Volume 703 Week 10 - Tuesday 10 March 2015Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 703 Week 10 - Tuesday 10 March 2015[Sitting date: 10 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2031. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Tuesday 10 March 2015Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.Points of OrderTabling of Documents—Recording of Phone MessageRICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would ask you to give some considerationto and revisit a ruling that you made on 26 February when I attempted to table a recording of a Ministry for Primary Industries hotline message. You ruled it out of order on the grounds that any member could phone the hotline and hear the message for themselves. I attempted at the time to raise a further point of order that we believed the recording would disappear once New Zealand First had made the public aware of its existence. That is in fact what happened. In the light of that I would ask you to perhaps revisit your ruling under—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have already had a look at the decision I made on that day. The purpose of tabling a document is to inform the proceedings of the House. I needed to make a relatively rapid decision as to whether I felt that was valuable information to members and therefore I may decide to put the leave. On that occasion I decided that such a recording was not useful information to the House.Questions to MinistersAccident Compensation Corporation—Levies and Impact on Government Financial Position1.ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his comment that “no one’s arguing that we’re not working as fast as we possibly can” to cut ACC levies given ACC the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment Treasury the Employers and Manufacturers Association and Infometrics are among those recommending bigger cuts?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): I stand by my full statement in the interview which included “So we’ve cut over $1 billion in levies so far and we’re on track to cut more.” We did tidy up the mess we inherited from Labour—that is certainly true—but if you look at it in the early days when we were first in Government ACC wanted to massively increase its levies. It wanted to take them through the roof and as Cabinet we said “Well no I don’t think that makes sense.” So there is often a differential between what ACC thinks and what we can afford.Andrew Little: Given it is affordable and it is what ACC wants why not cut levies by $350 million a year now rather than make vague promises to cut them in the future with no time frame?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The Government receives a recommendation on levy increases or reductions from ACC and then makes a decision based on what it thinks is appropriate. In fact actually it is not—Iain Lees-Galloway: You think ACC is wrong?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well actually yes it is wrong sometimes. Just to give you an example in 2010-11 ACC wanted to increase levies by $1.137 billion more than what Cabinet approved. In 2011-12 it wanted to increase them by $165 million more. In fact if you look at the time that we have been in office ACC has wanted to increase levies by $1.302 billion more than Cabinet approved and it has reduced them by $673 million less. Actually Cabinet does use discretion and thank goodness it does.Andrew Little: Is he aware that his overcharging of ACC levies will see ACC add hundreds of millions of dollars a year to reserves that are already well in excess of what it needs and why should that money not stay with businesses and workers instead?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not think that is right. The Government has cut $1 billion from ACC levies so far. It has a $0.5 billion cut planned. We take the best advice and information that we can and assess things. Although I would not want to get ahead of the next levy-setting process indications are that the overall liability might in fact increase slightly over the last year—in fact Cabinet being slightly more prudent about its actions will prove to be right.Andrew Little: Given that his previous Minister for ACC said ACC’s call to cut levies was ignored “because we need to get to surplus” why is it Government policy to use ACC levies which are meant for helping injured Kiwis to fill the hole in his Budget?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It is not. It is one of the factors that we know flows through to the operating balance before gains and losses—just one of many—but Cabinet makes a decision largely based on what it thinks is affordable and trying to smooth things out. As I said earlier ACC wanted to increase those levies in 1 year alone by $1.137 billion more than what Cabinet approved. The reality is the member cannot have it both ways. He cannot say on the one hand that he does not want levies to go up when that is what ACC recommends and on the other that he does want levies to go down faster when that is what ACC recommends. Either he is a slave to it or he is not.Tim Macindoe: What reports has the Prime Minister received calling for the Government of the time to ignore the ACC board’s recommendations on ACC levies?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well fascinatingly enough I have seen a report from October 2009 arguing strongly that the Government should utterly reject the ACC board levy recommendations. Those comments came in a media release issued by the then Amalgamated Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union National Secretary Mr Andrew Little which shows you can reject the board’s recommendations one year and apparently be a slave to their recommendations another.Andrew Little: Coming to 2015 why does he think massaging the Government’s books is more important than the businesses that will see lower profits the workers who will see lower wages and the 700 people who will be out of a job because of his ACC rort?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: This is a Government that is working alongside business and New Zealanders to produce a strong economy strong growth and a strong small to medium sized enterprises sector all reflected in the fact that our country is growing and doing well. It makes sense actually for the Government to make sure it is sensible about ACC levies so that we are not driving them up massively one year and cutting them by more than we can afford the next year and having to raise them again. The member may be aware that if one looks at the discount rate and what is happening to it in New Zealand and what that might mean to the earnings of ACC and what that might mean to the liability—and actually Mr Parker knows exactly what I am talking about. Let us wait and see what the next recommendation from ACC is.Andrew Little: Is it not time for him to be straight with Kiwis—he is overcharging ACC levies and he knows it business knows it workers know it and he could stop it by ending the rip-off right now?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: If the member wants anyone to be straight maybe the member should be straight and admit that his high horse in Northland went lame and is now tripping over the white flag of surrender that is obviously happening up there. Falling off a high horse in Northland can force ACC levies up. I am fearful that a new charge is coming.Credit Rating—Reports2.NUK KORAKO (National) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received on the economy and particularly on New Zealand’s creditworthiness compared to other developed economies?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): I have seen a recent report from credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service which reaffirms New Zealand’s triple A rating with a stable outlook. Moody’s notes that despite a fall in dairy prices during 2014 New Zealand’s economy is growing relatively strongly and it expects continued growth of around 3 percent. Overall it is a positive assessment of the direction that the New Zealand economy is going.Nuk Korako: What does Moody’s say about New Zealand’s economic performance compared with other developed economies?Hon BILL ENGLISH: It makes a number of comparisons. It says that New Zealand has demonstrated a track record of somewhat faster and more stable growth in the recent past compared with other developed countries. It does point out that New Zealand is pretty focused on the agricultural sector as its main source of export revenue but points out that New Zealand demonstrates some degree of diversity of individual products within this larger segment of agricultural exports. Moody’s notes that there is also a number of other factors that reduce the risk of economic concentration in agriculture including our relatively low reliance on agricultural employment and only about 6.4 percent of total employment it points out is in the agricultural sector.Nuk Korako: What did Moody’s say about New Zealand’s current account balance?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Like all other credit rating agencies Moody’s highlights New Zealand’s current account deficit as a risk as it has done for around 30 years. However there is reason to believe that we are making progress in this area and we expect further improvements over the next few years as we implement further economic reforms. The current account deficit continues to be smaller than forecast and currently sits around 2.6 percent of GDP so it will be interesting to see whether it goes as negative as some people forecast. Household savings have been positive for the past 5 years for the first time in 20 years and the net international investment position has fallen consistently over the last 6 years. These are all some signs of moderate progress on long-term imbalances in the New Zealand economy.Nuk Korako: How is the Government’s fiscal policy contributing to New Zealand’s stable ratings outlook?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Moody’s makes the same point as other credit rating agencies—that although New Zealand has very high levels of household debt this is offset to some extent by the strength of the Government’s finances. The ratio of Government debt to GDP is well below the median of triple-A sovereign-rated countries and Moody’s believes that Government debt will continue to decline over the next few years as a percentage of GDP.GCSB—Surveillance of New Zealanders Overseas3.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Does the Prime Minister still stand by his answer that he will resign if the GCSB has conducted mass surveillance of New Zealanders; if so what is his definition of mass surveillance?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes and there is no mass surveillance of New Zealanders by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). To me mass surveillance would involve surveillance of an entire population or a substantial part of that.Dr Russel Norman: With regard to his answer that it would involve a significant proportion of the population is he aware that there have been 1.6 million visits by New Zealanders to the Pacific from 2009 to the current day whose private communications have been intercepted by the GCSB and does this not meet the definition that he just gave of mass surveillance?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think the member is making assumptions he should not actually make.Dr Russel Norman: Is mass surveillance different from mass collection; if so how?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Mass collection is not a term used in the Government Communications Security Bureau Act. It would mean different things to different people. But I think people understand what mass surveillance would mean. Mass surveillance is if you surveil an entire population. That does not happen. It is against the law. The Act makes it quite clear and in fact it spells out clearly under what circumstances the GCSB can collect information about New Zealanders. It is largely set out in sections 14 and 15B of the Act.Dr Russel Norman: Which one of the Prime Minister’s statements is correct—his statement this morning: “I don’t even know what you mean by mass collection. I’ve got no clue. It’s not a term I’ve ever seen nor a term I’ve ever used.” or his statement in September 2014 when he said: “There is no mass collection—not of New Zealanders.”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The point I was making is that mass collection is not a term used by the GCSB. It is not a term that I use. That was in relation to a particular issue about Speargun but it is not a term that the GCSB uses.Mr SPEAKER: Order!Andrew Little: Will he be straight with New Zealanders—if they travel to the Pacific Islands will their electronic communications be captured by the GCSB and sent to the National Security Agency or not?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am not going to go through the operational details of the way that the GCSB operates except to say that it operates within the law. The law is extremely clear about under what circumstances the collection of data about a New Zealander could occur. That is in sections 14 and 15B. But I will make this exact point. There is absolutely no—zero—change in the way things happen under this Government from what happened under Helen Clark’s. So if you want to ask these questions I will give you her number in New York and you can give her a ring as well.Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is just too much interchange between both front benches.Dr Russel Norman: Is the Prime Minister aware of the statements by Sir Bruce Ferguson that mass collection and mass surveillance are basically the same things when Sir Bruce stated on the radio: “it’s the whole method of surveillance these days. It’s … mass collection”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am not responsible for the comments that Bruce Ferguson makes. I think the member is actually misrepresenting him. But I go back to the single point. Mass surveillance is not occurring against New Zealanders; it never has. It does not matter how many times the member says it; it is simply not true. The law is very clear about what can occur when it comes to New Zealanders and the law is subject to oversight by the inspector-general. The inspector-general actually makes their findings public in terms of what they do and there are no examples that have been brought to my attention where the GCSB has acted in breach of the law with the exception of the Kim Dotcom situation. It does not matter how many times Nicky Hager the anti-American view and the Green Party want to tell New Zealanders that they are being surveilled en masse they simply are not.Dr Russel Norman: Has it not been brought to his attention that the GCSB is engaged in full-scale collection of all the data coming out of Pacific Island nations and that many hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders have visited or have lived in those Pacific Island nations during the period that all that data was collected?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: One of the problems when a member wants to rely on stolen information is that they get a very very warped sense of reality. I would have thought given that the member was part of the Intelligence and Security Committee for 3 years he would have a basic understanding of the way the GCSB works. The GCSB has to establish a warrant; a warrant has to have a particular reason. The Government Communications Security Bureau Act makes it completely clear that information cannot be gathered against New Zealanders with possible exceptions that are spelt out in sections 14 and 15B of the Act. The inspector-general has total responsibility complete opportunity and insight to review not only the warrants but the actions of the GCSB. Just because someone goes on a holiday somewhere means absolutely nothing and it will not matter how many times the member says that he is simply not right. I make the point to the members opposite that nothing has changed under this Government from the previous Government. If they have got complaints or they do not like things I will give them Helen Clark’s mobile number and they can give her a call.Dr Russel Norman: If mass collection and mass surveillance are two different things as the Prime Minister has been claiming what has changed since the Prime Minister admitted on Campbell Live in August 2013 that under the law to go and look at someone’s email is the same as collecting their email?