not believe that he would be in a position to make legal decisions about his rights in this regard. Those are the sorts of things that I would like to hear in a more succinct form from the Minister. 
The Minister stood up and read out perfectly well what we can all see in front of us. We can all see which sections of which acts will be amended but what we are really interested in is what this means with regard to our international obligations; we want to know what discussions have been had with other Ministers with regard to this and we want to know exactly what this means in terms of children and the way they are treated. 
I started by talking about residential facilities and that is where I want to end my contribution. For example the Te Hurihanga facility in Hamilton is an 8-bed facility. I want to know whether 12-year-olds would be in a residential facility staying overnight with 24-year-olds. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a short call on Part 2 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill in order to reflect as my colleagues have done on the implications from our perspective of the major change that this bill brings forward: that is the treatment of 12 to 13-year-olds. We are discussing children here. We know the Minister for Social Development and Employment has been very reluctant to use the word children when referring to 12 to 13-year-olds but that is what they are. When we put them into a criminal jurisdiction like the Youth Court then it has a whole series of implications. 
This part identifies again some of the concerns Labour members have. We are discussing children who are 12 and 13 years of age and who will be asked to provide bodily samples I assume voluntarily. Once collected the sample is kept. All the uses and abuses of those samples are possible. 
Todd McClay 
: What abuses? Give us an example. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I say to Mr McClay that the major one is that it will give a dog a bad name. When a 12-year-old does stray and eventually comes back to the fold those samples are kept for a long time and one does not know how those samples will be used or abused. 
Todd McClay 
: It sounds like conspiracy theory. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: The member ought to be an advocate for 12-year-olds and protect their rights. This part does not do that and this bill does not do that. Here is an example of what is likely to happen to those children: they will be exposed to this bodily samples regime. This part of the bill opens them up to it. Where are the protections for 12 and 13-year-olds? New Zealand will be in breach of international conventions. What discussions have there been around that? We have not heard any of those arguments. The Minister may want to take a call to give us those kinds of guarantees. 
Todd McClay 
: The information will be misused. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I say to Mr McClay that he knows that these issues were not discussed at any length in the Social Services Committee. It was taken for granted but now when we come back and have a look at it in the totality of what this bill provides we see we have a major glitch that ought to be addressed and that ought to be talked about. What are the explanations we will provide for the responsibilities we have in terms of our United Nations obligations? They have not been reported they have not been discussed and they have not been identified. They were not discussed in the select committee and here we are again with the risks of exposing 12 to13-year-olds. We are told that it is for a small number but we do not know what the number will be under this regime. We believe that those children ought to have those protections but the protections are not there at the moment. So what is the real purpose of this legislation? How will the Minister address our United Nations obligations to protect children? 
One also wonders what other implications there are for the 12 to 13-year-olds who will be caught by the regime and by this legislation. What might they be? Which ones have been talked about? The present Minister in the chair the Hon Judith Collins might want to explain some of those. In the end these are ethical questions as well. They are ethical questions that accrue to this aspect of this bill and they have not been answered. They have not been addressed. Minister Bennett in the speeches she has given so far has not been willing to engage in a philosophical or ethical justification for these provisions but here is another opportunity for the Minister in the chair and perhaps for other speakers on the other side of the Chamber to address the question and convince us that the protections for children—because that is what they are—that they deserve and demand will be accorded. 
Indeed those are the obligations we have and we have given guarantees in our own child protection as well as in the United Nations rules and conventions we have signed up to in New Zealand that we need to address. I would like to hear some explanation about why this legislation is necessary and how it really protects the needs of very young children. I look forward to those explanations. Thank you. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the Green Party to oppose Part 2 for many of the reasons that have been outlined by my Labour colleagues. I think that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is very relevant here because the essence of that convention is that the rights and welfare of children come first. If we apply that in this situation to 12 and 13-year-olds the imposition of a regime of DNA testing and bodily samples is not putting the rights of children first. 
We can look at this in perspective. It was not long ago that we did not have any DNA testing. When the select committee discussed the bill that Part 2 is amending it was said quite clearly by a number of jurisdictions and by the Privacy Commissioner that taking bodily samples of people’s DNA is particularly intrusive much more so than is taking fingerprints or other forms of biometric testing. It is an intrusion on the privacy of the person. If we look at it in the context that this has just come in then it is very intrusive. We have not had the taking of body samples in place for too long; I ask why we need it now for children. 
The Green Party opposed the original bill that effectively brought in compulsory bodily sample extraction. I ask why we now have to bring it right down to include children—12 and 13-year-olds. There is no argument for it to be brought to that level. A provision in the bill talks about suspects and it should be borne in mind that we do not actually need to be charged to have a bodily sample taken according to the original legislation that this bill is amending; one need just be a police suspect. The police have a couple of months before they can charge a person or decide not to after they have taken the bodily sample. 
Then there is the question about whether a 12 or 13-year-old is able to give consent. When we are talking about 12 and 13-year-olds are we really talking about consent? For example a 12-year-old is bundled into the back of a police car and is taken to the station and asked whether he or she will consent to a body sample being taken. In any rational analysis there is no consent there—99 percent of the time you do what the police say and there might be a few implications that if you do not there might be a few downsides for you and your family. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: The member is bringing the Chair into the debate. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: I am sorry Mr Chairman. I am talking about “you” in the generic sense but I should not use the word. I think that is the problem with a lot of legislation in this House. We keep running down the track of having more and more restrictions on people’s rights. Sure people can argue that there might be an upside to it and that there might be a really bad 12-year-old and that this particular provision will enable a bodily sample to be given. That person may at some point in the future be convicted and that provision will be good. But if we put it in the balance of what is happening to children in this society—the criminalisation of children—and adding the extraction of bodily samples from them in essentially a forced way then I ask which is the greater problem for society. Is it the occasional child who might get off when he or she should be convicted—the one in one thousand or whatever—or is it the intrusion that this measure will cause and the infringement on children’s rights that is contrary to all our international commitments to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child? Thank you. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I will start off my call on Part 2 by foreshadowing two amendments that Labour will put forward. It is important to say that Labour has put forward these amendments to Part 2 based on previous rulings in the accident compensation legislation about where these matters need to be raised. The Chairperson previously ruled that expiry provisions must be within a part of the bill not with the preliminary provisions so we are following that ruling and these amendments are to be inserted as a new clause in Part 2. 
The two amendments are very different. The first amendment would mean that the entire Act expires by way of a sunset clause and the second amendment would mean that only Part 2 of this legislation expires. I very much look forward to the ACT Party’s support for these amendments as the ACT Party has regularly called for legislation and regulations to have sunset clauses and expiry dates. In this instance we agree with those members and we look forward to having a majority of the Committee in favour of these sunset clauses. 
When it comes to Part 2 I urge the Minister in the chair the Minister for Social Development and Employment to answer some of the questions that are going unanswered in this debate. I would really appreciate getting some clarification over the compulsion in the taking of DNA samples from minors. 
I have the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act 1995 in front of me which is the principal Act being amended by this part. A reading of the Act would imply that we can compulsorily take a sample from a 12 or 13-year-old in the case of murder or manslaughter and my reading of the amendment that the Minister is putting forward in Part 2 is that that power will be extended to any indictable offence punishable by 14 years’ imprisonment or more. I would like the Minister’s clarification on that—that what we are doing here is saying that a DNA sample can be taken compulsorily from a 12 or 13-year-old for any indictable offence punishable by 14 years’ imprisonment or more. I do not think it is too much to ask for that clarification so that we know what we are passing here this evening. 
This is of particular interest to me and I gave many speeches on previous legislation amending the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act which this Government passed. That amending legislation extended the DNA database. The reason I did that was that although I am a great believer in DNA legislation—I am a great believer in its potential not just for convicting the guilty but for freeing people who have been wrongly convicted of crime—it does worry me that members of this Parliament do not seem to realise that although this technology has enormous potential it also has enormous risk and restrictions in its ability. It is not foolproof by any stretch of the imagination. 
Members of this Committee know how powerful DNA technology is. If 12 or 13-year-olds go to court and there is DNA evidence against them it is very difficult to argue out of those charges. The fact is that all DNA evidence does is prove that someone’s DNA was at the scene of a crime. That is all it proves. It is up to the rest of the evidence to prove why someone’s DNA was there that that person was there and what that person was doing whilst there. There is an idea that somehow if someone’s DNA is found at a crime scene it means that person committed the crime. I find it worrying that Government members have made those claims in terms of this legislation and in previous DNA legislation that we have passed. They have called DNA testing a fingerprint. It is not a fingerprint. A fingerprint is an entire thing. 
When we come to DNA testing we test only a few loci—something like 0.001 percent of someone’s DNA is tested when a DNA sample is taken. Although it is incredibly accurate it is not a fingerprint. If we are to be extending again the use and the powers of this technology I want to hear—and I am pleased the Minister of Justice has come to the Chamber—that Government members understand and are prepared to articulate not just the potential but the limitations of this technology. 
As my colleague Lianne Dalziel has pointed out time and time again it is not just that it is difficult to exonerate someone if he or she is innocent but has DNA against them; it is sometimes hard to get a conviction if the person does not have DNA evidence against them. People believe because they watch  
CSI 
 that DNA is always there in every single case—it is called the  
CSI 
 effect amongst the science community. The belief is that if DNA is present someone is guilty and if it is not present the person must be innocent. That is not true. With the greatest respect to the Minister in the chair I say that when legislation like this extends the jurisdiction of this technology I want to know that the Government understands those limitations. 
I would like the Minister to stand and say yes categorically this bill is about the compulsory taking of DNA samples from 12 and 13-year-olds for any indictable offence punishable by 14 years’ or more imprisonment and that has been extended from murder and manslaughter. That is actually why we have a Committee stage—it is the one opportunity for Opposition MPs to put questions about legislation directly to a Minister and to have them answered particularly on legislation that is of such importance. 
I sincerely hope because my colleagues have told me that this question has not been answered that the Minister is prepared to answer it and to clarify it not just for members on this side of the Chamber but for the public of New Zealand who want to know exactly what is being passed into law. I am very pleased to see that the Minister is seeking advice and I hope we can get some clarification on this point so we can stop asking the same question. Until we get a response I think it is very very unfair of the Minister to just not answer our question and then move the closure motion as the Government will inevitably try to do. 
Previous speakers have said that we are talking about children here and we are. These are 12 and 13-year-olds. I think anyone who has children or anyone who was a 12 or 13-year-old knows that we are talking about children. It is terrible when children do tragic and awful things. But I would also say that this legislation is about the taking of a DNA sample prior to someone being found guilty. 
A person is innocent until proven guilty in this country and we have to remind ourselves of that when we are talking about extending the jurisdiction of this technology which is very powerful but comes with enormous risks. When we hear tub-thumping and chest-beating speeches from Government members about how the Government is tough on crime and is cracking down on these terrible awful tiny horrors and terrors we have to remind ourselves that in this country a person is innocent until proven guilty. 
Just because someone has a DNA sample taken it does not mean that he or she is guilty. Given the extension of these provisions to 12 and 13-year-olds who may well not have done anything wrong I do not think it is too much to ask for the Minister in the chair to take a call and clarify for the Opposition members and for the people of New Zealand exactly what we are passing into law because it is not clear. 
I would also like the Minister in her response to that question to acknowledge that the Government despite all the speeches that its members are giving understands the limitations on this technology. I would like her to acknowledge that the Government will properly fund the Institute of Environmental Science and Research which does the DNA testing through a contract with the police and that it will train the police properly. In Victoria special squads had to be hired to forcibly take DNA samples from minors. They had to be trained in how to hold minors down in order to forcibly take a DNA sample. 
I want the Minister to clarify that that may well be what we are talking about here. If it is I ask whether training will take place so that we do not end up with endless complaints to the Independent Police Conduct Authority and endless litigation over what the police can and cannot do. The police need protection in this as well. They need to know exactly what they can and cannot do in order to forcibly take a DNA sample—because we are extending this provision well beyond where the current law is at right now. 
But more important is the question of whether the Institute of Environmental Science and Research will be properly funded not just for the cost of actually doing the extra DNA tests but for the administrative staff. The administrative staff receive the samples log them in correctly and continue the chain of custody that started with the police and we need to ensure that we do not have any miscarriages of justice because of a lack of funding for the administrative functions that the institute carries out. This is not scaremongering; this has happened in other jurisdictions. In fact this happened in New Zealand. A man was assaulted in Christchurch and he gave a DNA sample. He was then was charged with murder. But his alibi was that he was in Christchurch being assaulted at the time of the murder so he could not possibly have done it. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I heard the Minister in the chair the Hon Paula Bennett minimise the reality of Part 2 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill by saying it follows on from a part that we have been debating at some length. I do not think that is a fair and reasonable response from the Minister. In fact it sounded as though she was trying to put off having to respond to the questions that have been put to her and was trying to encourage the Chair perhaps to close the debate on a significant part of the bill. 
Nobody can ignore the fact that this bill has major consequences for our children. I still cannot hear the Minister use the word “children”. The reason that she cannot use that word is that she finds it really difficult to accept the fact that that is what the law she is responsible for administering says. She is responsible for administering the protection of our children. She has obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and she is completely ignoring them. That Minister has not responded to a single question that I asked the last time that we were debating this issue that Jacinda Ardern asked earlier and that Rajen Prasad and now Moana Mackey have asked. All of us have asked a series of questions around the implications of this legislation for New Zealand’s standing in front of the United Nations. 
The Minister of Justice is in the Chamber. He has been in front of the United Nations responding on our human rights standing. This bill was not even mentioned then even though it was before the House when he appeared in front of the UN. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: What? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: No it was not even mentioned yet it was before the House at the time. I want to know what the Minister’s advice has been from her officials about what New Zealand’s standing with the United Nations will be when this bill is passed into law. I think that she has had advice that this legislation breaches the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It seriously challenges that convention not only in Part 1 but especially in Part 2 where we are dealing with compulsory DNA testing. I think the Minister should respond to that question. 