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Firstly the law has changed actually in that time. But—[Interruption] Well the law has changed. Mass surveillance of New Zealanders does not happen. There are only—Hon Member: The story’s slipping.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well the story is exactly the same as when Helen Clark was Prime Minister. I hate to tell you the bad news. The question has always been posed by members in the Green Party that mass surveillance of New Zealanders occurs. It does not.Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is with regard to the answer. It was a pretty specific question and I do not believe the Prime Minister has addressed it. I was using one of his own quotes.Mr SPEAKER: Part of the question asked what had changed and the Prime Minister said that well for one thing the law has changed. The question was definitely addressed. [Interruption] Order! It is very difficult for me to hear the answers with the constant barrage that is coming from my left-hand side. If it continues I will have to ask someone to leave the Chamber.Roading Northland—Bridges Upgrade4.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) to the Minister of Transport: What update can he give on Government investment in bridge infrastructure in Northland?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): The Government is committed to ensuring that Northland has the infrastructure and the services it needs and deserves. [Interruption] I know that there is a lot of excitement about this. That is why yesterday I was proud to be part of an announcement with the National Party’s Northland candidate Mark Osborne committing to replace 10 single-lane bridges—Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is the last time I am going to rise to my feet and ask members to my left-hand side to quieten down. Next time I will be asking a noisy member to leave the Chamber. This is a question that has been asked. It requires an answer and I want to be able to hear the answer. That is the last warning I will give to members on my left-hand side today.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I was proud to be part of the announcement with National’s Northland candidate Mark Osborne yesterday committing to replace 10 single-lane bridges on Northland’s twin coast highway over the next 6 years. This is an excellent commitment for the north. Mr Osborne deserves credit for advocating this. This is a party that is enabling economic growth in the north. Unlike others the Government has backed and will continue to back Northland to succeed.Jonathan Young: How much has been committed to the upgrading of the 10 bridges and what are the expected benefits?Andrew Little: Tell us about State Highway 3.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: You go back to your deal making Andrew.Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The Government wants to ensure that Northland is ready for the influx of visitors and businesses that will come off the Pūhoi to Wellsford highway and on to the twin coast highway. That is why we are committed to the next logical step spending between $32 million and $69 million to replace 10 single-lane bridges on those twin coast highways with modern two-lane bridges that are fit for purpose. This investment will make sure that Northland has safer and more resilient roads and bridges that will enable the region to take increased freight coming out of the region as well as increased tourist traffic across the region. I repeat: this is a party that backs the regions unlike the latte-sipping St Mary’s Bay folk over the other side.Phil Twyford: What reports has the Minister seen on the transportation of pigs in Northland; and does he have any figures showing the amount of additional pork that these new bridges will take to market?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The member should not talk about his colleagues in that way. Frankly this is something that the people of Northland do not see in that way. They think that it is important for their region. I saw firsthand with my own eyes the safety issues of these single-lane bridges and the way they are a lifeline to communities. When flooding comes communities cannot access emergency services and double-laning the bridges and improving them will enable economic growth for many years to come in a region that this side backs while the others ignored it.Jonathan Young: How much money has the Government invested in State highway and local roading projects across Northland?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Heaps. This National-led Government has invested $750 million in State highway and local roading projects across the north. That is some 40 percent more than Labour did in the same equivalent period—and that does not include the Pūhoi to Wellsford highway a $1.7 billion project that this Government unlike the others who call it a holiday highway will promote. Yesterday’s announcement shows that the National-led Government is committed to making sure that Northland succeeds and it is the only one offering the level of investment in First-World infrastructure to ensure Northland delivers on its abundant potential.Accident Compensation Corporation—Levies and Impact on Government Financial Position5.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: How would the Crown’s fiscal position be affected if ACC’s recommended reductions to its Work and Earners’ levies for 2015-16 were implemented?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): It is impossible to say because the ultimate result of taking a different decision on ACC levies would have to be weighed alongside the ultimate result of taking a different decision on school operational funding or the way that the Government deals with the funding of the Christchurch rebuild. What I can say is that for the 2015-16 year the Government reduced levies by around $180 million less than ACC recommended. In 2010 ACC recommended an increase to the motor vehicle levy of over $100 given the financial trouble left by the previous Government but we increased the motor vehicle levy by about half of that. So the Government has consistently taken a conservative viewabout both increases and decreases in ACC levies particularly given the volatility in interest rates and discount rates.Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This was a question on notice. It has a very specific numerical answer which the Government can easily access because Treasury provides these estimates all the time. The Minister has basically just got up and said that he will not answer the question even though there is a very clear and simple answer to the question.Mr SPEAKER: I do not accept the point the member is making. The Minister right at the start said it was impossible to give an answer because there are a number of other decisions that may flow. That is the answer that the Minister cares to give; it has addressed the question. I accept that the member may not be happy with it but I cannot insist on an answer that quantifies an amount if the Minister has said that it is impossible to do so.Grant Robertson: Was the then Minister for ACC Judith Collins correct when she said that the recommendation to cut workers and earners levies had been rejected by the Government “because we need to get to surplus. We believe the surplus is something that is very important … for … the Government”?Hon BILL ENGLISH: In the first place the member is wrong. He is implying that levies have not been cut. In fact they have been cut by $1.5 billion since we started reducing levies. In respect of the second issue every Minister believes that the decision that affects them is the one that makes all the difference to the surplus or the deficit. I get to hear this stuff every day and none of them are right. In the end Cabinet makes decisions that add up to a surplus or a deficit and no particular decision is determinative of the outcome.Grant Robertson: What advice did Treasury give him on whether ACC levies should be lowered to the extent that ACC recommended?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have had 6 years of advice. I am not sure which bit the member is referring to. What I can tell him is that there are certainly examples where Cabinet has made a different decision from the one that all the officials have recommended and I have to say that over the 6 years Cabinet has been right and officials have been wrong.Grant Robertson: Will he commit to lowering levies for the ACC work and earner accounts in the Budget in May by the $350 million that he is currently overcharging New Zealand businesses and workers?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No I will not make that commitment. It would be rash and imprudent because—Grant Robertson: Oh ha ha!Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well it would be for this reason: the Government has yet to receive the valuation of ACC as at 31 December. The early indications are that that valuation will show levy reductions are significantly less possible than the member thinks.Grant Robertson: Is he saying that Treasury ACC the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and all the officials who have told the Government that it can lower ACC levies far more than it has are rash and imprudent or is it the truth that he is trying to prop up his measly surplus by ripping off Kiwis?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Whatever advice officials have given was going to be out of date as soon as that valuation turns up. As I have said Cabinet has ignored officials’ advice in the past for both large increases and large decreases. Through that time we have been able to reduce the burden of levies by $1.5 billion and I notice that the Labour Party members did not support any of that because they were so worried about the mess they had left ACC in which they did not want talked about.Broadband Ultra-fast—Fibre Connections6.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to the Minister for Communications: What recent reports has she seen on growth of fibre connections compared to other OECD countries?Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for Communications): The latest OECD broadband portal penetration statistics show that New Zealand is now ranked first in the world amongst developed countries for annual growth of fibre connections from June 2013 to June 2014 with an annual growth of 272 percent compared with an annual growth of fibre connections across the OECD of just 12.4 percent.Simon O’Connor: How are fibre connections in the ultra-fast broadband programme progressing against expectations?Hon AMY ADAMS: On our current level of uptake with over 69000 connected users as at 31 December 2014 representing 11.3 percent uptake this is a 26 percent increase on the previous quarter and is ahead of Crown Fibre Holdings’ expectations for this stage of the project. As a comparison Singapore was at just 2 percent uptake at the same point of their build—i.e. 43 percent complete—and they did not reach 11 percent uptake until they were 86 percent complete.Roading Northland—Bridges Upgrade7.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister of Transport: Does he think his “deep commitment to Northland” has been demonstrated by the Government cutting spending on Northland roads by $36 million or nearly 30 percent over the last 5 years?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): Absolutely. The member should stop cherry-picking his numbers between discrete years. This side of the House has invested $750 million since it has been in office—40 percent more than that side of the House did when it was in Government—in Northland.Phil Twyford: I seek leave to table data from the New Zealand Transport Agency showing funding has been cut—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I just need to know: is that information that is freely available on a website?Phil Twyford: It is on the New Zealand Transport Authority website.Mr SPEAKER: Then I will not be putting the leave. If members want it they can get it.Phil Twyford: What does it say about his “deep commitment to Northland” when he says that the 10 Northland bridge upgrades would not be going ahead now if it was not for the by-election?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I have not said that. These bridges are for everyone including Willow-Jean Prime even though the member would rather she stayed at home.Phil Twyford: Will the Government build the 10 bridges if National loses the by-election?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Yes because we are deeply committed to Northland. That is why we have spent 40 percent more to date than the other side of the House who have not been to the regions in a very long time and who tend to keep themselves at the cafes of two or three cities only and that is why we are spending some $2 billion into the future. We unlike the other parties back the regions and we back Northland to succeed.Phil Twyford: Is he concerned about a backlash from local people who say that the first bridge on the list he announced yesterday is suspiciously close to the home of his own candidate and can he reassure people that that was not a factor in making that bridge a top priority?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Yes I certainly can. The only backlash I heard about up north was about a dirty deal done behind backroom doors by parties on the other side. But our candidate—it is radical I know—actually lives in Northland. He actually lives near those single-lane bridges and he like me backs the north. We do not swan around—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question has been answered.Phil Twyford: When the Prime Minister said yesterday that he did not know whether any cost-benefit analysis had been done on the 10 bridges did the Minister advise him that the cost of those bridges equates to about $10000 per vote according to recent polling and does that meet or exceed his criteria for a fair return on investment of taxpayers’ money?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The bridges stack up. That is why three of them have been concluded and completed in the regional land transport plans for some time. That is why I have seen the safety issues the resilience issues firsthand why the people of Northland know they are needed and why we are backing that region.Roading Northland—Bridges Upgrade8.RON MARK (NZ First) to the Minister of Transport: Does he stand by all his statements?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Transport): Yes including my statement that New Zealand First members can say all manner of weird and wonderful things but because they are not in Government they cannot achieve diddly-squat for the people of Northland.Ron Mark: We will see about that after the by-election—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I know it is an interesting time but if members could just ask the supplementary question I for one would be grateful.Ron Mark: Thank you Mr Speaker. Can the Minister tell the House exactly when did he get the approval for the extra funding required for the New Zealand Transport Agency to replace the 10 one-way bridges on Northland’s twin coast highway—exactly when?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: This has been a matter I have been discussing with Northland since early on as a Minister of Transport going up there in December and talking about it. Late last week a decision was made on this.Ron Mark: Can the Minister then enlighten the House as to what seismic change occurred last week when the regional land transport plan 2012-15 and the draft regional land transport plan 2015-21 do not say anything about replacing 10 bridges in Northland?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: It is good to see that the member cannot read. On page I think it is 34 of the draft regional land transport plan it talks about three of the bridges in the programme—Matakohe Kaeō and Taipā. Unlike that member we know the region very well.Ron Mark: Is it not a fact that there were no plans to replace 10 bridges on the Northland twin coast highway and that this is pure pork-barrel politics of the very worst kind on the back of National’s disastrous polling in Northland for the Northland by-election?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I appreciate the members are bitter because they heard about our announcement. They wanted to beat us to it and then when we got ours out they had to go with some ill-conceived port plan that no one likes. But we have been talking to the people of Northland for a long time about this and unlike that party we have been backing them for some time.Ron Mark: In light of the previous comment about the Kaeō Bridge if this by-election proves to be not the result the Minister wants and National loses will Minister Bridges accept that Kaeō Bridge which is just down the road from the National Party candidate—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just ask the question.Ron Mark: —will be one bridge too far?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: That member may as well live in St Mary’s Bay as well because he does not know the electorate. The fact is that the candidate for National does not live near Kaeō. We are backing those bridges whatever happens in the by-election but we know and the people of Northland increasingly know that it requires a strong voice in Northland in Government to make a difference not someone whispering in the wind from the Opposition.Resource Management Act Reforms—Native Trees9.EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: Will he be taking any steps to increase protection for indigenous trees and vegetation in the proposed changes to the Resource Management Act?Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): The Resource Management Act already provides ample opportunities for councils to be able to protect indigenous trees and vegetation so no. The law gives councils discretion over whether they wish to protect individual trees or groups of trees and where they are protected as in the kauri case in the Waitakeres whether to grant consent for alteration or removal. The situation with trees does vary hugely from community to community and it is entirely appropriate that the Act gives councils discretion over what trees to protect and where they are protected when to grant consent for their removal. It is healthy that there is debate around how councils administer that discretion but it is not a fault with the law.Eugenie Sage: Does he see the Auckland Council’s decision to allow a developer to fell centuries-old kauri and rimu trees as striking the correct balance between landholder rights and the environment?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The Resource Management Act gives councils the discretion to decide whether trees should be protected. The group of trees in the Waitakere Ranges was included in the district plan and in the draft unitary plan that is currently before the panel for protection. The council commissioned a 70-page report on the individual case and it decided that consent would be granted to removethe tree—that is a decision for the council.Eugenie Sage: If this 500-year-old kauri is not protected under the Resource Management Act as it stands how can he justify strengthening landholder property rights and weakening the Resource Management Act’s environmental safeguards as he proposes?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: There are hundreds of cases of trees that come before councils every year. I am hearing all the time the case put by the Green Party that you should let councils make decisions. The council has made a decision which there is a healthy debate about but it is a decision that rests with the Auckland Council.Eugenie Sage: Does he believe that felling this 500-year-old kauri is acceptable when less than 1 percent of old-growth kauri forest remains; if not will he commit to a national policy statement on indigenous biodiversity to guide councils in their implementation of their statutory responsibility to protect biodiversity?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I am not convinced that a national policy statement under the Resource Management Act would have a significant effect on such a discretionary decision. The reality is that councils have to make those trade-offs as to where to protect trees and where to allow them to be felled. If there is a particular instance in this case that I am surprised by it is the decision by the Auckland Council not to notify the decision. The test under the law is that if the effect is less than minor they do not have to notify it. I am advised it is about a 200-year-old kauri. I am surprised by the decision not to notify a decision to remove a 200-year-old kauri.Small Businesses—Confidence10.MELISSA LEE (National) to the Minister for Small Business: What reports has he received on confidence from small businesses in the New Zealand economy?Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister for Small Business): I have received a report that shows New Zealand business confidence—of course including small businesses—in the New Zealand economy continues to improve. According to the most recent ANZ Business Outlook “Business sentiment has started the year with an extremely positive tone. … A net 34 percent of firms are optimistic about the general economy.” up from 30.4 percent in the previous survey. The Government’s policies such as prudent Government spending lowering personal and company tax rates and focusing on sustainable jobs are enabling business confidence to rise. Confident businesses are the engine room creating GDP growth of 3.2 percent and 80000 new jobs last year.Melissa Lee: What other areas highlighted in this report show small-business confidence is growing?Hon CRAIG FOSS: The report highlights that the New Zealand economy is progressing very well. The economy is into its fifth year of economic expansion. According to the report businesses remain very optimistic about their prospects. The ANZ Business Outlook states “Profit expectations [have] firmed … More money in the till is positive for expanding employment and investment.” Growing confidence from small businesses in the economy shows why this Government is better for business.Melissa Lee: What reports has he seen that impact negatively on business confidence and their profits?Hon CRAIG FOSS: I have seen a report on a proposal that would cost New Zealand businesses around $500 million per annum beginning in early 2015. This additional $500 million cost on to New Zealand businesses would occur if the minimum wage was increased to $16.25 by early 2015 as proposed by the Labour Party. Adding $500 million additional costs on to New Zealand businesses would be extremely negative for business confidence profits growth jobs and New Zealand.Flag Referendum—Cost11.TRACEY MARTIN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) to the Deputy Prime Minister: Does he consider the flag referendum to be a judicious use of taxpayers’ money?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister): Yes.Tracey Martin: Does he agree with the Ministry of Justice’s statement that “a factor in the decision to change the flag is whether there are net benefits in change.”; if so what net benefits has he identified for this expenditure?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The cost of the referendum is really about involving New Zealanders in what would be a significant change for every New Zealander. It is simply not appropriate to go down the much cheaper road of the Government making a decision by itself to change the flag. But I might say that there would probably be more net benefits than some of the other referenda New Zealand has operated. For instance back in 1997 we spent today’s equivalent of $26 million on a single referendum on compulsory superannuation advocated by New Zealand First. Ninety-two percent of New Zealanders rejected the change so that turned out to be a complete waste of $26 million.Tracey Martin: Does he believe that paying Flag Consideration Panel members between $640 and $850 per day worked is a judicious use of taxpayers’ money when the average daily wage for the majority of the same taxpayers is just over $200 per day; if so why?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The members of the Flag Consideration Panel have a pretty important role and that is to run a design competition to enable the selection of three or four flags for New Zealanders to vote on. So it is a pretty serious task. The Government is not doing it and officials are not doing it; the Flag Consideration Panel is doing it. Secondly the member gives a somewhat misleading impression that the panel is going to be working every day. In fact for that daily rate that panel may be working 20 to 25 days out of the next 2 years. In that context we will be getting more than our value for money.Tracey Martin: Does he believe that the $25.7 million estimated cost of the flag referendum is a more judicious use of taxpayers’ money than rebuilding teaching blocks demolished in 2011 so that Northland College students do not have to continue to have their lessons in corridors; if so why?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Government has—I can inform the member from some knowledge of it—I think the largest education investment programme New Zealand has seen for decades. Consistently over the last 3 or 4 years our investment in modern learning environments has been very substantial. I would hope that in the case of Northland College not only can we get the classrooms rebuilt when it is practical but we can lift the levels of educational achievement in that school because they are not as high as they should be. We are catering to the needs of our schools. In respect of the flag if you want to have a debate about the flag then you need to do it properly. That means involving New Zealanders and that means an expense of $25 million or whatever the number actually is.Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question was very succinct. It asked whether the Minister believed that the spend was better on a flag or on classrooms and we got a very long answer that actually did not answer that specific question.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not accept the argument the member is raising. The Minister went through in significant detail the fact that a lot of money was being spent on education. So he answered one part of the question and then went to the importance of the flag debate and he considered that it was worthwhile having this panel do the work before it went to referendum.Accident Compensation Corporation—Levies12.SUE MORONEY (Labour) to the Minister for ACC: What is the purpose of the Work and Earners’ levies charged by ACC?Hon NIKKI KAYE (Minister for ACC): The work levy funds entitlements under the Accident Compensation Act to workers as well as the self-employed for work-related personal injuries. The earners levy funds entitlements under the Act for earners who suffer a non-work personal injury. It also funds entitlements for injuries suffered by a person through receiving treatment from a registered health professional—i.e. treatment injuries.Sue Moroney: Why is she preparing to overcharge businesses and their staff up to $400 million more this coming financial year than what the northern branch of the Employers and Manufacturers Association independent analysts Infometrics and even her own officials say is needed to fully fund the lifetime costs of accidents and injuries?Hon NIKKI KAYE: Firstly the member cannot predict what I am preparing for. We have a process under the legislation that enables consultation with a range of parties around potential levy reductions. But the second point that I would make—and the second point is very important for the Labour Party members—is that as the Deputy Prime Minister has already highlighted these accounts can shift quite significantly on a range of factors including the discount rate including the number of people who are in work and including the claims information that comes in. It is my understanding that the latest accounts of ACC up to 31 December should be published probably in the next week.Sue Moroney: Is she aware that ACC officials have already factored in funding certainty sustainability and levy stability into their equation before recommending the lower levy rates that her Government has rejected and that Infometrics in its independent report has allowed for a 17 percent buffer over and above full funding of injuries in determining that employers and workers are being overcharged $350 million a year in ACC levies?Hon NIKKI KAYE: It is really important to make the point that actually the mandate that the ACC board has in terms of recommendations to Cabinet is different from the wider considerations that we take into account—that is for instance public interest. It is a number of other things as has been mentioned in this House. The second point that I would make is that the member and the Labour Party have not actually published that Infometrics report. They have published an executive summary. I would like to see that full report because my understanding is that there are a number of people saying there could be significant flaws in it. The first flaw that we are looking at is whether gradual process has been taken into account in their calculations. So I do want to see the full report. But the major point is this: we have delivered $1.5 billion of levy reductions. We said at the election there will be further levy reductions but we have to take a long-term view because if we do not we end up in the situation that Labour left us in which was a $5 billion hole in ACC accounts.Sue Moroney: Why is she following the false lines used by discredited Minister for ACC Nick Smith in an attempt to cover up her Government’s ACC rort—she just used them—when even Judith Collins when she was the Minister for ACC admitted that the higher levies are “because we need to get to surplus and we’re very honest about that” and Judith Collins said that when she spoke to the New Zealand Herald just last year?Hon NIKKI KAYE: The first point is as has been said by a number of Ministers in this House and a number of my colleagues that that is one factor. But let me tell you the other factors—and you should be looking at this when you see the latest accounts from ACC. No. 1 is the discount rate. That can affect our accounts by hundreds of millions of dollars. The second thing that needs to be taken into account is the number of people in work. The third thing that needs to be taken into account is the overall claims that are coming in. These are major factors that can affect the ACC accounts. The second point that I would make for the member and that I would continue to make for the member is that if the Labour Party wants to tie its ACC policy to one point in time then we will end up in a situation that history left us in with a $5 billion hole. Our view is that we need to take a much longer-term view and take into account those longer-term shifts that are happening and the volatility in the accounts.Sue Moroney: Does she have any legal authority as the Minister for ACC to strike ACC levies for any other reason than the full funding of accidents and injuries; if she believes she does can she please point the House to that legal authority?Hon NIKKI KAYE: There are several areas of the legislation that cover how we set levies but there are also things that we need to take into account. The first point is that there is a process around levy setting. The board recommends to the Minister and then the Minister takes that to Cabinet which has the overall discretion. The second point and the provision that I would point the member to is section 6 of the Accident Compensation Act. This is a point that Labour does not get. The fundamental thing that happens here if you take a Labour policy is that you get volatility and not certainty for businesses if you do not take into account section 6 of the Accident Compensation Act which is about stability—it is about stability and not having a yo-yo effect in terms of—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The answer is quite long enough.Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With regard to that answer the question was straightforward. It was about her legal authority to strike levies for any other reason than the reason she just outlined. I was asking for other reasons.Hon NIKKI KAYE: Section 6.Sue Moroney: Section 6 talks about—Mr SPEAKER: The question has been addressed.Urgent Debates DeclinedGCSB—Surveillance of New Zealanders OverseasMr SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Dr Russel Norman seeking to debate under Standing Order 389 recent revelations that the Government Communications Security Bureau has allegedly undertaken spying against New Zealanders in the Pacific.In ruling on an application for an urgent debate the Speaker has to determine whether there is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility. The particular case may arise sometime after the event occurred if members could not reasonably have found out about it at the time. If something occurs in secret it becomes an event for the purpose of the Standing Orders only when it becomes publicly known. However the making of allegations is not a particular case for which there is ministerial responsibility. An urgent debate cannot be granted on the basis of newspaper allegations or speculation. There must be distinct governmental responsibility for the particular case that is being sought to debate.On this basis although I accept that the case has only now come to the member’s attention it does not meet the test for me to set aside the business of the House. The application is therefore declined.Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation BillFirst ReadingDebate resumed from 26 February.MAHESH BINDRA (NZ First): It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and speak to the Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill. I continue on from where I left off last time. This bill seeks to amend the previous legislation put in place where bailees and parolees including those offenders who are based in the community were at times liable to abstain from using drugs and alcohol. However there was no mechanism in place to make sure that they complied with those orders with the result that the legislation itself was rendered slightly powerless. But we support this bill because it seeks to strengthen the previous legislation which is the Sentencing Act the Parole Act and amendments to the Parole Act.This bill ensures that those offenders who have been ordered to stay away from drugs and alcohol actually do so and there are repercussions if they do not. This bill will make sure that offenders not only those inside the wire who are being randomly drug tested but also those in the community will be liable for random testing with regard to their use of drugs and alcohol. That will make our communities safer and that is the reason we support this bill. Also there will be parity between the offenders who are actually inside the prison with those who are entrusted to behave better outside the wire—those in the community.These are the reasons that we in New Zealand First believe this bill should be supported.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am very pleased to stand in support of the Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill here in its first reading. I would say that this is a bill that New Zealanders would say is needed and is common sense. It seeks to strengthen and support the good work that the Department of Corrections is doing in our communities.There has been much debate over the years regarding the activities and behaviours of people on bail and the fact that they can while on bail continue to perpetrate crime. Certainly the same could be said of community-based offenders. This bill seeks to enable the Department of Corrections and the New Zealand Police to require community-based offenders and bailees who are subject to conditions prohibiting the use of drugs or alcohol to undergo drug and alcohol testing. That is common sense you would think. In many respects having a condition to bring these activities to the attention of those bailees and those community-based offenders—saying that you should not do it—but having no testing regime to support that means that that condition really cannot be enforced very effectively and in many respects it makes some of those conditions not effective.The reason some offenders and bailees will have conditions placed upon them is that drugs and/or alcohol were significant in contributing to their lawbreaking in the first instance. Therefore if we are serious about reducing recidivism—that is repeat offending—we have to address one of the significant causes for such reoffending and that is alcohol and drug use.Drug and alcohol use is a major driver of crime. The Department of Corrections reports to us that two-thirds of New Zealand prisoners have substance abuse problems and more than 50 percent of crime is committed by people under the influence of drugs and alcohol. What happens when somebody gets under the influence of drugs or alcohol is that their self-discipline starts to break down. Their judgment becomes impaired. Issues that might be below the surface come to the surface. Frustration anger bad decisions thoughtlessness and selfishness—all of these start to surface and become drivers in a person’s personality and actions. Fifty percent of people who commit crime do so while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. This is a significant problem that we face here in New Zealand. By tackling this issue we can contribute to people leading an offence-free life once they leave prison or complete their community sentence.As a party our goals are clear and direct. We want to introduce alcohol and drug testing where being drug and alcohol - free is a condition of bail home detention or other community sentences to help ensure that conditions are being met. It is important in a society based on the rule of law to ensure that our laws can be properly administered monitored and obeyed. All of these people end up with community-based sentences or in prison and come out on bail because they have broken the law of this land. We need to not only help them to not do that while they are under the supervision of corrections but we want to assist them in a life change.Having alcohol and drug testing for those people who have that alcohol or drug - free status as part of their condition of bail seems to be a very logical and a very sensible thing to do. Where offenders are back in our communities we want to support them to stay away from the driver of crime that they have faced in the past and we also want to keep our communities safe. It seems nonsensical that we would insist on this while they are under the supervision of the Department of Corrections yet when they leave that supervision they have no support in our communities. I know there are great organisations out there that do support these people.This bill also supports National’s Better Public Services goal which is to see a 25 percent reduction in reoffending by 2017. Those are very noble and aspirational goals some may say yet we are nearly halfway there to achieving this simply because the Department of Corrections is applying great effort and intelligence to the issues that cause people to offend. Much of this of course is around addiction and the fact that people who have alcoholism or drug addiction have their lives impaired in all sorts of different ways with the outcome as I said before that they are perpetuating crime. If we see this 25 percent reduction in reoffending by 2017 it will mean 4600 fewer offenders returning to prison and 18500 fewer victims. What a fantastic result it will be when we see that.It takes measures like this to ensure that we can achieve those goals. We cannot just sit on our chuffs and hope. We cannot just cross our fingers and hope that we will get to this goal and that society will improve. We have to put measures in place and that requires legislation that will change things and bring greater accountability but will also give greater support to those people who struggle with these addictions to alcohol and drugs.At the moment the police and corrections staff are trying to ensure that offenders and bailees comply with drug and alcohol conditions but they are limited in what they can do. Current legislation does not give them clear authority to test offenders or bailees so what this bill does is it clarifies that and gives them that authority. This bill is a legislative mandate for alcohol and drug testing of eligible offenders and bailees.I want to read a quote from the Guardian newspaper in the UK on the topic of treatment of prisoners’ alcoholism. It says this: “But tackling prisoners’ drink problems would have a hugely beneficial impact on recidivism reducing crime rates and easing the burden on our overcrowded prisons. In evidence to the commission the chief constable of Northamptonshire police Adrian Lee said the impact of alcohol crime on police is ‘huge’ and described the possibility of inmates leaving prison dry as a great window of opportunity ‘to catch them sober and offer the help and support they need’.”Imagine if this were to happen in New Zealand and we were to see a former prison population that could deal with their alcoholism and substance abuse and if those who are on community-based sentences who had alcohol and drug problems could become free of that. How much would we save in our corrections facilities? How much would it take the pressure off our police force? How many families would be better off? How many kids would not suffer the effect of domestic violence? All of these things are important if we want to see a better and healthier society and if we want to see the taxpayers’ investments made for positive change to build and uplift our society. I am very happy to commend this bill to the House.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: David Clendon—a 5-minute call.DAVID CLENDON (Green): I am also pleased to speak to this Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill. We are supporting this legislation and are doing so with some considerable goodwill. We think it is essentially good legislation. But our support is limited to the select committee at the moment because there are one or two aspects of the bill where we do have some concerns and some qualifications. Nevertheless we will be seeking to remedy those at the select committee. I do not think there is anything that should prevent us from supporting this bill through assuming we can get some of those changes made at the select committee.Mr Young has just outlined some of the reasons why we support this legislation. It is clear that a lot of the reasons why people end up in the justice system are to do with drug and alcohol abuse. The numbers vary but it is absolutely one of the primary drivers of offending not least of all of violent offending.We know that despite this unfortunately we continue to under-invest in drug and alcohol treatment programmes particularly community-based programmes and it seems perverse that we do not adequately invest. I doubt whether there is a community-based treatment programme in the country that does not have a waiting list currently and that is strange. Even when courts are referring people to these programmes in order to try to prevent further offending often those courses may not be available for a week or a month. In the meantime the likelihood of offending goes on and I think that is something we need to address and do so as a matter of urgency.What this bill does in a sense is it aligns the situation for non-custodial sentences or indeed people on bail a little bit with what happens for people serving custodial sentences. It provides some mechanisms some operational tools to enable routine and random monitoring and testing for drugs and alcohol which will demonstrate compliance or not with conditions that are imposed by the courts by the Department of Corrections by the Parole Board or whomever it might be and that just seems an entirely sensible thing to do. It is frustrating we know to see conditions applied if there is no mechanism or means to ensure that those conditions are complied with.I think it will be a good thing for offenders frankly. People who are in the community serving community sentences do come under considerable pressure and often peer pressure to breach their conditions—“Have a beer have a toke ingest something or other”. I think knowing that they can be subject to random testing in this way will enable them to resist that pressure to just run around the margins to indulge in alcohol or drug taking or whatever it might be. I think that is a very positive thing.I also think that it is a means where perhaps the courts can take a little more comfort in putting out non-custodial sentences. We know there is a constant barrage of opinion—misinformed opinion—that would have it that only custodial sentences will do. The courts are often under pressure to imprison people in the misguided belief that prison is always a better option than non-custodial sentences or other forms of treatment such as specialist courts and the like. We know that is untrue but nevertheless the judiciary are under pressure to do that. Again the implementation of this legislation—knowing that drug and alcohol conditions will be imposed and can be monitored and tested for—will I think give the judiciary a degree of comfort from that.Just as an aside to that—albeit a related comment I would make—I recommend to anyone who has an interest in these matters a booklet that has just been published a small publication from the Rethinking Crime and Punishment website of the Robson Hanan Trust: “If Prisons are a Cause of Crime Why Not Reduce the Numbers?”. It gives us some very clear local evidence that putting people in jail is not actually the most productive thing to do. Despite a drop in offending—despite a drop in the crime rate—we are nevertheless putting more people in jail. That is perverse and it is wrong and any measure we can find to enable more use of non-custodial sentences is a good thing.There is one minor provision in the bill that I am puzzled by. The Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections and the Commissioner of Police are both able to make rules about monitoring about measuring and about setting limits. There seems to be nothing in the bill that obliges them or even encourages them to actually talk to one another while they are making those rules. To me that is a recipe for inconsistency for having a mix and a muddle. If they set different limits for example it would seem odd that there is nothing in there to allow for some collaboration between the two. These are matters I will take to the select committee and we look forward to a good process there.