I have had feedback on this debate. I do not often have people walking up to me at functions— 
Hon Simon Power 
: That’s OK. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: No they come up to me at functions— 
Hon Simon Power 
: Oh generally speaking. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Generally speaking. But they do not often come up to me and say they thought I gave a really good speech in Parliament this week. I was surprised at that. I keep forgetting that we have Parliament TV now and people channel hop and stop when they see something interesting. I asked one guy which speech he was referring to because I had given quite a few speeches last week. He said it was the one about children and who was responsible for them. I had talked about the rights of the child to be protected from a whole lot of adverse effects and had said that responsibility lay with their parents their family and also the wider community. I think that was said in response to some ridiculous comments from the ACT member David Garrett who had been particularly repulsive in his comments about how young offenders were not children any more because of the acts that they have committed. He was not prepared to look at the circumstances of that offending: the deprivation of those children and indeed the damage that had been done to them in the environments in which they had grown up. He did not mind that; he did not seem to care about it. 
The person who approached me fortunately turned out to be a constituent of mine. He was a long way away from the electorate but I was very pleased to find out that my constituent thought that I had given a good speech. He said that while I was talking he started to think about his son who is 11½ years old. He suddenly realised that Parliament was debating the lowering of the age to one where his son a child would in 6 months’ time have criminal responsibility for offences other than murder and manslaughter. Again I think people dwell on murder and manslaughter but the law already allows for criminal responsibility to sit at that level for murder and manslaughter. 
The other question that my constituent raised with me and to which the Minister did not respond was the question of who had murdered Michael Choy. The general public seems to believe that the person who took Michael Choy’s life was an individual called Bailey Junior Kurariki. But he was found guilty of manslaughter along with Phillip Kaukasi Riki Rapira and Joe Kaukasi. Those who actually took his life were Alexander Tokorua Peihopa and Whatarangi Rawiri. Nobody in the House has ever heard of those other people. Why was Bailey Junior Kurariki held up to the public as the face of the youngest killer that this country has ever had? It was because of his age. The Minister wants to open up to that kind of pressure every other 12 and 13-year-old who falls off the track and ends up in that situation in relation to a wider range of offences. 
Nobody is justifying what those children do. No one justifies what Bailey Junior Kurariki did in conjunction with his friends who I have to say were older than him and possibly led him astray. He was 12 years old when that offence happened. He rang the pizza place and that was why the pizza was delivered to that house. He opened the door when the pizza arrived but he has become this country’s entire focus as the individual who killed Michael Choy. It was not Bailey Junior Kurariki who killed Michael Choy but he was involved in that offence. I think what the Minister has completely lost sight of is that in Part 2 we have the situation where DNA testing becomes part of the total package that follows a young person throughout the rest of his or her life. So in the case of Bailey Junior Kurariki he would not only have that following him for the rest of his life; he has the outcome of the media—judge and jury as they are—essentially finding him guilty of the most heinous offence that one could imagine. 
I think that the Minister has not taken responsibility for ensuring that New Zealand is able to maintain its status with regard to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is amazing that the Minister of Justice has moved an amendment in a bill that he introduced only a week ago to allow for a change to our adoption laws so that in fact we can actually sign up to one of the convention provisions that we have not been able to sign up to until now. I think that the Minister Paula Bennett does New Zealand a great disservice first by ignoring the fact that we are talking in this debate about children and second by minimising the issue with regard to DNA testing. 
The Minister can play on her BlackBerry as much as she likes but it is not really fair that she is not participating in the debate. She is simply playing on her BlackBerry as she sits at the Table. I would have thought that is probably out of order but there you go. That Minister is not prepared to participate in the debate in a reasonable way and she misses the ultimate point which is that she has an obligation to ensure that New Zealand is always able to provide for its obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Other Ministers stand in front of the United Nations and talk about our commitment to human rights yet on this particular issue this Minister is prepared to stand back and say it is OK to hold children to account in the Youth Court for their actions regardless of all of the reasons that might have brought them there regardless of the damage that has occurred from their upbringing and regardless of the lack of support that they have had from their family and their community. 
These offenders are children. Part 2 is just as important as Part 1. Members on this side of the Chamber will continue to debate the importance of Part 2 until the Minister takes some responsibility and gets up to explain why she thinks it is OK that mandatory DNA testing is applicable to 12 and 13-year-olds—children—under the legislation that she is obliged to oversee. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister of Youth Affairs) 
: 
 Just in response to Lianne Dalziel I will quickly say that some of the offences we are talking about are rape arson wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and aggravated robbery. I take members back to some of the well-known and very unfortunate criminals whose string of absolutely dreadful crimes have left victims behind them and who have caused a lot of distress and say that if they could have had DNA samples taken from those criminals back when they were first offending would they not have done that? Would they not have taken DNA samples then to try to prevent those unfortunate and distressing future crimes that have resulted in people being extremely hurt? We are not talking about the light stuff; we are not talking about indictable offences. I know that those questions have been asked. We are talking about extreme and distressing crimes that leave victims behind them. I say that if we could have taken samples then we would have. We should give the police that sort of power and that sort of control. I end by saying that yes there was a moment when I was on my BlackBerry. The member mentioned before that someone who had seen her on TV had commented about what a good speech she had given. I got a message that said it was appalling. 
STUART NASH (Labour) 
: 
 It is interesting I mentioned in my maiden speech something that Harry Holland used to always ask. He was one of the early leaders of the Labour Party and his first test was to ask: is it right for the people of New Zealand? I was speaking at a Rotary club on Monday this week. Rotary has its four principles as well and they are very much aligned with the Labour Party principles. The No. 1 principle is whether it is right for the people of New Zealand. If Harry Holland thought that it was right for the people of New Zealand then the Labour Party would move forward start the policy process and put it into place. I look at this bill with regard to 12 and 13-year-olds and I ask: is this right? It fails the fundamental test. It fails under any test. 
I will tell members a story. I heard an interview with a woman called Celia Lashlie. I think we all know of her. She is a prison reformer. She said she thought that of all the people she had ever met in the prison system only six of them could not be reformed. That woman had met many evil buggers in the prison system but she had met only six who could not be rehabilitated. On a plane down from Auckland one time I was sitting next to Sian Elias. I mentioned to her what Celia Lashlie had said and I asked what her views on this issue were. This was after the honourable Minister Simon Power had said that Sian Elias was not in a position to comment on judicial matters being the Chief Justice and what would she know about judicial matters anyway? I mentioned Celia Lashlie’s comment to Sian Elias and asked what her view was on that. She said she concurred with it. She thought that very very few people who entered our judicial system could not be rehabilitated. 
This is about language. Politics is about language messaging is about language. If we tell a 12 or 13-year-old that he or she is a criminal then we have set that child on a path to jail. That is not what is necessary. 
I read the  
Hawke’s Bay Today 
 I read the papers. There have been a lot of assaults and there has been a lot of crime. Let us face facts: we are all tough on crime and we want to be tough on crime. Crime is a scourge of our society but these are crimes committed by people over the age of 18 or 21 years. 
As MPs we have all been to intermediate schools and seen 12 and 13-year-olds running around the fields and that is where they should be. They should be kicking around rugby balls throwing softballs around and throwing netballs through hoops. These are not criminals. If we label them as criminals then we are labelling them for the rest of their lives. This comes back to national standards and to why all the top academics are against national standards. If we label a kid a failure then that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we label a 12 or 13-year-old a criminal that will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is not about that; it is about mentoring. It astounds me. 
My colleague Moana Mackey said that the police will run into a whole lot of complaints about this legislation but I will tell members why they will not. I say this with all due respect to my colleague who is a very articulate speaker and who knows what she is talking about because science and technology are her background. The police will not run into a whole lot of complaints about this because 12 and 13-year-olds simply do not know their rights. If a policeman comes along to a 12 or 13-year-old that child will not complain because at that age children hardly know which foot to put each shoe on. We are talking about children for God’s sake. We are not talking about criminals; we are talking about children. Why can members opposite not say that they are children? 
Sandra Goudie 
: Oh for goodness’ sake! 
STUART NASH 
: I ask when Sandra Goudie last visited an intermediate school. There are kids running around in shorts with bare feet kicking rugby balls. It astounds me that we want to label these children as criminals. 
One of the things we must address is what the cause of this is. It is poverty. For example in Hawke’s Bay 70 percent of the people earn under $40000. Seventy percent of the people in Hawke’s Bay got no tax cut in that Government’s reforms and those people will be screwed when this Government increases GST to 15 percent. It is as if Government members do not even care. 
Where is the caring society that we all came from? Where is the community spirit? It has disappeared and this is just one further step in eroding the community spirit that this party was born to believe in. I would like to think that the vast majority of New Zealanders believe in community spirit. But Government members want to take 12 and 13-year-olds away. We are not talking about people we are talking about children. If you take DNA from these guys then you are labelling them for life. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The member must not include me. 
STUART NASH 
: I am sorry Mr Chairperson you are not at all—I know that you are a decent— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Order! 
STUART NASH 
: I am sorry Mr Chairperson. This Government is removing any vestige of community. 
What I think really needs addressing in this House—and the Labour Party works very hard to address this—is what the causes of poverty are. Why do we have 12 and 13-year-olds committing crimes that in the past we just did not see occurring? I will tell members what it is: it is the breakdown that is happening in the community. People are working at second and third jobs simply to put food on the table to put petrol in the car to put clothes on the children and to buy textbooks. National members want to give tax cuts to those earning over $70000—and we are talking about only 8 percent of the population—and to make 75 percent of the population pay more in GST. We all know that is the case. Seventy-five percent of the people in this country earn under $40000. 
Chester Borrows 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. We are debating Part 2 which amends the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act and the Criminal Justice Act. The member has talked about national standards GST tax cuts and the causes of poverty and we have had sweet Fanny Adams about Part 2. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I think the member himself became a little bit elaborate in his explanation. Members know that relevance is one of the issues I consider before taking the closure motion. 
STUART NASH 
: With regard to DNA testing I see taking DNA from 12 and 13-year-olds as being a breach of human rights. These are members of our society who do not have any understanding of their rights. These are members of our society who should be looked after and covered by our society yet by taking their DNA we are in effect putting them on a database and criminalising them for life. It will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 
As Moana Mackey mentioned a whole lot unintended consequences will come from this. The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research or the Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd or whatever it is called these days—it is being restructured because it now has to have a profit motive—will probably be user-pays and GST will be charged on top of that and we all know that it is going up to 15 percent to hurt the most affected. No only are we seeing here an increased cost to society in relation to marginalising and criminalising the most vulnerable in our society but also we are making the Institute of Environmental Science and Research and the police undertake procedures that in effect they know are a waste of time. They know that this will not help society that it is not about productivity and that it is not about protecting society. It is pure and utter politics. 
I know that if the vast majority of New Zealanders looked into their hearts and asked whether they wanted to criminalise 12 and 13-year-olds whether they wanted to take their DNA and whether they wanted to violate the human rights of 12 and 13-year-olds by forcing them to give swabs and asked whether that is what they signed up for whether it is what they voted for and whether it is the sort of society they want or the sort of country they want to live in then the answer to every single question would be no. These are children. 
We are seeing the breakdown of our communities. We talk about a Government that is inclusive that wants economic development yet here we have legislation in front of us that in effect is marginalising those who are the most vulnerable when in fact we should be picking them up and giving them opportunities. We should be providing them with aspiration. It is easy to talk about aspiration as we beat them down as we heap all this stuff on top of them and say: “You cannot achieve because you are a criminal.” It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and I for one am very proud to be part of this party which stands up for the rights of children—who stands up for 12-year-olds. They are not even in their teens for goodness’ sake. The 12-year-olds whom I know are without a doubt children yet this Government wants to take DNA samples from them. 
We talked about  
CSI 
. I like  
CSI 
 it is a great programme but never in any of the  
CSI 
 programmes that I have watched has there been a 12-year-old who has had a mouth swab on whom all these tests have been run and who has been put in jail. Even the guys on TV who make programmes to appeal to the vast majority know that taking DNA from 12 and 13-year-olds is just not right. 
This bill represents everything that is wrong. It fails the fundamental test that we ask ourselves every day as parliamentarians: is this right for the people of New Zealand? No it is not. 
CHRIS TREMAIN (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Jacinda Ardern to clause 41 be agreed to: 
to omit this clause. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: We come to a number of amendments in the name of three different members seeking to include an expiry provision in the bill. In order to deal with these amendments I think a precedent has been set earlier in the day and in line with that particular precedent I wish to test the will of the Committee as to whether it wants to accept these amendments. I propose to put the question on the two extreme amendments and on one amendment in the middle in order to test it. I think that because proposed dates are so far apart we need some middle ground as well. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Jacinda Ardern to Part 2 be agreed to: 
to add the following new clause: 
43AExpiry 
This Act expires with the close of 31 July 2010. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Jacinda Ardern to Part 2 be agreed to: 
to add the following new clause: 
43AExpiry 
This Act expires with the close of 22 October 2025. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Jacinda Ardern to Part 2 be agreed to: 
to add the following new clause: 
43AExpiry 
This Act expires with the close of 31 July 2042. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The Committee has had an opportunity to express its will on a variety of expiry provisions. Therefore I rule out all other amendments adding expiry clauses after clause 43. We will now have a similar arrangement with regard to adding a new clause 44A which is a sunset provision. I wish to begin by putting the question on the amendment with the earliest expiry date that I can find in the name of Grant Robertson. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Grant Robertson to Part 2 be agreed to: 
to add the following new clause: 
44AExpiry 
This Part expires with the close of 19 September 2011. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Grant Robertson to Part 2 be agreed to: 
to add the following new clause: 
44AExpiry 
This Part expires with the close of 1 October 2033. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Grant Robertson to Part 2 be agreed to: 
to add the following new clause: 
44AExpiry 
This Part expires with the close of 23 September 2093. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: With the House in Committee expressing no desire to amend the bill by adding an expiry clause in a new clause 44A I rule out all other similar amendments as being out of order. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 2 be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Part 2 agreed to. 
Clauses 1 to 3 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise to kick off the debate on the clauses of the bill concerning the title commencement and principal amendments to the Act. I will start with the title of the bill. I think this actually comes to the core of the issue. The bill is titled the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. Critically there we are cross-referencing the primary legislation that this bill amends and that is obviously the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act. We heard time and time again in this Chamber and also at select committee that this bill would fundamentally change the core and the principles of that primary legislation. I think to even claim that we are remaining in the realms of the core values of that legislation is actually quite misleading. 