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: A 5-minute call—Jenny Salesa.JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): It is with pleasure that I stand to take a short call on this bill the Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill. This is an important piece of legislation and one that Labour supports to its next stage. We know that the misuse of drugs and alcohol is a major driver of crime and criminal activity.I would like to share a story that is relevant to this bill and it highlights why it is important to have a bill like this. A lady who works in crime prevention was working with an offender who had a very long history of offending. His record indicated that most of his offending involved drugs or alcohol. He had already clocked up a very long history of criminal activity. This young man was on parole and one night he and two friends decided to go driving. He had never been tested for drugs or alcohol while he was on parole. In the course of this night as they were driving he unfortunately went across the middle line and went head on into another vehicle that was coming on the other side. The young man who was on parole was the driver and he was heavily under the influence of alcohol. This accident unfortunately resulted in his best friend who was a passenger passing away and his other friend who was also in the car is now confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.When the cost of incidents like this in human terms in misery in lives lost in health and disability support services and in dollars is considered the potential benefits of the preventive measures that a bill like this proposes seem to me to be well worth our serious consideration in this House.Research from the United States indicates that where high-risk drink-drivers are aware that the chances of their detection are very very high recidivism can be reduced by as much as 36 percent. The Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill will enable the Department of Corrections and the New Zealand Police to require community-based offenders and bailees—the individuals who are subject to the conditions prohibiting the use of drugs or alcohol—to undergo drug and alcohol testing in order to ensure that they are complying with the condition of abstinence in their sentencing.Each year around 5000 offenders are on community sentences and orders and approximately 15000 bailees have an abstinence condition imposed. However it is only in very very rare cases that abstinence conditions actually require testing. Testing for the presence of alcohol and other drugs to improve compliance with abstinence conditions is already widely used overseas in the United States and in the United Kingdom as well as in Australia. The evidence shows that it actually works. In Australia where they have been testing offenders for quite some time they have concluded that as a result of their experience targeted testing especially of those at the highest risk of reoffending is the most effective way of improving public safety around these offenders.Here in Aotearoa we have a group of offenders and bailees whose offending is at times directly related to their consumption of alcohol or taking drugs. The issue that this bill solves is that the current legislation does not provide clear authority that allows offenders or bailees to be tested in order to find out whether they are continuing to abstain from alcohol or drugs.Labour would like the committee to explore the threshold for reasonableness regarding the frequency of testing and in the context of the privacy and dignity afforded to those subjected to testing. We would also like to hear evidence about the use of alcohol monitoring technology and its effectiveness. We believe that the imposition and enforcement of a drug or alcohol condition play an important role in preventing reoffending and ensuring that our public are kept safe. We support this bill. Thank you.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): It is a pleasure to rise to speak to the Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill. It is also a pleasure to rise to speak to a bill that seems to have comparative support around the House—and may that continue as it progresses through the select committee stage and on to becoming law.I guess I take a slightly different view from that of some of our previous speakers on one or two of the issues that are behind this and I will outline them as I go along but I just want to go into the background of drug and alcohol testing. Of course for some time now we have been drug and alcohol testing in the workplace. It has had a significant impact on quite a large number of people in our community. It has also tidied up our workplace safety and I think on the whole workplaces as a result of that drug and alcohol testing are much better places. In the sports field in the sports arena—and I think of the racing industry in particular—there has also been significant need to test for both drugs and alcohol both animals and humans actually. Again it has cleaned up those sports. It has got them working to a much better extent although you would have to wonder in one or two cases whether we have got the balance right in respect of how we test and where we test. Again we get on to our schools. There has been some talk of testing in schools and there is certainly some need to test in some instances in our schools. Finally I want to get on to our roads where we test for just about everything on a constant basis.So having tested all of those parts of our community and our life you would wonder how it has taken us so long to get on to testing people whom we let into our community who have offended in some way and whom we are trying to reform. So it is really I think a great way to get these people behaving in a different manner than they behaved before but before we can do that we have got to go back to the basis of the problem.I think that in the case of many of the people who end up in prison or offending for whatever reason sure they have been affected by drug and alcohol at the time they offend but I think we need to investigate the reasons why they take drugs and alcohol or why they tend to use them and as a result of that offend. I will never defend the use of drugs. I think that it is something that is on the whole beyond our control as people and certainly beyond our control once we start using them. However I do want to defend the use of alcohol in moderation.To bring in laws that impose penalties on us and impose on the 99 percent of people—perhaps 95 percent of people would be more accurate—who have no problem with alcohol I think it is necessary that we have some moderation around how we impose legislation on those people because it certainly impacts on the average person’s life. I for one do not believe that passing laws to rectify the wrongs of 2 to 3 percent of our community should necessarily affect the other 97 percent. So I think that we need to go back into those problems that have caused this. It is often a learning disability or difficulties personality issues health issues and other personal issues that lead to the use of drugs and alcohol and consequently lead on to crime.The reason for the crime of course is that both of these habits are expensive and often lead to crime in order to procure these things. So the people who end up in our prisons and are then either released on parole or released into community service need first of all to have some very comprehensive programmes put in place to rehabilitate them and give them the opportunity to shake the bad habits that they have acquired around drugs and alcohol. I think our prisons are starting to do that very well and I guess I take issue with a couple of things that David Clendon said although I realise that he supported the bill on the whole.First of all I do not think we are putting more people in prison as a result of crime. We are getting a lot more of them based in our community and the use of GPS and those sorts of tools is making it much easier for us to put people back in our community and to make sure that we know where they are and what they are up to. The tools for drug and alcohol testing will also enhance that and enable our law and order community to ensure that those people are adhering to the conditions set down for them. So as has been said by a number of our speakers the process for drug and alcohol testing of these people will be carefully controlled. It will be not exactly random but it will be supervised at all times. I think that the process that we go through will be very good and will make a big difference to how these people rehabilitate once they are put out into our community.This Government is putting a lot of effort into remodelling our social housing stock throughout our communities and when you think about a lot of people who end up offending in New Zealand before they offend during the time of their offending and after offending they rely on community and social housing for that rehabilitation. They often come from that background and it is most important as we go through this rehabilitation and the use of drug testing to help with that rehabilitation that we also pay significant attention to the social housing requirements of these people and the fact that we need to house them in an environment where they are not enticed to go back and reoffend in the manner that they have in the past. I think that is part of the Government’s efforts around social housing and it is certainly part of the communities that I come from. The Manawatū district for example had a number of—208 in fact—community houses. A large piece of the work they did on those community houses was to ensure that there were social systems in place to support the people who lived in those houses.We have lived in an environment in New Zealand for many years—for almost hundreds of years—where we have not had I guess the social service environment around our social housing that enables us to protect people who have been put there to live or have been let out of prison or have gone through the rehabilitation process from their criminal time and then been put back into the community. So there are a number of things that I think are particularly important and I think that one of them is to try to understand the reason why people who end up in prison start offending under the influence of drugs and alcohol. I think it can often be traced to their background the fact that they are challenged by the education system and have not got through that education system as well as they might have.Certainly the current Minister of Education is putting a great effort into ensuring that kids leave school with a decent start and that they have had a much better education than perhaps we have been accustomed to in this country. Last week I visited Rangitīkei College with her which 3 years ago had a level 1 National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) pass rate of 35 percent. Of course when you have got that many people leaving school with no qualifications at all it is highly likely that they are going to offend get into trouble with drugs and alcohol and end up in the judicial system. That position has reversed in 3 years from 35 percent level 1 NCEA to now being at the level of 80 percent after 3 years’ work. That will in my view make a big difference to the reoffending rate in the Rangitīkei community and certainly in Marton where that school is based.I look forward to this bill getting to the select committee stage. I also look forward to the cooperation of all the parties on the Law and Order Committee. I have been fortunate to have been on that select committee for the last 3 years and I am there again this term. It is an interesting select committee to work with because we seem to cooperate a lot in these types of bills. I was really pleased to hear today about the amount of support that this bill has from around the House. Our committee is led by that very auspicious man Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi and we look forward to working with him as we progress this bill. So it is a difficult task for the select committee and a challenge for our community to get these people back in the community and in one piece.I commend this bill to the House and look forward to the next few months of working on it. Thank you.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): As prior speakers on behalf of the Labour Party have already indicated the Labour Party will be supporting this bill going to the Law and Order Committee. The regulatory impact statement that accompanies this bill and that has been presented to the House says in its second paragraph: “In its pre-election policy statement on law and order the National Party signalled its intention to introduce ‘random drug and alcohol testing where being drug free is a condition of bail home detention or other community sentences’ ”.Then it goes on and I think this is the thing that I want the select committee to answer for me by the time the bill comes back to the House. It says: “It would not be appropriate to rely on existing provisions in the Sentencing Act 2002 the Parole Act 2002 and the Bail Act 2000 to introduce an alcohol and/or other drug testing regime.” So the first question I have is whether this legislation is necessary because it seems to me that we have got a hint in the second paragraph there that it is already permissible as a condition of bail as a condition of a supervision order sentence by the courts or as a condition of parole to insert conditions as to abstinence from alcohol and to make an offender or someone who is on bail pending a charge subject to a testing regime. If that is the case then I would rather that the Government had been open about that than pretend that a great advance in the law is being made through this legislation if it is already permitted by the existing legislation. That said there is nothing wrong in the legislation or that is apparent on its face and for that reason we will be supporting it to the select committee.We have regulatory impact statements so that this Parliament makes rational decisions and so that we look at the costs and benefits. In this regulatory impact statement we have an assessment of what the costs and benefits are what the costs are of a testing regime and what the likely benefits are to be and therefore we have a reasoned position put forward by the Government in support of this legislative intervention. You would have to contrast that with the absolutely disreputable conduct that we have seen in the last day in respect of the Northland by-election where without any cost-benefit analysis the Government as an election bribe and that is all it is has said that it is going to upgrade—[Interruption] No with respect Mr Deputy Speaker I am quite entitled to raise in this House the importance of regulatory impact statements that we have here and to contrast that with conduct this very day that shows the importance of regulatory impact statements. In respect of those Northland bridges not one of them was—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member has made a point around regulatory impact statements. Now I would like him to get back to the bill that is under discussion and debate at the moment.Hon DAVID PARKER: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Are you saying that because it is embarrassing for the Government for me to make reference—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! No and I take offence at that comment from that member and I am surprised that it comes from him. Please continue your contribution in respect of the bill.Hon DAVID PARKER: This regulatory impact statement talks about the status quo which the Government says is inadequate unlike in the Northland situation where there has been no reference as to why the status quo is inadequate compared with the cost of change. It then talks about what the other options are in respect of non-regulatory use of community support for testing which would be an alternative to the testing regime that is put in place and contrasts the costs or priorities of other interventions unlike what is happening in Northland where the regional land transport plan is being ignored and the National Land Transport Fund is being plundered to pursue an election bribe. This is an example of good legislation and good parliamentary practice. The example in Northland is a disgrace and members on the other side of the House should be ashamed of themselves for what is in my opinion a corrupt electoral practice.The Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill as has been said by others applies to three classes of people. It applies to people who are on bail. They are not yet convicted they may be convicted or they may be found not guilty but on occasions it can be appropriate to impose a condition that restricts access to drugs and alcohol as a condition of bail and where that happens it is appropriate that we take advantage of new technologies to ensure that that condition of bail is adhered to. It is important that we do not go too far and do not intrude more than is necessary in the sorts of tests that are imposed because these people have not yet been convicted of an offence and may indeed be innocent. That is an issue that no doubt the select committee will look at in order to get the balance right.In respect of people who have been convicted of an offence and who are given a non-custodial sentence—and it might be continuing supervision—then again the need to enforce a condition that is imposed as to maintaining freedom from drug and alcohol abuse is appropriate and a testing regime to back that up as has become common in other jurisdictions seems sensible. Indeed as one of my colleagues mentioned in an earlier contribution I think the findings in respect of similar provisions in Australia are that these testing regimes can make the community safer by enforcing these conditions but can also assist the offender to maintain their non-abuse of drugs and alcohol to the benefit of the offender as well as the community.The third category of people that these drug and alcohol testing regimes can apply to is people who have been in a custodial sentence but have been released on parole. A condition as to remaining drug and alcohol free can already be imposed but the provisions in this bill make it even clearer that that is the case and set out the drug and alcohol testing basis that can be imposed. Interestingly the bill says that the imposition of the requirement to undergo testing actually does not come from the Parole Board but can apply to someone who is on parole in respect of a drug or alcohol conviction or has been released under section 17 of the Parole Act 2002 with a drug or alcohol condition—so that might say that you have got to stay off the drugs or the booze—or is subject to an extended supervision order with a drug or alcohol condition. If those preconditions are met—i.e. any one of those categories of person who is on parole or release is met—then the authorised person under the Act can say to the offender: “You must comply with these conditions and you must submit yourself to the testing regime.”There has been some interesting technological developments—which I am sure the select committee will be referred to—using increasingly sophisticated technology to on a real-time basis ascertain whether someone is or is not free of alcohol and/or drug abuse. I suspect it is easier in respect of alcohol than it is other drugs and that will be one of the issues that the select committee looks at. Real-time notification of that screening—presumably through to the authorities—will enable the better policing of these conditions. The Labour Party supports this to select committee but notes the contrast in respect of some other poor conduct today and yesterday.