So I am proposing that we change the title of this bill. Perhaps we could change it to the “Most Fundamental Change Since the Inception of the Children Young Persons and their Families Act Amendment Bill”. Just to prove my point I go back to that core legislation and those founding principles because I think had we done that at the beginning that may have better informed the debate. Part 4 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 sets out under section 208 the guiding principles for our youth justice system. I think it is worth going over some of those. Section 208(a) states “the principle that unless the public interest requires otherwise criminal proceedings should not be instituted against a child or young person if there is an alternative means of dealing with the matter:”. That is an interesting point the fact that it makes the reference “the public interest requires”. I ask who the arbiter is of whether the public interest is being served by having a 12 or 13-year-old being moved to and dealt with by a Youth Court. 
I offer to the Committee the idea that we already have enough flexibility within our judicial processes and procedures in our youth justice system for that test of public interest to be made at that level. To arbitrarily move 12 and 13-year-olds into the Youth Court removes that discretion and public interest test as it sits in the primary legislation. I think section 208(c) is also worth reflecting on together as we go through the final part of the Committee stage. Again it comes to the core issue. It states: “the principle that any measures for dealing with offending by children or young persons should be designed—(i) to strengthen the family whanau hapu iwi and family group of the child or young person concerned; and (ii) to foster the ability of families whanau hapu iwi and family groups to develop their own means of dealing with offending by their children and young persons:”. 
This Act puts the family at the core. It says that if we are dealing with children in particular and they are offending at the level that the Minister claims we are trying to target there must be care and protection issues in that young child’s home. The Act explicitly states that a core principle is that that family that whanau that hapu that iwi should be a part of dealing with that young person’s or child’s behaviour. We are removing that through this change. We are taking the family out of the equation. When we move a child or a young person into the Youth Court we essentially fly in the face of this principle within the core primary legislation. 
I argue that we would be within our rights to look at the title of this bill and say that it is misleading and to say instead that we should pick up on the point made by Judge Andrew Becroft when he said that this is the most fundamental change to the primary Act since its inception. Also at the core of this primary legislation is the idea that essentially our youth justice system unless the public interest decides otherwise should be diversionary and that criminal proceedings should where possible be limited in their usage for children and young people. 
I do have some other proposals for other names that we could use for the bill. I want to be able to offer those to the Committee. I think we can see that this bill contradicts some of those core principles. Perhaps if we go a little further into those core principles we see that age becomes an issue as well. In section 208 it states “(e) the principle that a child’s or young person’s age is a mitigating factor in determining—(i) whether or not to impose sanctions in respect of offending by a child or young person; and (ii) the nature of any such sanctions:”. Again we have a principle here that we are undermining with this legislation. Perhaps then this bill should be renamed the “Removal of Any Discretion to Test the Public Interest as Set Out in the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 Amendment Bill”. It is not too snappy I acknowledge. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: A bit clumsy. 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: It is a bit clumsy but I think it points that we are fundamentally undermining what was ground-breaking legislation at the time that it was introduced. I want to go back to that point because it is internationally recognised that our legislation is unique; it was well ahead of its time when it was introduced and still remains at the head of its game. But the changes that we are seeing here today undermine that and contravene our requirements under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. So perhaps again a better title for this bill would be the “Contradiction of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Amendment Bill”. That is at the core of things as well. 
I hear members on the other side of the House who are talking about the victims and I will come back to that because they are specifically mentioned as part of the core principles of the Act as well. They are not mutually exclusive. That is why the public interest test is in there. We do acknowledge that we do have some serious offending amongst our children and our young people. But we could not size that in the Social Services Committee. 
Sandra Goudie 
: Oh she’s saying that we do have some problems of offending. Oh my goodness! 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: I will never in this Chamber admit I say to Ms Goudie that she has a point. I am sorry; I will not admit that in this Chamber ever. I do not believe that she has taken into account the far-reaching effects of this bill. 
Again up front at the very beginning of the core legislation in the first schedule it talks about the fact that this an Act to reform the law relating to children and young persons who are in need of care or protection or offend against the law. It states right up front at the very beginning of the legislation what the core principles of the Children Young Persons and Their Family Act are and I do believe this amendment bill flies in the face of those principles. 
So why are we doing it? I want to come back to this in my third reading speech because it is a more appropriate place to discuss that issue but I contend that this is actually about shifting criminal responsibility. It has been tried before in this House and it has failed. It has been tried by other members who are not now part of the Government but were from a party long past New Zealand First. It tried to shift criminal responsibility in New Zealand. It was much more overt about it though. I believe that although this bill may not be as overt as that attempt this is taking us down a similar track. So perhaps this legislation should be retitled the “Shift In Criminal Responsibility Bill”. 
I thank members though for their contributions to the debate. I do hope my other colleagues take the opportunity to share their view on what would be a more accurate depiction of what this bill is doing to our youth justice system. As I have already stated and as stated by Andrew Becroft who is a much wiser person on the issues of youth justice than I this is a fundamental shift and it cannot and should not happen in this Parliament without a robust debate first. 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 At this stage of the debate on the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill it is interesting to recollect a little where we have travelled the number of people who have spoken and the points they have made in this part of the Committee stage which allows us to take a view over the whole bill. 
I will make two or three points. The first point is that during the select committee process the Labour members prepared a three-page fairly extensive minority report but missing from that report was any talk about DNA. It has been quite interesting to see the debate we have had in respect of the conflict those members seem to find between natural justice and the Bill of Rights and the taking of DNA samples. In an earlier speech we heard that apparently 12 and 13-year-old children would be held down to have a DNA sample taken from them. The DNA sample is actually taken by the young person taking what we know as a Q-tip rubbing it on the inside of his or her cheek and putting it into a plastic bag. The DNA sample is not taken by way of a burly policeman holding down the 12 or 13-year-old. It is important for the people who are listening and making an assessment on the validity of the speeches in the Committee stage to know that fact. 
Another point was made about 12 and 13-year-olds being children. Of course under this Act and the Crimes Act “child” is defined as somebody under the age of 14. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: That’s right. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: So by this definition under the Crimes Act 12 and 13-year-olds are children. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: That’s right. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: On their 14th birthday they become “young persons”. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: That’s right. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: On their 17th birthday they become “adults”. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: That should be 18 as you know. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: We do not hear any disagreement from members on the other side of the Chamber in relation to when children become young persons but we hear disagreement about when they become adults. Those members have a problem with people becoming adults when they are 17. But that is the definition we are dealing with in relation to the Crimes Act and the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act. 
It is important too to restate the point the Minister for Social Development and Employment made in respect of the offences for which DNA will be taken from 12 and 13-year-olds. These are crimes that are punishable by 14 years’ imprisonment or more. We are talking for instance of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. The Hon Lianne Dalziel has spoken on numerous occasions about a tragic murder that involved half a dozen young people the youngest aged 12. If we think about that situation we see that if the victim of that attack Michael Choy had not died then the 12-year-old offender—who rang the pizza place to have the pizza delivered opened the door to let the victim into the house but apparently did not wield any implement that actually brought about the murder—could not have been charged with anything. He may have appeared as part of a care and protection process through the Family Court and but would not have been charged and a DNA sample could not be taken in any event whatsoever. 
The Minister quite ably made the point that knowing the offending that went on by some of our most notorious offenders—like Joseph Thompson Malcolm Rewa and Graeme Burton—if we had the opportunity to secure a cheek swab that held the DNA of any of those three offenders with them having committed a crime punishable by 14 years’ imprisonment or more why would we not take it? Why would we not take the opportunity to prevent for instance the two of those offenders who went on to have at least 100 more victims in respect of rapes in people’s own homes? If for instance we had their DNA profile on record then as soon as they had left a bodily secretion of any kind they could have been identified and that may well have prevented the crimes against those 100 or so victims. 
I believe very strongly that aligning this legislation with the DNA sampling legislation is a very real step. The DNA sampling legislation will prevent more victims than any other legislation this House is ever likely to pass. Aligning this Act in order to include 12 and 13-year-old offenders who have committed crimes of that magnitude is something that not even Harry Holland would have disagreed with bearing in mind the way we treated 10 12 13 and 14-year-old offenders in Harry Holland’s day. I think it is important to try to take some of the emotion out of this debate and just look at it in real terms. 
Another point that has been made time and time again regards the initial debate we had from fairly high-profile people within the sector who were anti the legislation especially in respect of 12 and 13-year-olds. We have heard Judge Andrew Becroft quoted on many many occasions. The reason of course is that he has huge credibility within the sector. It is interesting to note though that when he appeared before the Social Services Committee initially—he appeared about three times—his concern was that 12 and 13-year-olds who offend on this level and would therefore appear before the Youth Court under this legislation are actually few. But we know that their offending is very sophisticated and very violent and we are now seeing a new trend that involves young women as well as young men. He argued that if we really wanted to help the situation we needed to streamline the process of moving young people through the court system that involves 12 and 13-year-olds. 
We responded to that suggestion and he actually was complimentary about the changes that were made. For instance we allowed the process to move quickly so that 12 and 13-year-old prolific offenders whom the police bring before the court system can appear before the Youth Court quickly so that they can have curfews they can have prohibitions on associations with people and they can be banned from areas of high-level offending. We can get them on to what in an adult court are called bail conditions and in the Youth Court are called adjournment conditions—even if they then go back and appear before the Family Court. When Judge Andrew Becroft came back before the committee after the changes had been made he commented that he did not have a heck of a lot of problem with this because his suggestion was to streamline it and that is exactly where it went. 
When he returned again to the committee at that stage some more flesh had been put on the bones of the military-style activity camps— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Without legislation. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: —and the Government had started a pilot course. We did not need legislation. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: You don’t need it? 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: That is right. Just remember that the court could do it only with the consent of the young person who was appearing— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: That’s right. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: —and we are changing that. Labour agrees with that change so let us not kick it around too much. When Judge Becroft came back before the select committee and found out what was being offered in terms of programmes while people were attending these military-style activity camps he did not refer to them as boot camps; he did not align them with the corrective training that was going on at that time. The members who were present will recall—actually not a lot of members opposite heard him but I am sure that Ms Ardern will recall it—that when he came back and when the programmes that went along with military-style activity camps were explained as they were being run at that time he did not refer to them as boot camps. In fact in a direct response to a question from me he said that they were completely different from the boot camps that had been commented on within the media and by commentators reported in the media. He said he agreed with the programmes that were being offered in the military-style activity camps and he agreed that the style of camp that we were running—and the supervision with activity which is now part of military-style activity camps—was actually having the best results. 
Hon Member 
: No. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: That is what he said. I am pleased to stand here today because a number of us have worked on this legislation for a long time. In Opposition the Hon Anne Tolley and I spent a lot of time looking at the youth justice area visiting a number of providers around the country and working on the youth justice discussion paper that was the forerunner of this bill. Along with the other members of the law and order caucus committee of the last National Opposition I am very proud of this legislation. We believe that people will be safer and young people will be dealt with very well. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I enjoy the opportunity to follow the member because I consider that his contribution unlike the Minister’s was intelligent and reasoned and I feel that he went through the issues. 
Hon Member 
: It’s true. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I do not think the member was listening to the Minister in the chair the Hon Paula Bennett when she gave a response to a very serious issue that was raised with me. A constituent—and I did not know he was a constituent when he came up to me—said that I had given a good speech because it had made him think about how this legislation will affect his 11½-year-old son. He looked at his 11½-year-old son and said: “At 12 this child would be subject to the jurisdiction of the Youth Court.” It made him think. The Minister stood up and said in response to the questions that I had asked that she had been rung by people who said that I had given a bad speech. Well frankly I do not care what anyone else says about the quality of my speech. I am interested in the issues that the previous speaker raised. 
I think that the previous speaker nailed it when he isolated the differences between Labour and National on this legislation. Nobody has mentioned this and the Minister continues to refuse to do this in her incapacity to deal with the fact that these are children we are talking about. Does anyone in his or her right mind—and I hope Chester Borrows takes some further calls on this bill—seriously think that these children end up committing these terrible offences in isolation from the environment within which they live? Does anyone think that? Does anyone seriously think that the lives of these children have somehow been perfect and all of a sudden they go out and commit a horrendous crime such as intentionally wounding with intent to injure? That is one of the offences we have. Does that happen in isolation of the family or the parents? Does that happen in isolation from a community or from the whanau iwi or hapu? Does it happen all by itself? 
David Garrett 
: No. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: No it does not and even the ACT member agrees with me on that. 
In 1989 New Zealand created a world-leading mechanism for addressing some of these most serious issues. In fact there is an element of what we know now that would make me want to rewrite the opening words of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act. It states: “An Act to reform the law relating to children and young persons who are in need of care or protection or who offend against the law.” I think all of the children who offend against the law have care and protection issues. Not all of those with care and protection issues end up as offenders but there is a connection. 
I remember that when I first became a member of Parliament a number of issues arose around the practice of having youth justice facilities on the same site as the care and protection units. The member opposite will recall those facilities in Christchurch. There were serious issues because under the law they cannot mix. The irony that the social workers and the managers of those centres talked to me about was that it was crazy; they are the same children. They come in as care and protection cases and then come back as offenders under the youth justice provisions. 
The connections between care and protection and youth justice cannot be minimised and that is what has happened with this debate. The previous speaker did not even mention the fact that these children have a right under our law to have the care and protection of their families their parents and their communities. What has happened is terribly wrong. 
Let us look at some of the care and protection issues: whether the child or young person is being or is likely to be harmed—physically emotionally or sexually—ill-treated abused or seriously deprived; or whether his or her development or physical or mental or emotional well-being is being or is likely to be impaired or neglected. All of those issues lie behind these children. They do not end up being offenders simply because they have grown up to be offenders. There are issues that lie behind them and they are always every time about care and protection. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I want to take members back to the title of this bill which I think is entirely appropriate: the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. It covers this legislation incredibly well. The bill states that only those children who commit absolutely terrible heinous crimes will be seen in the Youth Court. They can then be sent back to the Family Court if necessary. I think the title and the commencement date fit well with this bill and I am happy to speak briefly on that part. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I speak on the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill with some sadness. When I heard Mr Chester Borrows talking about this bill and what it intended to do with young children I was reminded of my days in practice. I was reminded of the Act under which I worked the Child Welfare Act 1925. Under the provisions of that Act I was working in South Auckland with young children young people and their families. 
In those days after committing a very small number of reasonably minor offences those young people were railroaded which was the practice of the day. What we did then with those young children was very much what this bill tries to do with our 12 and 13-year-olds. The Minister might not recall those days but I am sure her officials can inform her and show her the research. We sent those young children to national institutions to undertake discipline training. There was one place called Hokio Beach School in the Horowhenua. There was Kohitere and places like Kingslea Residential Centre and others. They were sent there to go through so-called intense training. 
At one point these young children were taken out to Camp Peak owned by the then Department of Social Welfare in the forest at the foothills of the Tararua Ranges which is where these young people were given this kind of training. They were then brought back to Kohitere and sent back to South Auckland. We were supposed to provide wraparound services for them at the time. Within a very short period of time these young children ended up in youth justice facilities and in the criminal justice system. The recidivism rate was over 70 percent. 
It was because of those experiences that the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act was designed. It took 10 years to design. I was very involved with it because of the work I was doing in those days. It took a long time to design the Act but it really set out the major difference between care and protection and youth justice. My colleagues have read out parts of the Act and the purpose behind it. But this bill takes us right back to pre-1974 days. I am confused as to what it delivers. I think it does nothing more than deliver the Government’s punitive agenda. 
During the election campaign National members talked so much about violence. They talked about how they would be very strong and punitive and this is the unpacking of that agenda. Sometimes it is best to stop and rethink and say: “I now find myself in a different place. I now have material that officials have put before me and on that basis I will design a much better and much more effective system.” 
But that is not what this bill does. It takes us to someplace else. That is why the title of this bill should be the “Shifting the Age of Criminal Responsibility Bill” because that seems to be its driver. It has a punitive mindset. It will do again to our 12 and 13-year-olds what the 1925 Child Welfare Act did. It was all of those kinds of things that were in the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act that focus on care and protection for that age group. We are talking about children and we are talking about care and protection needs. We know that the science and the opportunity are there. The system is there to do better for that particular group than where this bill takes us. Submitters to the select committee made it quite clear that this was a radical shift. 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 We have heard the name Judge Andrew Becroft from both sides of the Chamber today in the time I have been here. It just so happens that I was in Christchurch last Monday and I ran into Judge Becroft whom I had never met at Christchurch Airport. I went up and spoke to him because I had read in that morning’s paper an account of an address he had given the previous evening. The article said that Judge Becroft had talked about our having produced a lost generation of valueless children. I thought that that sounded remarkably prescient. So I went up introduced myself and asked him whether he had been accurately reported and he said that he had. He smiled slightly when I said “We’re pretty much of a mind then Judge.” He did not fall about making silly comments like Miss Dalziel would in that circumstance. 
Judge Becroft went on to say that we have produced a generation—fortunately of only about 1000 in his estimation and he would know—of young people with no values no morals and no idea of what is right or wrong. That is where 20 or 30 years of the kinds of policies that Mr Prasad advocates have got us. During his contribution I asked him by way of interjection how many child killers there were in 1974. I am sure he heard me because I have a loud voice but he ignored me because there were none. The terrible system at that time that he was talking about funnily enough did not produce Bailey Junior Kurariki aged 12. 
I heard that Bailey’s case had been discussed and as I came in Chester Borrows was talking about him. When he was arrested at aged 12 and convicted of manslaughter he was sent to a youth justice facility and given intensive treatment if you like for want of a better word. He was given schooling psychological assistance and counselling. When he came to be released at age 18 I recall the Parole Board being quoted as saying that he was now a fine young man with a bright future. 
Everybody knows that very shortly after his release he breached parole and breached parole again and again. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: He was hounded. 
DAVID GARRETT 
: No he was not hounded into beating up his girlfriend I say to Mr Prasad. Sadly—and I say “sadly” very seriously—there is very little doubt that that man and he is now a man will reoffend seriously enough to be returned to prison for a long time. I feel sad about that both for him and for his victim. But it is no surprise. 
I remember seeing his mother on TV—a dreadful-looking harridan from South Auckland with several other children by different men. She has been facilitated in that lifestyle by the welfarism that Mr Prasad says is a great idea. That is just the point. The system that he thinks is so good has produced over the last 20 and 30 years a lost generation—Judge Becroft said it himself. 
I was talking the other day to a policeman in South Auckland who talked about going to houses where 4-year-old children were referring to the police as “effing pigs” and “pig c___ts”. Those children have no hope at all; they will become Bailey Junior Kurariki. How can they not? They have been dragged up with no values—as Judge Becroft said in his speech in Christchurch—with no morals and no idea of what is right and wrong. Members on the Opposition side are very fond of talking about root causes drivers of crime and all that stuff—and it is not just members on that side. 
This bill the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill is the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff—it is. It is necessary because of what we have produced with 20 or 30 years of welfarism. Until we face up to that root cause we will have this happening again and again. The 4-year-old children whom my policeman acquaintance talked about will be in 10 years’ time Bailey Junior Kurariki. How can they possibly be any different after being dragged up in that environment? 
Mr Prasad and others over there like Miss Dalziel talk about the whanau the family—the whole philosophy that the family is best. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I have to respond to Mr Garrett’s speech because I feel there has been an utter misrepresentation of the position that members on this side of the Chamber have taken on this bill and on why the bill is such a fundamental change to our Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 which was world-leading legislation when it was introduced and which has been looked at by other countries as a means for trying to get underneath the problems. 
I cannot believe that that member can describe another human being as a harridan and then describe her circumstances. That member does not know the circumstances she was brought up in; nor does he understand the environment Bailey Junior Kurariki was born in. I think it is really unfair to use that one example of a child who was convicted of manslaughter because he was part of a group. He rang the pizza place and he opened the door when Michael Choy arrived but I do not know how much he was led. I do not know how much pressure was put on him to do that. He was 12 years old; he was a child. I cannot believe—and I think it has been absent from this debate—the lack of responsibility that the ACT Party is prepared to take for what is as the member says a loss of values in our society where we have children brought up who are so utterly and completely damaged that their lives will never ever fulfil the potential they might have had at the moment they were born. 
I am really interested in what we can do across party lines to get underneath those drivers of crime. That is why I attended the ministerial meeting on the drivers of crime that was co-hosted by the Hon Pita Sharples and the Hon Simon Power. I really enjoyed that day because I was able to sit there listen and discuss issues with people who were all there with a common thread which was to determine what we could do to intervene earlier in the lives of these young people to ensure that they do not become the horrible offenders we are dealing with. 
After I attended that meeting I was so struck by the passion of everyone in that room that I went back to the Labour caucus and said that I wanted us to do something we did not normally do: I wanted us to offer to work with the Government collaboratively on the underlying drivers of crime. I said: “Let’s do the 0 to 12-year-olds. We are not going to agree on 12 and 13-year-olds and we are not going to agree on boot camps but we do want evidence-based interventions for 0 to 12-year-olds. Let’s do that.” Did I get a positive response from the Government when I made that offer? No. I have been told that the Government is prepared to work with us on the Sale of Liquor Act but is not prepared at this stage to work on other legislation. Government members are saying: “Let’s just see how we go with the Sale of Liquor Act and if that works then maybe we’ll sit down and talk to you about what really matters.” 
I can tell members that there is not one single person working with children in this country who does not want both sides of this Parliament to put down the battle lines on the 0 to 12-year-olds. They want us to work together to come up with the solutions that will address the fundamental change in our society which happened in the 1970s or whenever Rajen Prasad was working as a social worker on the ground. The difference then was that we had parents in employment but I know that in the days of Roger Douglas the number of people working for the railways went from 22000 to 7000 over the course of 2 years. If members want to look at the cause of youth suicide and if they want to look at the cause of some of the issues that affected children in the 1990s they need look only at the massive redundancies that occurred in the 1980s. 
I think we all have to put aside some of the concerns we have about protecting certain positions and actually get real here. We are talking about children being given the responsibility of young people who are much older than they are—children who really have not had the chance to achieve their full potential in life. I believe that New Zealanders will back us for doing that. 
Chris Tremain 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The debate has been somewhat wide-ranging and I just want to bring it back to relevancy. This debate is on the title and commencement of the principal Act and in future speeches I ask you to make sure we are focusing on the title. 
Hon Member 
: Speaking to the point of order— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: No I do not need any help with this. The member makes a fair point but the title clauses and so on are generally construed to be in the nature of a summing-up debate and I think members should cast their comments in terms of summing up. I think we have strayed a bit beyond that but with points well made; the Committee needs to debate things on occasion. I just say to future speakers that when I call them the debate is in the nature of summing up the evidence. That is what this is about not starting off on a first-reading speech. I know that passion is running high and that is a good thing. But let us stick within the rules and have summing-up speeches. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I think that it is a fair thing that people do sum up in this title debate but they should at least refer to the title I think. It is all very well to sum up an argument but to advance the same old argument again does step outside that. You have called it right; I am not questioning that but I think that it would be good to hear the title mentioned a few times—or some alternative perhaps. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I thank the honourable member but I tell the Committee that experience has shown that people will mention clause 1 and then go off and mention clause 2 and other things that they can technically make reference to. I hope that members who speak from now on will address the clauses under debate in the nature of a summing up not a relitigation or an advancing of new arguments. 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 I accept the invitation of the Government member Chester Borrows to make sure that we have a good debate on clauses 1 2 and 3 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. I think we are really getting to the crux of the matter now. 
I particularly want to talk about the commencement date because I am interested in what it means for the Te Hurihanga facility based in Hamilton. If people have been following the debate they will know that this case really again demonstrates a difference between what the Government is proposing and what Labour believes is a really comprehensive approach to youth justice issues and youth crime. In Hamilton both Catholic Bishop Denis Browne and Anglican Archbishop David Moxon have come out calling for the Government to continue the funding of Te Hurihanga. I think the Hamilton community is looking at that decision and saying that on the one hand the Government is saying that it is wrong—it is the wrong model it is too expensive and we should shut it down—but on the other hand the two leading clerics in our city are saying that they want it kept open. Who is right in this debate? It is interesting that the Labour Party also sides on that side of the debate. I know which out of those choices I would put my faith in. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: Where’s the title? 
SUE MORONEY 
: The honourable member wants to hear what the bishops have to say and I am happy to oblige. They said: “This decision has been based on the belief that the cost of turning 16-year-old frequent offenders into good citizens outweighs the benefits of having young men fully functioning in society as family members workers and taxpayers”. The article that quoted them goes on to say: “The bishops were unimpressed by the Government’s replacement ‘Fresh Start’ policy due to be in place by October.” The reason that the bishops made a comment about being opposed to the Fresh Start policy starting in October was that that is what the Government has said it will replace the Te Hurihanga model with. The two principal clerics in our city were saying that they think it is the wrong approach. 
Let us have a look at the title of this bill. When I am talking to people about what this bill does and I mention its title they have no idea what it actually means. But when I say to them that it is the “Boot Camps Bill” then they understand. That is what people know the Fresh Start programme as. It is actually about boot camps. 
Hon Member 
: The Prime Minister called it that. John Key called it that. 
SUE MORONEY 
: John Key first labelled it as boot camps; in fact that is what it is about. People are not fooled. The people of Hamilton are asking why a programme that has been running in our city for 3 years as a pilot proven to work with the most serious and most difficult offenders— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: What about the title? 
SUE MORONEY 
: I say to Mr Brownlee that I am talking about the commencement date: Te Hurihanga finishes in June and Fresh Start starts in October. What will happen in the intervening period? 
Not only that but what will happen come 1 October? I have heard three different versions. I have heard that that Te Hurihanga will be replaced with a programme where offenders go through a 12-month process. That is eight offenders going through a 12-month process. Members should remember that this is an 8-bed facility. Yet the Minister for Social Development and Employment is standing up at every opportunity and saying that it will deal with many many more offenders than it was and that is why the Government had to close down Te Hurihanga. But if only 8 offenders are to go through this programme for a year then where will it deal with those many many more—with the many many more that the Minister has promised? It cannot. Some people may say that we can shorten the programme so that it is only 2 months and then we will be able to push them through faster and we will get the numbers that the Minister wants. What will that achieve? It will not actually rehabilitate anybody. These young men have committed an average of 23 offences before they even walk through the door. If they are going to be pushed through in a matter of 2 or 3 months— 
CHRIS TREMAIN (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I am prepared to entertain another speaker but I invite the speaker to address the bill in the way intended in this debate—that is a summing up. 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
: 
 I am delighted to take a call on the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill tonight. The title of this bill is rather clunky as it is. But having looked at what will result from this bill—and also from its commencement date; my colleague Sue Moroney has very clearly pointed to this—I say we will need to have a children’s prison bill. I will just talk about the youth justice central site which has been built in Rotorua. The National members of our community led a campaign not to have that youth justice site built in Rotorua. Ruth Dyson and I spent a long time looking for it because we said these were our kids and they needed to be looked after. We knew that they were children and that they needed to be given wraparound services. But National members very clearly said we should not have the facility at Kaharoa. They grew vociferous about that and the meetings about that site were some of the most difficult public meetings that I went to. 
There is a delicious irony here tonight: National is building a youth justice central site in Rotorua and closing down Te Hurihanga which is an hour’s drive away in Hamilton when the call from the provisions of this bill and the requirements that it gives to the Youth Court are to criminalise children of 12 and 13 who will need to be placed on short-term programmes of about 13 weeks in order to turn their lives round. There is an irony here. National members complained during the election campaign that they did not want to have these facilities in their backyard. They said we should take the youth justice facility out of Rotorua and put it up in the forest. We fought—I fought—to have that facility sited in our community. Now the Minister is coming in with Todd McClay the member for Rotorua and lauding how fantastic National is in dealing with the young kids in our community. Yet just 1 hour away from Rotorua National is closing down a model facility in Hamilton that is second to none in the country and that we learnt from in terms of its success when already we are being told that not enough beds will be built in the Rotorua facility. 