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It is a pleasure to rise in the House this afternoon in support of this Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill in its first reading. In doing so I want to just spend a moment or two drawing to the attention of the House some of the matters that we who are fortunate enough to be constituent MPs and who are involved closely with our communities will often find is the case. When we are dealing with matters of reoffending and criminal offending in our communities where so often so frequently and so prevalent the incidence of the abuse of drugs and alcohol is part of the very foundation of that offending it comes as no surprise at all to find that in fact statistics show that nearly half of all criminal offending has as its root as its base a drug or alcohol component. So we find when we are doing our constituency work that in fact this is a repetitive feature which occurs again and again and again.In the previous Parliament—the 50th Parliament—I had the pleasure and honour of chairing the Justice and Electoral Committee. In that select committee it became very clear to me during my time as chair that much of the offending that was being done in New Zealand had as its root core a drug or an alcohol component. Notwithstanding that we found that prison populations were in decline that criminal activity was in decline and that offending is reducing. But there is still plenty of work yet to do.And so we come to this tricky area of what the role of the State should be in terms of trying to help assist offenders—particularly those who are serving community sentences or who are on parole—and helping them to protect themselves from temptation of the sort that occurs when they are in an environment where drugs and alcohol are prevalent. What we find is that the State does have a role in assisting those who are sometimes vulnerable and have a propensity to be influenced by drugs and alcohol particularly where that involves their criminal offending. So the question for this House is really: at what point should we be involved in intervening and trying to assist and make sure that the opportunity for offending is reduced?It probably comes as a surprise to many people listening to this debate to find that notwithstanding the Parole Board courts and other departments—for instance the Department of Corrections—which have the ability to impose conditions around parole and community sentences that involve those offenders in not being exposed to drug or alcohol in fact there is little or no ability to enforce that situation. The numbers are quite daunting. The Minister in his first reading speech on this bill indicated that each year around 4000 offenders on community sentences and orders and around 15000 people on bail have abstinence as a condition of their release. It is all very well and good to have abstinence as a condition of their release but then not to be able to record or monitor that abstinence is in my way of thinking a complete farce and a bit of a conundrum. This piece of legislation will in fact remedy that situation in a neat and sensible way. At the moment of course police and corrections staff are trying to ensure that offenders and bailees comply with their drug and alcohol abstention orders but they really have no capacity or no ability to come good on that request or that provision to abstain. So this bill creates a legal mandate for alcohol and drug testing of eligible offenders and bailees and not before time in my opinion.There are a number of questions that the select committee in its deliberations will need to address not the least of which is how intrusive this testing and this monitoring should be. How often for instance should it occur? And in what particular circumstances should it occur? Should this be a matter that is completely private or should it be in some sort of community facility or should it be in some kind of situation where the offender is required to present themselves to a regulatory authority office or personnel and make the appropriate testing available? Then there are questions about what happens if the testing is not done. What happens if the person who has abstinence as part of their parole or bail conditions makes themselves not available? What sanctions will be imposed by the State in order to ensure compliance with this new legislation? Then of course there is a question about actually where non-compliance sits. How do you define non-compliance? These are matters that the select committee will have to address.But in the bill itself there are some answers to those questions. The bill does in fact establish a number of operational principles around the drug and alcohol testing regime. For instance the bill says that testing should be no more intrusive than is reasonably necessary to ensure compliance with the drug or alcohol condition that has been imposed. That test of reasonableness is a well-known one in our legal system and I think that the committee will find it relatively easy to find a pathway to a sensible conclusion around what is or is not intrusive in terms of testing. But then there will be questions about what is reasonable in terms of compliance with the policy. How often should testing occur? Should it be random? Should it be on a regular basis? Should it be at the same time each week? And then there are questions about what form that testing should take.As my colleague Ian McKelvie pointed out in his speech only a few minutes ago drug and alcohol testing these days is not new it is not unusual it is not weird and it is not unknown in a wide range of other aspects of our day-to-day life. In fact drug and alcohol testing is now very common very prevalent in the workplace. I have had constituents come to me and say: “Well if it is good enough for me as an employee of a company to be tested for abstinence from drugs and alcohol then surely it is also good enough for those who are subject to community service orders or who are out on parole or who have been somehow involved in our criminal justice system. Surely it is also good enough for those people who on the face of it have a greater propensity to be subject to drug and alcohol abuse. Surely it makes sense for those people to be tested as well.”Then of course we have the same situation—and technology has been able to guide us greatly—through testing of drugs and alcohol in the sporting arena and in sporting environments. Some of that new technology that information those systems that have been gained in the workplace and the sporting environment and indeed in terms of testing drivers for alcohol—that kind of technology will be available and of assistance in policing and monitoring compliance with this new piece of legislation.So the question I think is a good one about why those who are subject to our criminal justice system—out on parole out on bail who are subject to community service orders—are not tested. This piece of legislation provides the answer to that. I found it of great concern when I read again the Minister’s first reading speech on this bill when he highlighted that 48 percent—almost half—of all offenders report that at the time they were arrested they were either under the influence of at least one or another drug and/or alcohol all at the same time and often there were multiple incidents of drugs and alcohol as being part of their system which they were involved with at the time of their arrest. That is an incredibly high percentage and one that I think that this House surely would want to take cognisance of and make sure that we have the absolutely regulatory and legislative tools in place to ensure that a testing regime that can be compliant and that can be providing good certainty and assurances to the wider community for their total safety is in place.So I think this is a very good bill. I know that my colleague Kanwaljit Bakshi as chair of the Law and Order Committee will ensure that this bill receives very adequate and full attention of the committee. I know that some of the questions that I have raised will be given very good consideration by the committee as it deliberates. I will watch the progress of this bill through the House with great interest. I commend it to the House for its endorsement.Bill read a first time.Bill referred to the Law and Order Committee.Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment BillFirst ReadingHon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): I move That the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported by 31 July 2015. The Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2006 was amended by this Government in 2011 to establish the financial assistance package to help owners of leaky homes to get their properties repaired. The financial assistance package is an important part of the Weathertight Homes Tribunal scheme that the Government has provided to help those owners of leaky homes. Too much money was being spent on litigation instead of getting on and fixing the leaky homes. The financial assistance package provides an alternative track to litigation by offering funding from the Government towards the repair costs. The financial assistance package represents a major commitment from the Government especially in pretty tough financial times to the repair of homes.As at 31 January 2015 there were 1147 claims representing 3528 homes that had been assessed as qualifying for the Government contribution of 25 percent towards the repair costs. The estimated future cost to the Government in the financial assistance contribution is estimated at about $115 million. That is expected to generate an estimated $460 million of repairs via this assistance package. This bill has the same objective as the Government when it established the financial assistance package: to avoid unnecessary litigation that would divert resources away from the practical job of repairing homes. This bill addresses three matters that could be the cause of litigation if the Government does not address them in the law. Given the history of litigation around leaky homes I want to do all I can to prevent money being wasted on needless court battles and delays to the repair of those homes.The first two matters addressed in the bill arise from legal interpretations of eligibility for the services provided under the Act. It is important that the legislation is clear about who is eligible to make claims under the Act and who can get access to the financial assistance package. First the bill takes two of the criteria from the financial assistance package out of the Gazette notice that they are currently in and puts them into the criteria in the Act. Last year a High Court case caused concern that the criteria could be successfully challenged simply on the ground that they are set in the Gazette notice rather than in the Act. In light of this the bill proposes to move two of the criteria from the Gazette notice and put them in the law. The change is simple—it simply moves the location of the criteria. The wording and effect of the criteria are actually completely unchanged. The bill simply moves the criteria from one legislative instrument to another. The bill also validates past decisions that have been made using the criteria when they were in the Gazette notice. This validation is not because there was any error in those decisions but to avoid any unnecessary debate about those previous decisions after the criteria have been moved into the Act.Second in relation to the word “built” which is used in the Act a Supreme Court decision issued on 10 June last year in Osborne v Auckland Council interpreted the word “built” differently from the previous decisions that had been made by the High Court and the Court of Appeal. The interpretation of “built” has a significant impact on determining whether a claim made under the Act is eligible to proceed as eligibility under the Act requires claimants to make their claim within 10 years of the dwelling being “built”. Had the Supreme Court’s interpretation of “built” been current earlier it is possible that more claims would have been eligible to access the dispute resolution services available under the Act and also possibly the financial assistance package. The bill therefore proposes to deem those claims that would have been in the situation had the interpretation applied at the time to be eligible but only in respect of the time they were built. The claims will still have to meet other eligibility criteria in the Act to be able to proceed. It is estimated that there will about an extra 70 families with homes that will be eligible as a consequence of that change.The third matter dealt with in the bill relates to the proposed expiry of the financial assistance package. When it was introduced it was for a fixed period of 5 years; that period will end on 23 July 2016. Claimants who wish to access the financial assistance package will need to have issued a notice to proceed by that date. The steps involved in getting to issue a notice to proceed can take varying amounts of times to complete depending on whether the claim relates to a single home or to a set of apartments. To ensure that the closing date of the financial assistance package does not arbitrarily kick in for claimants who are making good progress towards issuing the notice to proceed the bill proposes to allow claimants who are making active progress with their claims to issue their notice to proceed after that 23 July deadline in 2016. This bill does not change anything about the financial assistance package; the bill simply removes doubt and provides certainty for claimants who want to access the financial assistance package. Certainty for claimants was a matter of key importance raised in submissions on the 2011 amendment bill that established the financial assistance package.This bill will ensure the ongoing validity of that financial assistance package. It will ensure that as many homeowners as possible are able to access the services under the Act by aligning the law with the most recent decision of the Supreme Court and it is going to reduce the risk of litigation around the operation of the financial assistance package by transferring Gazette issues into the law. I commend this bill to the House.