National has done no long-term planning. The commencement date of October for this bill is absolutely totally unrealistic. This is all because National went out on the campaign trail with rhetoric and slogans saying it would get tough on crime. But this bill does not fix the criminal offending of young children. The title of this bill is I suggest quite wrong with regard to the provisions that it gives to the Youth Court. I think that we should have called the bill the “About Children and the Family Court Bill” in light of the provisions around jurisdiction and orders that are required in order to fix the drivers of crime in our community. 
So here we are crammed into urgency tonight in absolute chaos I have to say. There was no question time in the House today because the Government could not bear to go under the scrutiny of the media. We are going until midnight tonight in a shambolic way; proceedings have been managed absolutely shambolically. We succeeded in moving a part in the bill that we were debating previously and the senior Government whip quickly looked embarrassed so the Speaker came to the House and the Government tried to fix things up. We will argue and debate this bill tonight. The commencement date is a shambles. The bill is just a farce. It is about the Government saying it will fix the issue of youth offending by October. Well we will not have our youth justice site in Rotorua ready in October. By October Te Hurihanga will be closed down— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: By June. 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
:—by June—and that is a sign that this Government is in absolute chaos about addressing criminal offending ranging from children right through the spectrum to young people who are classified as adults when they are 17 years of age. 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I want to speak to the commencement date of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. I take it that the Minister in the chair the Hon Paula Bennett is satisfied that the time frame allowed for this bill to come into operation is enough to do the complex development work that must be done in order to satisfy the direction that this Minister is trying to set. I have a sense that the time frame is too short. I will explain. 
I say to Mr Brownlee that it may be useful for him to reflect on what it actually takes to design a new model to begin to address the complex needs of people of this nature. If everything was working a bill like this would not need to be brought to the House. A whole new science needs to be brought together. “Wraparound services” is a term that is very easy to use. I have heard for the last 10 years or longer that they are what we are trying to do and many have tried to design wraparound services and apply them to the lives of troubled young people and difficult families. In fact many of them have been highly unsuccessful. They have been highly unsuccessful because the political masters have not allowed enough time for the complex models to be developed and tested before we subjected the lives of people who are at a vulnerable time to them. That member over there talks a lot. What is it that he is trying to say? 
David Garrett 
: The political masters over the last 10 years when you have been saying that the system has failed were the Labour Party. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Thank you. I heard the member and I would like him to hear me now. I wonder if that member knows how it long it took to develop the particular model of Te Hurihanga? 
David Garrett 
: No I don’t. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: Well the member should not speak if the member is not aware. That model was one that has been shown to be successful I say to the Minister and it took a long time to design and put together. It is successful yet what is the Government doing with it? I use that example only to show that these models that the Minister believes will materialise will take some considerable time to design. It will not be like the national standards which are untested untried and are having a lot of problems and will not succeed. 
But this particular time frame—[ 
Interruption 
]—I am reasonably informed about this I say to Mr Lotu-Iiga. It is not possible to design a model in a short period from what will be a relatively standing start. If it were not being designed from a standing start it would be in operation already and it is not. The Minister will probably regret it when we bring up case after case in the coming years of failure. When we do I hope the members sitting up the back there laughing will apologise. Indeed that is what they will need to do. I say that to the three members—the troika—who are sitting there the new members of the National Party including Mr McClay and Mr Sam Lotu-Iiga. They should take the time to have the courage of their convictions and say that this October 2010 start date could not possibly be adequate to design the models test them resource them and put them into operation. 
The model that has been successfully operating will come to a close in June I have been told. Fresh Start is not designed to deliver on the needs of this group of seriously needy young people or service their families. I believe the Minister ought to explain how that will be done and in some substantive way not just by saying that the Government has tried a little of the boot camp model somewhere and some of it works or that the Minister attended a graduation of some sort therefore it will work everywhere. I think trialling something like this on the vulnerable lives of our children requires a lot more thought and a lot more time. We need some assurances that indeed that development time will allowed for. Therefore this particular commencement date is inadequate because it is not easy to bring a model together; unless it is brought together carefully it will not work. 
CHRIS TREMAIN (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Jacinda Ardern to clause 1 be agreed to: 
to omit “Jurisdiction and”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 2 be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Clause 2 agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The amendments in the name of Jacinda Ardern to insert new clause 2A an expiry clause are ruled out of order because they are inconsistent with Standing Order 3: “preliminary clauses means the title clause and the commencement clause and if applicable a principal Act clause”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 3 be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Clause 3 agreed to. 
House resumed. 
Bill reported with amendment. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I move  
That the report be adopted. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the report be adopted. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Report adopted. 
Third Reading 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I move  
That the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. Others deserve to be recognised for a lot of the work that went into this bill. Some of them worked on the bill when I was in Opposition and others have worked on the bill since I became the Minister. I recognise Anne Tolley and Chester Borrows and Simon Power had a lot to do with this bill as well. They paid a huge part in bringing it together in those early days. 
I recognise the chair of the Social Services Committee Katrina Shanks for the work she did in getting the bill through the select committee. We certainly took on board some of the changes that were recommended by the select committee members after they heard from submitters. I thank Child Youth and Family and not just the officials who sat there for many many hours going through the very detailed implications of this legislation. I recognise those who have actually done the work so far to implement the bill. We heard a previous speaker talk about how these things do not happen quickly or lightly and that person is right. It takes a lot of evidence-based work and it means going back to what really does work. But a lot of this bill is of course about extending current orders. 
I also recognise those amazing people who work in our youth justice sector. There are so many of them both in non-governmental organisations and within Child Youth and Family. They work with young people in our communities and they work hard to try to turn their lives round. There is also a whole bunch of people who work in our facilities which are pretty daunting places in which to work at times. I acknowledge that I admire the work they do. It is probably the most important work we do and this bill I hope will back them up. That is the bill’s purpose. 
The bill represents the most significant changes to New Zealand’s youth justice system since 1989. It underpins this Government’s Fresh Start programme which is our rock-solid commitment to dealing with serious youth crime. New Zealand’s youth justice system is rightly regarded as world class in delivering a sensible criminal justice model for 95 percent of young offenders. But it is a well-recognised fact that as in most places in the world the system is not working for the 5 percent at the hard end of criminal offending—anywhere between 900 and 1000 young people who are on a fast track to prison. Fresh Start is aimed at giving those young people a new future. 
We have seen a weekend of young people out of control. There have been serious attacks on members of the police and the public and some of the offenders are very young. The nine Tuakau teenagers who have been charged with the vicious assault of a police officer are aged between 14 and 18. Fortunately these young people do not represent the majority of teenagers but they do highlight the growing problem of serious and violent offences carried out by young people. 
The Government is prepared to provide some real protections for the public. We are demanding real accountability from serious young offenders. We are also offering them practical help to change their behaviour and real opportunities to live happy and successful lives. This bill does that by providing the Youth Court with a toolbox with a much wider range of sentencing options. These new tougher and longer orders will allow us to make inroads into the underlying causes of these young people’s offending. But that is not the whole story. 
The Fresh Start package also supports prevention and early intervention. We want to steer young people away from trouble and say “Well done!” when a young person makes a positive change in his or her life. We provided the places for the 100 young people we saw in January on the Prime Minister’s holiday programme for young people who have been in trouble but have turned their lives round. We saw that what happened was hugely successful. We put them in front of the right sort of role models and we saw something positive happening for those young people. It was really encouraging. 
This summer we had 15000 places for young people on 1-week breakaway holiday programmes. Those young people would not normally have been able to afford something like that. They come from families who were a bit under stress and they were getting to the end of a long holiday period. They were starting to get a bit antsy and they were starting to get into trouble. So we took recommendations from police from sports clubs and from the grassroots people who brought those kids together. It was basic early intervention but we certainly saw a difference in those young people. It got them off the roads and it got them into contact with positive role models. They were with mentors from their own communities who really invested a lot in them. Early intervention is about getting to kids as young as 11 before they make choices and before they go off the rails. 
The Government is also supporting the community sector that helps children at risk. We are developing a new way of working with the community providers that are providing home-based programmes and providing really early intervention in dealing with some of our most vulnerable families—families who are really not doing too well at all. The new high-trust contracts cut bureaucracy and allow providers to be innovative and flexible in order to achieve the best results for their clients and I must say I have a personal bias because for me it is about the children. So they are the services that actually make a difference in our communities. We have heard those providers saying for 10 years that they want more flexibility and the ability to get on and do the stuff that really matters instead of ticking a whole lot of boxes. They want to be able to move their contracts around and have freedom within them. Dr Prasad shakes his head but that is because there was not that level of understanding by the previous Government. 
We are saying to people that they know what works best for their people and their communities and we trust them to get on and do as much as they can by way of early intervention. We heard earlier from another member who said that we have seen that for years and it has not worked in many cases because it has happened too quickly. I would agree in some respects. 
It is quite amusing that last year the criticism from members on the other side was that the bill was taking too long to come to the House. It was October they said. A year had passed and why was I mucking around so much? The other criticism was that it cost too much money. Quite frankly we need to put the right dollars behind it. I am talking a $152 million investment in these young people and it starts with early intervention and goes on to make the differences that are needed. 
If this Government was not backing up this programme with real dollars so that the professionals can work in the right way with those young people then I too would have concerns but I do not. This bill will make a significant difference to young people’s lives. It will make a difference to the young people who quite frankly have been left on the scrap heap of despair that leads to victims behind them and continued offending which leads them to adult jail. We will not give up on them. 
The bill will provide for longer orders. The research tells us we need to work much longer with these tough young people if we are to effect change in them and in their families’ lives. We are doubling the maximum length of the Youth Court’s top-end sentences. The maximum lengths of supervision with activity orders and supervision with residence orders are doubled. The maximum length of the supervision orders that kick in after a young person finishes supervision with activity or leaves the residence is also doubled and that is significant. Common sense and research tell us that intensive long-term supervision of youth in their communities is necessary if these young offenders are to avoid a lifetime of crime and punishment. 
There is a wider range of orders. Serious youth offenders are often the product of their environment. Some families need to take greater responsibility for the path their kids are on. [ 
Interruption 
] I am sorry; the member cannot have heard the beginning of my speech. I talked about early intervention better community programmes and the investment in communities at the early intervention stage all of which this range of Fresh Start packages will adjust. 
The bill will enable the Youth Court to order the parents of these kids to attend parenting programmes. Youngsters who are parents themselves—there are a number of them unfortunately—will face parenting orders too so that they will have the opportunity to learn what good parenting is. Successful people who have overcome the most awful hardship in life can point to a single adult more often than not who has backed them showed them the way and stood beside them through the tough times. The Youth Court will now have the option of mentoring programmes for these often very alienated young people. 
Alcohol and drug abuse is behind many a criminal act. The Youth Court will now have the power to order youth offenders to undertake drug and alcohol rehabilitation and this will be backed up by new community and residential placements. There will be young offenders who fail to grasp the opportunities provided to them under this bill. Accordingly the bill provides the public with better protection by significantly increasing maximum sentences and by way of new orders for repeat offenders. 
Serious youth offenders will face more intensive monitoring in their communities including electronic monitoring and curfews. If they flout orders they will find themselves back before the Youth Court to face the consequences. This bill has been improved by the consideration given to it by the Social Services Committee. It is the sharp end of the Fresh Start programme. I commend it to the House. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 After so much debate I personally see the third reading of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill as an opportunity to say some most important things and to reflect on the core of what this bill represents and what the Government is truly proposing. First I want to acknowledge something that the Government has continually thrown back at Opposition members as we have contested the prospects of this legislation proving to be successful. Opposition members continually face an assumption by members in this House that we do not understand that some people in our criminal justice system just cannot be reformed. 
I say to Government members that we acknowledge that that is the case. In fact I grew up with someone who worked in our criminal justice system. I have always been very open about the fact that my father is a policeman. While growing up I watched as he dealt with some of the most horrific criminal offending that I think a human being would ever want to see. We acknowledge that there are people in our criminal justice system who are beyond help but we have always argued that we cannot tarnish our young people with that same brush. We must acknowledge that we have a tiered system in New Zealand for good reason and that 17-year-olds and under and 12 and 13-year-olds should not by default be moved on in our criminal justice system before it is right to do so. 
I want to reflect on why we have that core principle in our legislation. Why is it that we deem our young people to be different to be a special case as it were? I think it comes down to a very simple reason. It is one that I think even Minister Power would acknowledge; he is after all the Minister who hosted the Drivers of Crime meeting here in Parliament. If we put all of our young offenders even the top 1000 whom the Government claims it is trying to deal with into a room we will see the same characteristics in each of them. We will see young people who are disengaged from education and/or employment. We will see young people who have been subjected to violence either in the home or gang-related violence. We will see young people who have been subjected to drug and alcohol abuse 80 percent of whom would have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time that they committed their offence. We will see social deprivation: young people who claim that their families have not had enough to enable them to get by. 
I find it utterly abhorrent to hear the ACT Party member Mr David Garrett claim that a decade of Labour policies as he put it is to blame for all of those factors existing in a young person’s life and that that is the contributing factor to those young people’s offending. 
David Garrett 
: 25 years of welfare is what I said. 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: I say to Mr Garrett that I grew up from a young age in a town that demonstrated why our young people end up in the situations that they are in. In the 1980s I lived in a small place called Murupara which will be known to Todd McClay. That town suffered under the weight of privatisation and a central government that at that time did not care for its most vulnerable families and young people. When I was young the seeds were being sown for our young people’s future criminal offending. The Salvation Army the Youth Court judge and any number of other people who work in the social sector acknowledge that Rogernomics has a lot to answer for and so do the policies of the 1990s. I am not saying here that that situation is the entire contributing factor to the youth offending encased in this bill but that the bill is a blunt instrument for dealing with a much deeper problem which goes back decades beyond our own time. 
Because we know of all of those causes and because we know of all of those catalysts the obligation sits on us and on our communities to turn lives round. We know what the contributing factors to youth offending are and if we ignore them it means that we are ignoring our responsibility as well. I believe that when communities know about all of these factors that exist it is up to us to make sure that we intervene at the right point. This issue goes beyond the age at which young people enter our criminal justice system. If we already know that 80 percent of our young people are under the influence of drugs and alcohol when they offend why are we waiting to issue court orders on those young people when they hit the Youth Court? What are we doing to intervene before criminal offending occurs? I have seen no deep financial investment into that area. In fact if we speak to the people at Odyssey House they will tell us that we are waiting until it is too late. We must do more. Members on this side of the House would happily work with the Government on any initiative to proactively intervene at an early point in those young people’s lives. 
I do believe—and I have heard the explanations often very rational ones from Chester Borrows about why 12 and 13-year olds are being shifted into the Youth Court—that inherently this is a shift in criminal responsibility and I stand against that. I stand against the notion that the issue is just about expediency; I think it is much more symbolic than that. I believe we are giving away one of our greatest powers here which is to deal with families at the same time as we deal with young offenders. As Lianne Dalziel has pointed out numerous times none of us would claim that a 12 or 13-year-old who is committing an indictable offence with a criminal penalty of 14 years or more is doing that in isolation and has come from a perfect background or family. So why are we disempowering ourselves and taking away the ability to deal with that young person’s family as well as the young person when we know that there are care and protection issues at play? This is a fundamental shift. I acknowledge what the Minister has said; I agree with her. That is why we oppose the bill. 
The second most significant part of this bill that has been discussed probably did not need to be included in legislation. It is the policy change around the much-disputed term “boot camp”. Anyone who is listening to this debate might question why the Government is upset with us using that term although I still maintain that it was the Prime Minister who first used it publicly to describe the Government’s direction on youth justice. I believe he did that just after the election in February I think. Perhaps we called the policy that because it looks very much like corrective training which had a 92 percent failure rate—a 92 percent occurrence of reoffending amongst those who graduated from it. Perhaps we called the policy “boot camps” because almost every submitter who came to the Social Services Committee also believed from the description that National’s policy would be close to corrective training or like every other failed initiative of that type overseas. Perhaps it was because the providers came to us described to us the programmes that they already offer in New Zealand and said that if the Government really was going to do a wraparound programme the providers already did exactly what the Government was describing: getting to the core of offending and issues working with families and trying to move young people into employment. It was misleading to the public for National to claim that its policy was something different from what providers were doing. That was what caused the confusion. 
Whether it was an intentional move or not the cynical part of me says the term “boot camps” came out because it appealed to people. It sounded good. Now we hear the Government disputing that that is what it is trying to do. I believe that the confusion can rest only at the feet of the Government on that. But if the National members are genuinely trying to create a wraparound programme that incorporates all of the elements of multi-systemic therapy for instance why did we not invest in the kinds of initiatives that the Minister has already referred to: those of the people who are already working closely in their communities who already have that experience and who have demonstrated that they are the one person who can turn a young person’s life around? Why did we start something completely new with the army? That is where the confusion has come from. Closing down Te Hurihanga proved only to reinforce that in my mind. Let us evaluate what we have and invest in what we have. That is exactly what we could have had with Te Hurihanga and that is exactly what I think would have led to a successful path forward in our criminal youth justice system. 
To sum up I say youth justice is one of many areas that I feel quite passionately about but I have felt let down by this bill. I feel that it has shifted what was incredibly forward-thinking legislation and changed it fundamentally. I acknowledge that changing it back in a political sense will always be very difficult. I ask that in future debates perhaps Government members may consider a situation where next time instead of talking about those young kids whom they perceive to have already failed we start to talk about how we can intervene earlier and turn those kids’ lives around. 
HEKIA PARATA (National) 
:  
Tena koe e te Mana Whakawa. Tena korua te Minita Take Maori me te Minita whakahaere i tenei pire otira huri noa i to tatou Whare i tenei po tena koutou katoa. E tu ana au ki te tautoko i tenei pire engari me te mihi tuatahi ki te ture matua na te mea pakeke ake i te rua tekau tau tenei ture e mahi ana a kei te haere tonu te ia o tera ture matua i roto i tenei pire na reira e tautoko ana. 
[ 
Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Greetings to you two the Minister of Maori Affairs and the Minister responsible for this bill; and indeed to you all throughout our House this evening. Greetings to you all. I rise to support this bill but must first acknowledge the original Act which has been in place for 20 years. Its ethos continues in this bill so I endorse it emphatically 
.]  
This bill is focused on three main things. It expands the jurisdiction of the Youth Court so that 12 and 13-year-olds who commit the most serious crimes can be incorporated in the jurisdiction of the court. It strengthens and expands the orders that the Youth Court is able to make including parenting education mentoring and drug and alcohol programmes. It also creates tougher and more effective sentences to get these young offenders back on track. 
In the past week alone we have seen a number of examples of the kind of offending that this bill is directed at. In Titahi Bay this week a massive fire devastated 75 hectares of Whitireia Park and the offender who is responsible for that arson and who has been arrested is a 14-year-old. Yesterday’s headlines showed that a 15-year-old boy appeared in the Gisborne District Court. He was accused of bashing a young mother on the head with a crowbar as she was out running with her toddler. The young mother was unknown to the boy. The Minister has already referred to the off-duty policeman in Tuakau who was set upon when trying to break up a fight and we have also seen news stories of the tragic outcome for Liberty Templeman. These are just a few examples of a very small group of young offenders who are nevertheless committing very very serious offences. There is no end to the high-profile cases involving youth offenders but there needs to be an appropriate response and that is why I commend Minister Bennett for her work in bringing this bill to the House as well as the others who have worked alongside this kaupapa. 
We need to deal with young offenders in this age group and front-foot the issue. The previous Government seemed happy to wait until they were older and had committed more serious offences and then tried to put them through the adult system and rehabilitation programmes. Andrew Becroft said that there were not enough tools available for the Youth Court and recommended changes which can be seen in this bill. Members opposite have asked whether anybody thinks that a youth offence happens in isolation. No and certainly no member on this side of the Chamber thinks that. But this bill is focused on the fact that it does happen and it happens amongst a very small number of youth offenders. Yes there are other contributing factors such as a dysfunctional home life low or benefit-dependent income poor health poor education poor housing and identity and self-esteem issues. That is why this Government as recently as 2 weeks ago in the form of the Prime Minister’s statement talked about the wide and comprehensive agenda that this Government is committed to. This bill focuses on a specific part of that. 
The Prime Minister’s statement talked about the Government’s priority of growing the economy and the need for national standards addressing low educational attainment. We recognise that young people have the opportunity of getting a good education and using national standards they have an early warning system that identifies that they are failing in the education system and this can be addressed. We understand that a good education will help to divert young people from an otherwise difficult pathway and into having better educational options. 
We understand that growing the economy will lead to better employment prospects and more investment in business and will expand and increase the standard of living. We understand that Treaty settlements will contribute to the restoration of an economic base and the ability for iwi to practise tino rangatiratanga rather than the tino kawanatanga recipe that the previous Labour administration constantly fed into the Maori communities while it was in Government. 
Nobody thinks that a youth offence happens in isolation. Members opposite kept saying somewhat emotively and thereby misleading the public listening to this that these offenders are only children. Of course we are not talking about all 12 and 13-year-olds. Perhaps that has escaped everybody’s attention including members opposite. We are talking about the very small group of 12 and 13-year-olds who have invaded homes and grievously assaulted other people. Let me assure members that the victims of those crimes do not think they will not be upset because it was only a 12-year-old or it was only a 13-year-old who committed the crime. 
When we talk about rights we also have to talk about reciprocal responsibilities. When we quote United Nations conventions we need to quote a wide range of them. Let me give members an example. Article 40.1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that children who offend should be dealt with in a way that “reinforces the child’s respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of others …” as well. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Yes children that is right. 
HEKIA PARATA 
: Yes we are talking about children but we are talking about that very small group of children who are seriously offending. No it does not apply to all children. Yes this bill expands the jurisdiction of the Youth Court but no it does not create child criminals. It allows the court to deal with those who commit crimes. Yes it provides an expanded range of tools but no it does not assume that the judges will suddenly go mad and apply that jurisdiction indiscriminately. In fact I can tell members of this House that a very constructive project is going on right at this moment in the Porirua District Court working with and talking with the very diverse communities that make up Porirua about how the court can better serve the interests of the community. 
The Youth Court jurisdiction is being expanded in order to give a wider range of tools to judges so that they can deal with the issues that confront them. They will not be used willy-nilly; they will be used only on the youth offenders who break the law. We are not talking about all 12 and 13-year-olds and members opposite would do the country a favour if they stopped scaremongering and focused on that fact. The Youth Court said that youth offending has remained at the same level for the past 5 or so years after a steep increase before then. A recent newsletter from the court claims that it is reasonably certain that the age at which young people begin to commit violent offences is getting younger and that the violence committed by young people is becoming more serious. It continues arguing that the real solutions will be found in coordinated inter-agency properly funded early intervention programmes. That is what this Government is doing. We agree and we have committed to funding tens of millions of dollars to reduce youth offending because unlike members opposite when we commit to a policy we put real dollars into it. We do not talk about it; we get on and do it. 
The Minister has outlined a range of those coordinated integrated agencies that are working with each other to ensure that we can assist these young people to get back on a path of leading a quality life not only for themselves but for the whanau hapu and iwi which members opposite find easy to trip off their lips but do not understand how hard it actually is to work within those whanau hapu and iwi who every day try to ensure that their young people make good choices in life. I commend this bill to the House. I thank the Minister for the work she has done on this bill and the officials who have worked alongside her to make this possible. No reira tena koutou kia ora tatou katoa. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I believe that this Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill is a shameful bill. It is without hope for a generation of young people who have been referred to tonight and it undermines the philosophy of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act which it amends. 
I draw the attention of the House to just a few of the provisions of this Act: the principles upon which it is based. First and I have already mentioned this in the Committee stage it is: “An Act to reform the law relating to children and young persons who are in need of care or protection or who offend against the law”. The comment I made in the Committee stage was that for those who offend against the law there are always—always—care and protection issues. The purpose of the Act is also “to advance the well-being of families and the well-being of children and young persons as members of families whanau hapu iwi and family groups:”. It talks about making provision for families “to receive assistance in caring for their children and young persons:” and its purpose is also “to make provision for matters relating to children and young persons … who have offended against the law to be resolved wherever possible by their own family whanau hapu iwi or family group:”. The intention of the legislation is summarised in that introductory provision. 
Then we have the principles of care and protection in Part 2 of the Act. The care and protection principles state first of all the utmost concern of this legislation which is: “the principle that children and young persons must be protected from harm their rights upheld and their welfare promoted:”. The second principle in section 13 of the Act states: “(b) the principle that the primary role in caring for and protecting a child or young person lies with the child’s or young person’s family whanau hapu iwi and family group”. That is all very well and good when things are good at home. It is not very good for those who do not have the range of opportunities available to them that all of the members of this House have had. 
Then we have the youth justice principles. There is one thing that I do not think this House has taken into account. We have heard the Minister for Social Development and Employment and others say that one of the reasons why we have to have this legislation is to provide for some clout as it were to ensure that orders can be put in place before the matter goes before the Family Court. Yet one of the founding principles of the youth justice provisions in Part 4 is: “the principle that criminal proceedings should not be instituted against a child or young person solely in order to provide any assistance or services needed to advance the welfare of the child or young person or his or her family whanau or family group:”. Again we are seeing an undermining of the essence of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act. 
We had a most extraordinary contribution from the previous speaker Hekia Parata who said that we should not care about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child obligations. We have signed up to those and I was absolutely astonished to hear that we have a member in this House who does not think that is important. In the entire time that we have been debating this bill in the House not once did the Minister comment on the advice that she received on the challenge to our obligations under the convention that this measure will entail. Does it matter? The previous speaker said no it does not. I say yes it does. In fact the Minister of Justice is currently amending the Adoption Act so that we can ratify the optional protocol to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child on the trafficking of children. It certainly matters to the Minister of Justice that we are able to ratify an optional protocol but it does not matter to the Minister for Social Development and Employment that we are failing to meet our obligations under this convention in this most fundamental change. 
The Minister for Social Development and Employment said in her opening statement in the third reading—and I think others would have heard it as well—that she accepted that this was a fundamental change in a law that was world-leading when it was passed in 1989. The irony is that this Government thinks that children who have grown up in the most appalling set of circumstances should simply be punished for their subsequent wrongdoing without addressing any of the underlying issues. That is why I say that there are always care and protection issues involved. 
I have heard the Minister repeat the list of offences that will be covered by this change in jurisdiction from the Family Court to the Youth Court. Let me again make it clear that murder and manslaughter are already covered by the Youth Court jurisdiction. I think that we hear these different examples to try to put the numbers on the table. I ask the next Government speaker to please get up and tell us how many 12 and 13-year-olds have been charged with murder over the last few years. I am sorry but I could not find it in any of the documentation associated with this bill. 
Hon Member 
: It’s not an evidence-based approach. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: It is not an evidence-based approach. Only once in the entire time that the Minister spoke—and it was right at the tail end of her contribution in the third reading of this bill—did she talk about the environment within which the children are brought up. The offending does not occur in a vacuum. I thought that finally we had an acknowledgment from the Minister that that is the case but there is no ability to address the underlying drivers when we are talking about such young children. 
I asked the Minister a serious question during the Committee stage on this bill. She did not answer that question at all. It is a really horrible question to ask because there is no comfortable answer. The question was that if Chris and Cru Kahui had survived the attacks that they suffered in the very early days of their young lives which were snuffed out so early what would they have grown up to be like? What sort of adults would they have become if they had survived the brutality of their environment? What would they have become? 
I am hearing from the other side of the House a sense of disquiet or discomfort about actually addressing the underlying drivers of crime. We know that those drivers are fundamental to how these children are able to see themselves as part of the world and as part of a community and to what they are able to do in terms of responding to the challenges that they are confronted with. 
The ministerial Drivers of Crime meeting actually reinforced my very very strong views that we need a collaborative approach across the House so that when there is a change of Government—as there is from time to time; it happens—the non-governmental organisation sector is not thrown up in the air. The Minister of Maori Affairs was there and he will recall the number of non-governmental organisations that said that they are sick and tired of one thing coming in with one Government and then going out and a new thing coming in with the next Government. It is time we actually dealt with this and the public want us to do this collaboratively. That is why members on this side of the House made the offer to do so. The pilot we had been operating Te Hurihanga has been tossed out to be replaced with a programme that is not even ready to take its place. That is simply not good enough. That programme was designed to make the long-term difference to incredibly damaged children so that real change could occur. 
Then we move to the boot camps. I think Jacinda Ardern nailed it when she said that the Government used the language of boot camps to garner public support and then criticised everyone else because the public thought that boot camps were contained within the legislation. I have the Te Hurihanga evaluation and I have gone through the issues that it raises. It is not just about reoffending rates; it is about turning round the children’s whole lives which is quite a different model. 
Children need strong adult role models in their lives. Children need to feel a strong sense of belonging. Children need to feel safe in their homes and in their communities. All children who offend have care and protection issues and those issues must be addressed so that they can learn to take responsibility for their actions. It is hard to tell people to take responsibility for their actions when nobody intervened when they were being violently abused raped sodomised and everything else that has happened to these young children who have ended up in this category. I would rather see us work collaboratively to make a difference in the lives of these children so that they grow up to be responsible members of our community. 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Before I deliver the address prepared for this third reading I acknowledge the work of colleagues in Labour—Lianne Dalziel Jacinda Ardern and others—whose contributions have been very valuable over the last week or so of debate on this bill. I reiterate my support for what has been said and for their view. I think they have done a great job of expressing the concern of the community and particularly my concern on a number of issues. 
It is with genuine sadness that we see the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill come before the House. It will cause children and their families considerable harm. The Green Party came to Parliament because its members want to look after our country; we want to look after its people and its place. We are here to make change for families—for those families in particular who need us the most. This legislation will only damage those families and communities and in fact make our communities less safe. It should not be brought before the House or supported. 
I make it clear that the Greens recognise that this bill makes changes to the way that child offenders who commit the most serious crimes are dealt with. Although we oppose this legislation for the changes that it makes and its fundamental purpose we do not in any way undervalue the significance of the loss and the harm that is caused by young offenders who commit very serious violent offences. These are often terrible crimes that can seriously damage or destroy whole families and whole communities and they are always an awful tragedy. But this is why the Greens are so strong on issues around victims’ rights for example and why the Green Party initiated the victims inquiry. It is why we have consistently argued for greater recognition of victims’ rights and their voices in the legal process. It is why we have been so committed to restorative justice in particular as opposed to the punitive approach of this Government and the means by which that process gives back power to victims—those who have been deprived of it by offenders. 
Restorative justice not only opens the justice process to victims of crime but directs the whole legal process towards a proven means that ensures that crime can be prevented. The truth is that we must invest our resources into preventing further crime. To do anything else is not only to waste scarce public funds but to waste human capability. It is a waste of our people. We cannot afford to continue to lose child after child young person after young person to the legal system which causes them so much harm and keeps our communities unsafe. That itself is enough of a tragedy to shift the thinking. 
The Greens are most concerned that harm does not continue and that as best as possible our legal system protects all children and their families. It is our view that the age of criminal responsibility should never go under 14—there is a very good argument for increasing it—and that there should be a much greater emphasis on establishing small-scale and dispersed youth rehabilitation centres in order to end the detention of young people in police cells and adult prisons and to intensively address serious offending within a small-scale environment that can reflect their needs. Family group conferences are a key part of that process. The undermining and distortion of the family group conference process within this bill is greatly regretted. But we will strongly support marae-based Youth Court and youth justice programmes and these should be increased. I acknowledge that there has been an extension to the Hoani Waititi Marae for Youth Court processes which is great to see. 
The problem of course is that this bill fails all of our criteria. It is flawed at its core because the premise on which it is based is that 12 and 13-year-old children should be treated as young adults in criminal law for serious offending. That is simply wrong. I was very surprised to hear Hekia Parata undermine and dismiss the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The failure to address its core concerns was really quite surprising. The fact is that this bill is contrary to that convention. The bill attacks the child’s right to be treated in accordance with his or her age. It undermines the ability of the child to be reintegrated into the community. It undermines any rehabilitation that might ensure that the child does not reoffend. The bill fails the family and the community by exacerbating the social exclusion of the child and the inability then for that family to recover. The treatment of a child as young as 12 as a youth in the Youth Court will make our communities less safe not more. Parliament is wasting precious time on the demonstrably failed boot camps ideology which I am sure will go given the chance. 
The evidence proves that access to drug and alcohol rehabilitation and counselling if it is extended both in breadth and in length of time can resolve many of the violence and dysfunction issues faced by children and young people. Early intervention as has been mentioned by Labour colleagues is the key. But the Government is failing to close the gaps on the provision of these services. It is futile giving the Youth Court more powers to require young offenders to attend these programmes because the places in them simply do not exist. The statement about millions and millions of dollars being invested is just wrong. There are not enough places to meet existing need and there will not be enough places to meet ongoing need because resources are being diverted into punitive action like boot camps rather than into those programmes that we know will work because they are proven to. No provisions in this legislation will be effective unless there are high-quality best practice and properly funded long-term services for young offenders. On that basis it is with regret that we understand that Te Hurihanga has been closed down. That was a ridiculous decision to make. 
The evidence also proves that family focused services that treat the child within the context of the family will greatly maximise the chance for the reintegration of that child into family and community life. That surely has to be the goal—not punishment and not punitive action but reintegration and restoration of that child in their family. 
Thirdly we know that violence is more common in unequal societies. We know that incarceration leads to reoffending. The longer a person is incarcerated the more likely they are to reoffend and that is a fact. We know that the incarceration rate is greater in more unequal societies and incarceration frankly includes boot camps. We know that unequal societies are more punitive in their approach. We know that child abuse is greater in more unequal societies. We know that children experience more bullying fighting and conflict in unequal societies. Inequity is at the heart of violence in New Zealand society and New Zealand society has one of the highest rates of inequity in the developed world. We are not an egalitarian society. We are not an equal or fair society. Every day this Government moves us further and further from the ideal of being such a fair society causing further harm and suffering to New Zealand’s children and their families. The Government is choosing to ignore the roots of violence. 
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 
: Rubbish. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: The member over there can say “Rubbish.” but he needs to look at the evidence. The evidence proves this country has one of the highest rates of inequity in the developed world and inequity is the root cause behind social dysfunction including violence injury and damage to children. 
We know that rangatahi will be the ones who suffer most from this legislation and the proposals of the Government. Rangatahi already suffer disproportionate punishment and degradation in the Youth Court. The judiciary has been very upfront in stating that rangatahi are more likely to attract harsher penalties for less serious criminal offending when they attend the Youth Court. We know that when children and young people move through the Youth Court into the adult system the bias against rangatahi and Maori is even greater and that is proven and demonstrable. We know that the only way to deal with the offending of rangatahi is within the context of a tikanga approach within the whanau which is why we support so strongly marae-based processes for justice Youth Court and youth justice processes. In fact this bill entrenches institutional racism. 
Hon Members 
: Oh! 
METIRIA TUREI 
: I know that National Party members will whinge about that but it is true. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: That is a phrase that should not be used. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It has been a practice in this House that the use of the word racism to describe institutional issues or contextual issues is accepted but not in any context where it is an attack on a person or a group of persons. I think that is the right approach to take. My comment was concerned with structural and institutional racism. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: I want to underscore that point because institutional racism does not accuse any individual of anything. It refers just to a system that produces disproportional results and that is a fact. That being so it would be a travesty if we could not use a technical term to refer to what is a fact. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I thank the member. I refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 42/3. The member Metiria Turei was right on the margin of using that phrase and I ask that for the remainder of her speech she is very mindful of crossing that line. 
Charles Chauvel 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is really just a point of clarification. As I recall the reference by the member she was criticising the bill as— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I have ruled and I am allowing her to continue. 
Charles Chauvel 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am just trying to understand how her reference— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Look I have already ruled and I am allowing her to continue. I have said that she was right on the margin. I am allowing her to continue. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: In the last remaining moments I simply say the Green Party is opposed to this legislation. We are very disappointed that it has been pursued as far as it has. We are very pleased that there are other parties in this House—the Maori Party and the Labour Party—that oppose it. We hope to see real change in the very near future to protect our children rather than punish and accuse them as this National Government is doing. 
Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Last night I got an email about young people. That is not an unusual occurrence by any means as we frequently receive comments about young people often in association with criminal activity or youth unemployment. But this email was different. The writer felt sufficiently enthusiastic about our young people to take to her computer at 11 p.m. to tell us about the excitement she was witnessing at home amongst the iwi of Whakatohea. She described the 10 projects that Whakatohea have going under Community Max which have employed some 40 young people in their rohe. The rangatahi are involved in upgrading marae developing community gardens mara kai clearing tracks on maunga restoring old pa sites restoring whenua and planting native trees and plants. 
I will quote from the email to share the optimism that she feels for our youth: “To see the mana and confidence these young people show they feel wanted and appreciated they are contributing to our communities they take on any training they need to help them to better their future. These are young people who believe that they are useless and no one cares. I am so proud of them all the more so that our whanau were able to employ them to make our marae and whenua a place to be proud of. This is the beginning of Whanau Ora.” 
I choose to bring these comments to the debate as it is rare for our discussions in this House to make an explicit link between young people and pride confidence and mana. All too often as indeed in the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill we focus on problems of youth. In this bill the intention is unambiguous. It proposes tools to deal with the 1000 or so serious offenders aged between 12 and 16 years. The young people who are the focus of this bill are mainly repeat offenders. Eighty percent of them are male just over half of them are Maori and the majority have left school or are near to leaving school. 
In this Chamber we debate a range a menu of initiatives including supervision and residence orders treatment foster homes lowering the jurisdiction of the Youth Court to include 12 to 13-year-olds military-style activity camp programmes electronic monitoring and the like. The contribution I would like to make to the debate is to encourage us to take a broader perspective on those 1000 young people. We need perspectives that provide us with an optimistic view to remind us of the potential of all our young people to plan proactively for our future. I was pleased that the Social Services Committee recommended amendments that specified as for example in the issue of placing child offenders in residences that the chief executive must consider all reasonable practicable less restrictive alternatives. But the general thrust of the bill remains to focus on a wide range of sentencing orders to be made for dealing with offenders. In doing so it appears to ignore some of the strongest opposition from key submitters on the bill. 
Judge Andrew Becroft the Principal Youth Court Judge described the proposal to include 12 to 13-year-olds within the youth justice system as “constituting the most fundamental change to the system since its inception in 1989.” Kim Workman from Rethinking Crime and Punishment encouraged Parliament to remember that the 1989 Children Young Persons and Their Families Act has worked well and that any amendment should not detract from its focus on treatment rehabilitation and restoration. Dr Cindy Kiro the former Children’s Commissioner promoted the need to heed the research conclusions that the most effective responses are those that include a child or young person’s family and wider community. That view was strongly supported by Jono Campbell the manager of Te Ora Hau Otautahi. As the manager of the urban Maori youth organisation he described this bill as being counterproductive to building strong communities noting that it alienates whanau community and collective responsibility and will be particularly harmful for Maori. 
The youth justice area as the House will be aware is one of the most well-researched policy areas of debate. Dr Gabrielle Maxwell from the Institute of Policy Studies right here in Wellington concludes from her analysis of the research: “If you are going to make a difference in the lives of young people who have been abused and traumatised it is necessary to provide them with close and sustained supportive pro-social relationships.” 
She also suggests that they will need education and skills to enable them to find their meaningful role in the community and they will require help in dealing with any addiction problems. What we know is that prison youth institutions and boot camps are not a conducive environment for habilitation rehabilitation or restoration. It all depends on the quality of leadership that can embrace our young people: the connection that offenders can make to positively engage in change. We know that “getting tough” approaches do not work. Our young people need to be exposed to opportunities to learn new behaviour and values to be taught new skills in active ways. 
Although it may be heresy to some the leadership to inspire change can in itself come from ex-offenders who are committed to working with young people to reduce offending and reoffending. Examples of this include the Delancey Street Foundation in America the Salisbury Street Foundation habilitation centre in Christchurch and Moana House in Dunedin which were all founded by ex-criminals. Yet the Government and officials all too often cannot accept that offenders have anything constructive to contribute towards preventing offending behaviour preferring to see them as recipients of services and not people who have something to offer. 
I go back to the recommendation from Dr Maxwell to focus on close and sustained supportive pro-social relationships as the key element of change and I want to refer to that broader context of the situation for youth in Aotearoa. One of my key concerns for our young people is the lingering effects of the recession in relation to employment in particular on the 15 to 19-year-old age group. Maori unemployment is approximately 1½ times the non-Maori rate. For Maori youth there is a twofold effect: the effect of being young coupled with the fact that Maori unemployment is consistently higher than that of non-Maori. 
How do we support these young people to continue to promote a situation of hopefulness and to focus on their future? We do that by reminding them of their connection to us—that our collective aspirations include them and that they are worthy of work that they are people whom we care about. During the select committee process Manu Caddie from Te Ora Hou Aotearoa told the committee that the bill is focused on the individual and not enough on the whanau community. It was the advice of Manu that funding for the very worst offenders might be better spent on strengthening communities to support their young people rather than on ordering individuals to be mentored or counselled. Our focus should be on further investigating those interventions and programmes that are whanau and family-based that are effective based on evidence and that represent value for money. 
The 1989 Act stimulated the social sector to consider the centrality and importance of the whanau to the care and protection of tamariki rangatahi and to youth justice. This bill in focusing on individual strategies for individual youth undermines the very intention of the overriding legislation such as greater whanau involvement in decision making and including hapu and iwi in the plans and policies. 
The Maori Party is very clear in our commitment to Whanau Ora. We want to support communities to develop and implement their own solutions. As part of this we require Government agencies to work with families and whanau on issues affecting them. We are tired of servicing the symptoms; we want whanau to be part of the direction forward and we are unable to support this bill at its third reading. Kia ora. 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I will start with a few comments about the process that the Social Services Committee went through. Although it was a fairly heated debate at times and colourful at other times what was quite overwhelming was that the committee agreed on a number of things. I am sure that each member of the committee engaged in a positive way albeit we were not free from politics. Given that it was a parliamentary select committee no one should be surprised by that. 
It is also important to note the history of the legislation that the bill amends. The Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 replaced the Children and Young Persons Act 1974. The drafting of that legislation included the responsibility to deal with families. When the legislation was written it was a world first. Funnily enough it was written in the same year that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was written. It seems unusual to me that the Government of the day in drafting the bill and being aware of what the convention entailed did not include within it the provisions that the Opposition seems so drastically to want today. The fact is that around the world different jurisdictions classify the various ages of people appearing before their criminal jurisdictions in different ways. A person who is legally a child in New Zealand might be a young person in another country or an adult in yet another country. If we look at all the countries that are signatories to the convention we will see things interpreted in different ways. 
It does not mean that with the benefit of hindsight we would not go back and change some stuff. For instance I do not believe for a moment that given the opportunity to go back Labour would not have made some significant changes—changes that it is actually voting against in this bill—soon after 1990 when it was elected to Government. In fact Labour set about making a number of those changes in a piece of legislation that is still on the Order Paper as I understand it and that the Green Party was supporting. It does things like extend the term of supervision with activity and supervision with residence. This is in spite of the fact that we have just heard the Green Party member Metiria Turei complain that incarceration for longer terms can only be a bad thing. Legislation that the Green Party was supporting in the last two elections did pretty much what this Government is doing in terms of those sorts of sentences. 
We also have to remember that under this legislation the number of young people aged 12 and 13 who will appear in the Youth Court will probably be fewer than 100 based on current statistics. Those statistics not only come from the ministry but also have been given to us by the Youth Court. The person who will make the decision whether the 12 or 13-year-old appearing in the Youth Court—the child—will continue down the track within the Youth Court is the judge. The person who has been applauded the most by both sides of the House—we all want to grab hold of his every word and glue it on to our policy statement—is the Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft. It is within his jurisdiction and by judges acting under his direction that the decision will be made whether that 12 or 13-year-old has offended in such a way that he or she should continue through the Youth Court and access the provisions of this legislation or whether he or she should go back to the Family Court and be dealt with in that way. It is very very important to remember that those judges are the people who are making that decision. 
I have another interesting point. The Opposition has raised and protested against only a very small number of things. The Opposition actually supports longer terms for supervision with activity and supervision with residence which is in effect what our Fresh Start camp is but with further wraparound services—and the Opposition supports that as well. It supports the removal of the consent required for community service orders. The only problem the Opposition really has is with the use of the term “military-style activity camp” and with the provisions relating to 12 and 13-year-olds. The Labour Government accepted that there needed to be closer supervision and a closer look at the impact of programmes on people after they had finished a residential sentence. But Labour has not said that if it were returned to Government it would turn this back. It has not said that when Labour is next in Government it would unwind this measure and undo it. It does not say that. It knows that it supports the bulk of this stuff. It is only those two provisions that it does not like. 
The fact is—and I take issue with the previous speaker Pita Sharples—that this legislation includes parents family and whanau far more than they have been included to date. This legislation is actually a step towards where the Maori Party would have us be in terms of inclusion and in terms of getting some semblance of Whanau Ora operating within the criminal justice system. I accept and applaud the fact that the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 took that process a long way down the track—far further than it ever had been under the previous legislation. A lot of us cynical cops at the time were absolutely convinced that it was going to fail and I am absolutely convinced that it did not fail. The only problem with the provisions it instilled within our youth justice system reaching their full potential was that a lot of cynical policemen and women out there did not apply it in the way that it could have been applied because it took too much paperwork and it was too cumbersome to deal with in a speedy and timely manner. Young 12 and 13-year-olds who should have been appearing in the Family Court and who should have had their care and protection issues dealt with because their offending displayed a need to do that never made it there and that was because of the attitude of practitioners operating in the field. 
I also supported the separation between care and protection social workers and youth justice social workers that the previous Government implemented to try to deal with exactly that situation. When people sit in the Youth Court as I have sat in the Youth Court they see young person after young person appear before the court only to have their cases put off again because the social workers who are in charge of case-managing the proceedings before the court have not done the notifications that they should have done. All of that eroded the confidence and the trust that people had in the youth justice system. 
This legislation shifts responsibilities towards parents but it does not cut them adrift and hold them solely responsible. It has the ability to hold parents accountable for their children’s offending and so they should be. I am proud of this legislation. I thank the people on the select committee who worked towards it and those who worked against it. Thank you for their engagement. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 In coming to Parliament after doing most things that I had wanted to do I expected and looked for those rare opportunities when I could sit down and really work across parties on solutions to fundamental problems of concern to our society. I liken it to having spent most of my professional life pulling bodies out of the river but one day deciding to go upstream and work with people to build fences so that people did not fall into the river. This Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill was an opportunity to begin to address some of the concerns that Government members had and for all members to try to work our way through the legislation to address those questions and come up with a set of solutions with which we could engage in a productive kind of way. My sadness is that that opportunity has been missed because members on only one side have been trying to do that. When members on the other side are constantly trying to focus on political capital—making political capital out of the situation—it becomes very hard. I will talk about that more as I go on. 
Labour by its record since the change in Government has always supported reasonable legislation to address fundamental problems. Labour members have always taken an optimistic view on that but when I came from the select committee and into the legislative process that is almost at an end now the feeling I had was that here was a Government juggernaut that had already made up its mind and that was disregarding any advice that could be put before it. It was determined to go down a particular track; I likened that to a punitive approach. Somehow in the process leading up the election—the pre-election campaign—there was this notion that the only response was to be much harder on crime through every level. Of course there was the action of 100 days which came into the select committee hearings as well but the juggernaut prevented us from taking the opportunity to develop this set of proposals in a far more constructive way. 
I have a lot of respect for every member of the select committee. The committee was very ably chaired and every member of the select committee really struggled to engage with the issues and with the submitters. But in the end I had the impression that National committee members were prevailed upon not to follow what the select committee was being advised but to deliver on what was a punitive approach to the legislation. Chester Borrows as well has talked about how an opportunity was missed. 
The bit that Labour members have major difficulties with in this particular bill is the ideology driving it. That ideology is a punitive ideology and it automatically leads us somewhere. No matter what safeguards we write into the bill over time those who interpret the provisions will begin to internalise that particular ideology. There is a lot of legislation where that is the case. 
Two days ago Unicef New Zealand put out a press statement. That organisation is a group of people who are concerned about young people and who think about New Zealand society quite a bit. The organisation makes reasoned statements from time to time. Its New Zealand executive director says: “The Bill is a backward step in the treatment of children who commit serious crimes.” Indeed that is Labour’s view but this is a large credible organisation that is making these comments. Its statement continues: “Lowering the age at which children can enter into the realm of criminal jurisdiction takes New Zealand in the opposite direction to that proposed by international and national experts on criminality and human rights.” My good friend Pita Sharples has articulated that far more comprehensively than I could ever imagine and I tell the Minister that he is absolutely right. Indeed all of the advice that he has talked about advises us to go in the other direction. 
The select committee was going in the opposite direction. It is no wonder that the debate in the second reading the Committee stage and this third reading has been quite tetchy. It is because the opportunity has been missed and the advice has not been taken at all. The bill really is about lost opportunities for the Government to address what it saw as problems with young offenders. It is almost as if the kind of bravado that the Minister displays from time to time in the House has driven the thing this far but members of the Government in the select committee have not been able to let loose and begin to think their way through it. They are all honourable members and they all have good brains they could have used to come up with much better amendments than the ones here. 
On this side of the House I say that some provisions in the bill have our support. Extending orders and giving the Youth Court more orders are not things we dispute at all. However the way is also opened up for orders that have been known to fail elsewhere. There is any amount of evidence on that. I have not heard the Minister or speakers from the Government side tell us the evidence on which they have built their set of proposals. An ideological position has led the provisions not substantive research or examples from national or international experiences that say: “This was achieved.” I refer of course to boot camps which come in under the “Supervision with activity order” substituted in clause 25. 
Where is the evidence for the camps’ success? Why was the evidence not put before us? The signal given was that the Government’s analysis is that all that is missing in the lives of these young people is discipline and once we give them discipline through military-style boot camps and activities then we set them with wraparound services on the right path. But there is no evidence to suggest that that will come through boot camps. Members have heard the Hon Pita Sharples tell us very clearly that a whole series of complex factors work in consort one with the other—many around family many around community and many to do with age and other things—and need to be put together. Proper services that brought all those factors together would have been much more effective. So those are the lost opportunities which is why this bill is disappointing for me. 
Perhaps the one aspect that has bothered us more than anything else has been the sending of children to the jurisdiction of the Youth Court because that also signals and is consistent with the Government’s ideological position on punitive treatments. The problem with that I say to the Minister is the question of what happens when the issue is about 11 year-olds. What will happen when it is about 10 year-olds? Pressure will come on us but I do not see that this legislation will produce dramatic change over the time of this particular Government. It will not. We will still be talking about the cases we have heard about today; members opposite have been talking about very recent ones. In the end we will force ourselves to become more punitive and to push the age of criminal responsibility further back but those positions are really unprincipled. It was really important for us to hear from the Minister what her deeply held philosophical belief was around children. It was really important for us to hear that and for her to put that on the record of the House. But that has been missing. At least if we had heard that there might have been a difference in the discussions. But the Government has been arrogant and has not listened to experts and the legislation is disappointing and a lost opportunity. 
Perhaps the final point is that it is surprising that Government members who have spoken have really demonstrated the limits of their understanding of the complex issues around this particular— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member; his time has expired. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 Tonight’s debate is a milestone because it completes the enactment of the Government’s major commitments to New Zealanders at the 2008 general election. But it is even more significant because it demonstrates once again the resolve of a Government that cares enough about troubled youths to want to break their cycle of delinquency and crime and give them a fresh start and a brighter future. It is a Government that cares about communities that have had enough of selfish and unacceptable behaviour by a worrying number of young people who are running amok in this country. I say to Dr Prasad that it is a Government that is facing up to the considerable evidence that the current system is not working and has to be fixed. 
Labour members’ solution of more of the same demonstrates that they have learnt nothing from their comprehensive rejection at the last election. Opposition members claim to be concerned about these young people but they have consistently and deliberately misrepresented the key provisions of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill and ignored the seriousness of the issues it is designed to tackle. 
In my electorate of Hamilton West we have at Hamilton’s Fraser High School one of the oldest and most respected school cadet schemes. It is if anything growing in popularity. Fraser’s cadet corps teaches its students discipline values and respect. It gives those young people a sense of purpose builds their self esteem and encourages them to aim high in other aspects of school and community life as well. Just last week some Fraser High School students who admitted that they were at risk of going off the rails asked to be signed up. I am very proud to represent Fraser High School in this House and I ask members to reflect on what that school and its cadet scheme are achieving. 
I mention that scheme because those benefits are exactly what military-style activity camps will offer the young offenders who are the focus of this bill. I am very disappointed that Opposition members of the Social Services Committee continue to parrot the dishonest “boot camp” slogan when they know that their imagery is dishonest and irresponsible. Worse it insults the fine men and women who are already offering programmes of this nature with great success around New Zealand and those who will lead the new military training activities provided for in this bill. I know they will do it well yet Opposition members would prefer to denigrate those people by conjuring up irrelevant images of screaming and abusive drill sergeants from B-grade American movies. That is offensive. 
Miss Dalziel talked earlier about a disservice yet she overlooked the irony that her party is doing a huge disservice to the people of New Zealand and especially the young people who are off the rails by demeaning and opposing the intent of this bill. Mr Nash lamented the fact that some of our young people are being labelled criminals when they may be just 12 or 13 years of age. We are talking here about young arsonists young aggravated robbers and young home invaders. These are serious crimes and I say to Labour members that people who commit crimes are criminals whether they are 13 or 93 years of age. It is sanctimonious claptrap for Labour members to deny that these young people are already on a dangerous path to a lifetime of serious adult offending. They are not innocent and they need our determined intervention. Worse it is actually heartless of Labour members to say we should not tackle the issues because to do so would damage the self-esteem of our country’s most serious young offenders. I did not know Harry Holland but I am confident that he would tell Stuart Nash that such politically correct puffery is just not right. The package of measures in this bill confronts the reality of New Zealand in 2010; not the mythical Peter Pan dreamland that exists in the minds of members opposite but not in a single town anywhere in this country. 
We are talking about mentoring that is tried and tested. It works in my city and it will be extended under this bill. We are talking about drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes that will be essential if many young offenders are to have any chance of breaking out of the damaging environment and lifestyle that so many of them have known for far too long. These programmes are not heartless or offensive to young people but failing to tackle those problems certainly is. Actually the words “heartless” and “offensive” better describe Labour’s approach to this whole debate. It is offering nothing new and nothing that deals with the magnitude and reality of the problem and it would rather stick with the status quo despite the overwhelming evidence around the country that the current system is just not working. Ignoring the plight of serious young offenders does a disservice to use Miss Dalziel’s word to those young people to their families and whanau to their victims—who members may have noticed have been conspicuously missing from any consideration by Labour’s speakers this evening—and to New Zealanders who suffer day in and day out from the consequences of juvenile delinquency in their communities. We are talking about parenting education to give those young people the skills they will desperately need when many of them become parents while still not much older than children themselves. Without that commitment we condemn their offspring to a future just as bleak and I am 100 percent sure I say to Mr Nash that Harry Holland would say that that just would not be right. 
This bill is appropriate. It is realistic and it is compassionate in the manner of tough love initiatives. It reflects the commitment of the Minister for Social Development and Employment and of this Government to doing much better by our troubled youth and all who care for them or live with the consequences of their behaviour. That is why I am proudly supporting this bill and that is why I am confident that it will make a positive difference in one of our most challenging areas of social policy. With the passing of this bill we will give our Youth Court the tools it needs to tackle one of our country’s most serious challenges. 
Debate interrupted. 
Sitting suspended from 12 midnight to 9 a.m. (Thursday)