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): The Labour Party will be supporting this legislation in its first instance to the Local Government and Environment Committee. We obviously want to be apprised of the detail as described by the Minister. I would say that the measuresthat the Minister for Building and Housing Nick Smith has outlined will indeed on the face of it go some way to helping to resolve an issue that has been dealt with by a number of Governments and a large number of former and current weathertight homes Ministers myself included.I would just make a couple of historic observations. I do note that the Minister with goodwill has put these measures forward but I do note that when I was the Minister for Building and Construction the Hon Nick Smith was wont to interject on me and others whenever this legislation came up as we tried to embark on and put in place a series of measures to alleviate a problem that really at that point no one knew the extent of. He was wont to interject: “Just write a cheque and pay the money.” It is good to see that the Minister has after a few years in Government actually worked out that it is never as simple as simply writing a cheque for an open-ended fiscal envelope. Writing a cheque when you do not know the extent of the problem would simply let those peopleoff the hook—and I remember this at the time as the Minister; many of those in the building trade but not all are quality builders quality constructors quality architects and designers etc.—who perpetrated pretty shoddy work and left the victims in the cart whom we are trying to assist here today. So I do recall the Minister sort of interjecting: “Just pay the money and write a cheque.”It was very good political opportunism at the time but since then he has got his feet under the Cabinet table and worked out as I did that this is a very very complex problem one that has to be taken seriously. I am glad to see he has. It has affected thousands of people’s lives. Your home is your castle. Your home is the biggest asset generally that Kiwis have. Your house is what you have worked for all your life which you continue to work for and pay the mortgage for and it is often the biggest financial burden on the family. To have the rug pulled out through shoddy work through certain folk—and I say only certain folk both in the design community and the construction community because there were independent reports when we were in Government that showed there were failures right across the board not just in one section.Equally the inspectorate in local government is the last line of defence for your average Kiwi who gets a home built and has it inspected. I well recall going to some local authorities before we ensured they were accredited to do the job properly and recall retired building inspectors—some in the North Island—telling me that the days of the drive-by inspection had disappeared thank goodness. Drive-by—sort of waving at the building and saying: “Yeah we signed it off.”So this is an important piece of legislation and the changes in here I think are pretty straightforward. It is simple. There are changes to align with the Supreme Court decision of Osborne so that people are eligible on the basis of a compliance certificate not simply on the basis of a dwelling being completed but not having a compliance certificate and there are other provisions that the Minister outlined moving it from the Gazette to legislation. It would be interesting to know the history as to why—and it may be an issue around flexibility—the provisions if there was concern that they may be litigated were not simply enshrined in the original legislation or in a bill brought into the House to enshrine them and not simply put in the Gazette notice. It is slightly odd that we are embarking on making provisions that simply transfer the location of provisions from the Gazette notice to the bill. There may well indeed be a very good rationale for that. It would be good to hear that rationale from officials and from others as we go through.I think it is also noteworthy that both sides of the House I think over this issue of many years have learnt a lot. If you look at part of the origin of this difficulty I and others and many in the building trade would argue that when the last National Government the Bolger-Shipley Government deregulated the building and construction industry so that anybody at the time—God help me myself included—could have strapped on a tool belt and called themselves a builder and gone around and taken money off people—and I do not think I would be able to construct a doghouse let alone a proper dwelling for somebody. Basically the cowboys were let in. There were no rules; anybody could call themselves a builder.Prior to that you did have a good old-fashioned thing called an apprenticeship. You did have proper training and you did have—to be fair to the construction and design sector throughout in historical terms—the handshake the following-up on work done and the correcting of work that may have been wrong generally just happened. It was a very very professional industry. And most in the construction and design sector still I have to say are exceptional professionals. But we pass legislation in this House not for those who will obey the law but sadly for the minority who will abuse the law and will look for ways to get around it.I do say to the National Government that this is probably a very good example in historic terms of where deregulation of itself as a sort of ideology—the principle that we should deregulate—does not always work. It does not always work. I think that when we put in place the licensing of builders and construction folk and others and the National Government then carried that on—rightly so—it was an attempt to weed out those in the industry who had perpetrated the problem. It was an attempt to weed out those in the industry who had created actioned and executed the shoddy work and then disappeared gone broke or used every legal and other means to not live up to their responsibilities.The truth is that those who actually design build and inspect—those who are empowered to actually construct a building in part or in whole—are responsible for that work and should stand by it. It is not actually the taxpayer in fairness. Nor is it in any way shape or form the homeowner. But we did have people who simply just walked away. The company went broke so that they did not have to live up to their responsibilities. But equally as I say local authorities historically—many of them did not play their part.We tried to find a way through the original Weathertight Homes Resolution Service to give people an off-ramp—those who could not afford to go to court. Many of those who did go to court and could afford it got good outcomes. We tried to provide an alternative resolution service which in fairness I think had some very good points but of itself did not wholly solve the problem just as no one piece or no one silver bullet throughout this whole unfortunate saga has solved this problem.So we welcome the ideas and the proposals put forward in this legislation. We will be interested as it goes forward to the select committee—I am sure we will get submissions from people who have been through hell in terms of trying to deal with this issue who may well come up with other propositions remedies or other good ideas that hopefully we can record amend and put into this legislation to make it better. Because the politics aside there is I think goodwill and I think most of the glibness of the Minister in his former life as an Opposition spokesperson has been put asunder.This is a serious issue. I come from a province where housing is a major concern—not so much through leaky buildings but through an act of God called an earthquake. And you can see where people’s lives are almost destroyed. They have no way of coming back in many cases if their biggest asset is put in jeopardy. So we look forward to a debate on this. I am sure the select committee will do its job diligently in terms of working through this legislation because all of us actually do want to see this issue brought to a resolution. We want to get those people who are still going through the nightmare out of that and enable them to get on with their lives as best they can.But I say to those out there who may watch this debate or may read about it in the paper that those who were responsible those who did run to the bankruptcy court as it were and those who did not live up to their responsibilities not only gave a bad name to all those good construction and design folk who need only a handshake because they will stand by their work but should be cognisant of the fact—if not by law now—that they are ultimately the people who are responsible for this not the victim not actually the taxpayer and they should have been brought to account. And some of them I wager may not be able to sleep at night.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It is a pleasure to rise in support of this Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill in its first reading introduced by the Minister the Hon Nick Smith. I rise in my capacity as chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee. It will be my committee that will steer this bill through the select committee process. I want to assure the House at the outset that we will be giving this bill very due diligence very careful consideration and very thorough analysis as we do with all pieces of legislation.In a previous life I had a sad involvement with a multi-site apartment block. I was employed briefly to help as a facilitator to try to organise the nearly 120 owners who were involved in this multi-unit site who had the misfortune to have bought lived in or invested in a very leaky apartment block in Auckland City. At that time I became very very conscious and aware of the multifaceted incredibly complicated and mind-numbingly expensive process and the deeply heartbreaking emotional journey that those owners were going to confront. This was a process of trying simply to get the multiple owners to agree on a pathway forward about how to address the issues that confronted them collectively as luck or fate would have had it merely having thrown them together in an unfortunate circumstance.Just to put some kind of measure and context around this particular case for this multi-apartment site the initial estimates for repairs for the leaky building were in the order of $20 million. At the time there was no remedy there was no pathway and there was no way forward for that group to act cohesively or in a coordinated way other than to work through a group of keen amateurs who made up the body corporate. And there they were thrust into a legal minefield of epic proportion. Most of them were as I say just keen amateurs thrown together literally by a turn of fate that they had all invested in or bought property in the same complex and they were confronted with legal bills that were eye watering and numbing in their size. They had a range of different capacities and circumstances—each and every one of them. Many of them were property investors and they had some capacity to fund their portion of litigation. But I was struck immediately by the straitened circumstances of many of those unit owners for whom their unit in this leaky building was the manifestation of their lifetime savings. They had mortgages and they were all very keen to try to get it sorted.This bill is a bill that carries forward on the good work that was done at a time to try to resolve some of those issues. This bill extends the system that was put in place and I thought the very good work that was done by the Hon Maurice Williamson during his time as Minister. He actually developed a concept that this bill seeks to extend. This bill would have helped those people I was talking about in a way that was simply not available to them at the time. Now it is and it is very very good. The Government has taken significant leadership on this matter and I am pleased to see that this bill will actually take into account some of the certainty issues that have arisen as a result of subsequent litigation—most notably that case Osborne v Auckland Council in June of last year when some questions were raised about timing. Those issues are now going to be legislatively made certain by this piece of legislation.This is a bill for the sorts of people whom I was talking about in my introductory comments who would have had to go to very expensive time-consuming and cumbersome litigation and for the probably 70 properties concerned that will be captured by this bill that process will not have to take place for those people. I think this House can be quite reassured by the fact that this bill will bring a degree of peace of mind to those people who have already suffered emotionally physically and not least of all financially through a situation that is often something that they had no involvement in at all other than the misfortune of investing in or buying a leaky home property.This bill addresses three matters: the legislative location of eligibility criteria is made certain; the definition of “built date” which is the issue around the legal action in Osborne v Auckland Council—that matter is defined and addressed in this piece of legislation—and then the third aspect that is addressed is the application timing that has to be received within 10 years of the property being built. Ten years may sound like quite a long period of time but I can assure the House that for those people who are caught up in these matters 10 years goes very quickly but it is 10 years of agony and uncertainty and it causes great stress and heartache for every single one of those people involved.I am delighted that the Minister has introduced this bill. I think it is pragmatic it is sensible and it is a common sense outcome of what has been a bit of a tail end to the original legislation the original solution that the Hon Maurice Williamson so wisely brought together some years ago. Frankly lawyers have made vast fortunes from the misfortune of people who previously have been forced to litigate to solve their leaky home or unit problems. What we have got from this bill is a situation that means that those people will be spared that activity. That I think goes a long way to providing some degree of optimism and hope for the people who have bought into these properties. The numbers are quite staggering. If we look back to a time before the solution was put in place there were literally tens of thousands of properties involved and they were involved in leaky home situations all over the country. Electorates like mine in Coromandel were not spared. We have got a number of multi-level dwellings in the electorate where they are encased in plastic and where work is being done to ensure that their leaky home status is being remedied and put right as we speak.Back in the early days we found that there was this tsunami of issues that were confronting us as a nation and we had to do something about it. By the time we had got to 31 January this year there had been 1147 claims and those 1147 claims represented some 3500 homes that had been assessed as qualifying for the Government contribution under the formula that was set in place. The future cost of that benefit is going to be relatively minor in comparison with the bulk of work that has already occurred. I think as I said this House can take some confidence from the fact that this pragmatic piece of refining legislation will come as a great relief to those people who find themselves caught up in these situations.The points in this bill that are important to the ongoing validity of the Financial Assistance Package are that it ensures that as many homeowners as possible will be able to access the resolution formula that was put in place. It seems to me quite arbitrary to have cut those people off simply because of a finite time being put in the original solution that has now come close to finishing. This piece of legislation will extend that timing to allow confidence and optimism for a solution to be accessed and obtained by these remaining unsettled cases. This is a very good pragmatic piece of legislation. I know that the committee will give it very careful and diligent scrutiny. I am looking forward to watching it as it progresses through the select committee and through the House. I commend it to the House with full support.Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): I suspect that at a time when this country of ours is faced with a housing crisis and the leaky home scenario that has been around for quite some time it would be premature for Government members to be patting themselves on the back and claiming that this is a wonderful piece of legislation even though it may be. I suspect that the thousands of people who have experienced a leaky home and who have been fighting to try to get claims through their council and central government will not feel as optimistic as Government members might feel.I think it was the Home Owners and Buyers Association that said that the term “leaky building” has now been in the Kiwi vocabulary for 10 years. That is an indictment on the pieces of legislation that enabled such buildings to occur in the 1990s. Yet today the country is still struggling to come to grips with the reality that many of our homes built in the last 19 years or before 2006 are seriously defective and in need of repairs that often cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.Just by way of background the initial response to the leaky building crisis was the introduction of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act in 2002 which was later replaced by the 2006 Act in force today. This Act was intended to provide speedy flexible and cost-effective procedures for assessment and resolution of claims relating to leaky buildings as opposed to using privately engaged building surveyors and the courts.In April 2009 the National Government engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers to produce the report on the size and cost of New Zealand’s weathertightness problem. The report released to the public late in December 2009 found that the likely number of homes affected was in the range of 22000 to 89000 with a consensus focus of about 42000 failures at an economic cost to repair of about $11.3 billion. The report also recorded the view of many experts that the majority of mono-clad dwellings constructed before 2006 would suffer from weathertightness issues making the total number of failures in excess of 110000 homes at an estimated repair cost of about $30 billion. Many experts in the building industry suggest that this figure is more likely to be the case and that it even understates the size of the problem.As a response the Minister for Building and Construction at the time Maurice Williamson announced a financial assistance package for leaky home owners in May 2010. Under the package an eligible owner will get a contribution of either 25 percent or 50 percent of the agreed repair cost if they can prove their ability to fund the balance. The financial assistance package has been described by the Prime Minister John Key as “spreading the costs as evenly and fairly as possible.” He suggested that this is the solution to the leaky homes problem.Many in the industry many homeowners and those who are facing leaky and defective homes do not consider this to be the case at all. Owners of stand-alone homes constructed or renovated more than 10 years ago under the New Zealand law have no chance of recovering the cost of repairing their home from those responsible for the faulty construction. To be eligible to use the Government’s system for assessment resolution or to take up the financial assistance package the home has to have been built within the last 10 years. Therefore owners whose homes are more than 10 years old are left to bear the full financial burden of repair by themselves.There are situations where homes may not meet the eligibility criteria for Government assistance but may still have a viable claim in the courts. For stand-alone homes less than 10 years old certified by a council and where the council has been responsible for the certification of the home the council owes a duty of care to the owner no matter whether you are the first owner or a subsequent owner. As a result owners in this category have the opportunity to recover a significant portion of the repair cost from the local council and any other regional party still in existence either through the Government’s Weathertight Homes Tribunal or the court.Where the council is found to have breached its duty to the owner it will usually be found liable for 100 percent of the total amount awarded with the opportunity to recover a portion of this from other liable parties. For those with joint or several liability an owner gets paid all that is owing to them if others default but under the financial assistance package an eligible owner in this category would receive a contribution of only 25 percent of the agreed repair cost from the council and the same from the Government as long as they can prove their ability to fund the remaining 50 percent.For stand-alone homes less than 10 years old where the home was certified by a private certifier unfortunately the local council owes no duty of care to that owner as all the private certifiers are now in liquidation or are struck off. In many cases the other parties involved in construction are also long gone. Owners in that category often have no chance of recovering their repair costs.I state that because I have owners of leaky homes in my own electorate of Māngere as I am sure other members have. To talk to them about this after many many years of trying to get a claim through is just distressing for them. They just do not have any confidence whatsoever that they are going to see a light at the end of the tunnel. So yes absolutely the Labour Party supports this legislation and will support it going to the select committee.It is important for the Government of the day to attempt to try to serve the very communities that are hurting at the moment. Housing is such a significant issue. This just compounds the state of dire need that many families are facing. It has just been going on for far too long. We have got another bill before the House that hopefully—hopefully—is going to fix this. Far too many families have lost their homes and their livelihoods as a result of the leaky homes saga.I want to say that one of the reasons why I said at the beginning that it is too premature for Government members to be patting themselves on the back for this piece of legislation is that the late Paul Holmes in a 2000 interview discussing the leaky homes crisis said that it was the Bolger Government that passed the Building Act 1991 which allowed untreated timber and mono-cladding to be used on homes. I think that of all the members on that side of the House Maurice Williamson will know that because he too admitted in an interview during this saga that the fault lay with the Government when it deregulated the building industry. There was no oversight in terms of ensuring that the quality of the homes that we were building was to the highest standard.So the Labour Party has no problems. The bill clarifies that the claimants are not eligible for a Government contribution to the financial assistance package while pursuing a civil case against a participating territorial authority unless that participating territorial authority agrees and they discontinue legal proceedings. I think we do need to state clearly for all those concerned what their rights are.I would hope that when this bill comes through the select committee the opportunities are given to everyone—homebuyers homeowners organisations—to make their submissions on it. I would hate to see the select committee rush through the analysis of this bill. As much as it may want to I think it has taken us so long to arrive at this stage here that we do need to get it right and in order to get it right it is going to be important for homeowners homebuyers and all of those in the building industry who have a stake in the leaky homes situation going forward to be given every opportunity to participate.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I call Paul Foster-Bell and without breaching the convention referring to the absence of members I will say that I do know that the previous speaker Mr Sio was not here for part of the time in the last session when the Speaker was very clear on a ruling he gave as to the reading of speeches. I did not interrupt the member for that reason but I do want to just give a general warning again for those members who did not hear the Speaker.PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Contrary to some of the things said by the previous speaker Mr Sio we on this side of the House are not patting ourselves on the back prematurely over this bill the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill. It is an important piece of legislation and as my colleague the honourable member from the Coromandel Scott Simpson said it is timely it is pragmatic and it is something that is required to address the concerns that affect so many New Zealanders who have had leaky homes. But it is not something that we take particular pleasure in having to do in order to fix up a mess that has been present in this industry over a number of years and now across the tenures of three Governments.We welcome the Labour Party’s support of this piece of legislation and I actually agree with the honourable member Clayton Cosgrove. It is not as simple as writing a cheque and we should not let entirely off the hook that tiny minority of builders who were dodgy and the housing designers the architects the engineers and the certifiers who also played a part in leading to a situation where a number of New Zealand houses were not built to a standard that could be reasonably expected with regard to weathertightness. But this is important to a subset of the owners of leaky homes who have been affected. So I think it is timely that the bill has been introduced into the House now.I go back to the PricewaterhouseCoopers report that Mr Sio referred to in his speech and the estimate was that between 22000 and 89000 homes were affected by weathertightness issues. But the consensus among the experts who looked at this including people from the Weathertight Homes Tribunal which assesses these cases but also the Building Research Association of New Zealand and other industry players was that the likely figure was around 42000 dwellings. That means that 80000 Kiwis were affected by weathertightness issues. The reason I bring this up is to give members a sense of the scale of the issue that we found when we came into Government in 2009 because what had happened prior to that was yes a tribunal had been introduced and people who had leaky homes were able to take their claims to that tribunal to be heard but many thousands of New Zealanders were still left in a terrible position.The circumstance we found when we came into office was that in terms of the costs being met for a leaky home 69 percent of those costs were accruing to the owner of the home who in a few cases may have been involved in the building of their own home as New Zealanders are entrepreneurial and the No. 8 wire mentality does still exist in this country. But 69 percent of the costs accruing to owners was not reflective of a fair attribution of liability or blame for the problem in my view. Twenty-five percent of the cost was being met by councils which perhaps is a fair attribution of cost to councils given their role over many years of failing to recognise the weathertightness issues that were present in buildings they were consenting and authorising to be built. Only 4 percent of the cost in 2009 was actually being met by the third parties—the builders the designers and the engineers who one could argue played a larger part in the creation of this issue and 2 percent of the cost was being met by the Government. That was the administration of that tribunal. Owners carried the largest share of the costs and that was a situation that we did not feel was fair to those who had been affected often through no fault of their own by this insidious issue. It is an issue that often takes many years for homeowners to recognise they suffer from.So in 2011 the Government announced the leaky homes Financial Assistance Package and this was to give a greater Government share. Neither we nor the previous Government accept legal liability for this situation but we did feel it was a fair solution to offer a 25 percent contribution to those cases that had been through the proper hearings procedure and where the homeowner had been recognised as a duly affected homeowner who had been impacted by a weathertightness issue. So there was a 25 percent contribution from the Government and then access to a loan with Government backing should it be required so that homeowners could borrow the money they might need to bring their home up to a reasonable standard so that it could either go up for sale or remain habitable for the homeowner. The fiscal implications of this issue are significant. As I have said 80000 individuals and 40000 homes are affected and an estimate made in 2008 put the cost at $11.2 billion for the New Zealand economy. It was almost on the scale of a natural disaster and comparable to some of the costs that we have seen of the destruction of homes in Christchurch for instance after the earthquake.That gives the context for why we think it is an important piece of legislation that we are introducing now to remedy three particular technical aspects of the current system which have in recent litigation proven to be difficult or have led to various different interpretations and difficulty in establishing clear precedent. The first of these is around where in legislation this sits. The courts have taken some issue with the fact that by notifying in the Gazette we are providing the criteria for claimants. We will move from the Gazette notification to actually codifying in the Act itself the validity criteria to remove that doubt. It is not an issue that has actually impacted on individuals yet but it is something that was identified by the courts. They have sought the guidance of this House to remedy that lack of clarity and this bill does provide clarity in that particular instance.As my colleague Scott Simpson has referred to another major issue has been around establishing the definition of when a building is built. We know that throughout the country with regard to the Resource Management Act there is a lack of clarity around measuring the height of a building. That was one example that has reached recent media attention. There are 50 different definitions of how to measure the height of a building. Well we have two different definitions that the courts have referred to in terms of determining the built date for a building. The reason the built date is very important is that it is the date at which the clock starts ticking for those who may have suffered a weathertightness issue given that there is a 10-year expiry period for the detection of a problem and the lodging of a claim with the tribunal.We have had a disparity between the High Court and the Court of Appeal which have in recent cases determined the built date of a building to relate to the date that a final building inspection is conducted by the council whereas the Supreme Court in the Osborne v Auckland Council judgment which was reached in June 2014 determined that the built date of the building—the date from which the building is considered to have been built—was not when the inspection happened but when the code of compliance certificate was issued. A considerable period of time can elapse between those two events the council inspection and the issuing of the certificate.This does affect a number of claimants who are currently before the tribunal and it behoves this Parliament to ensure that that is clarified and that we have a clear direction as to when a building is deemed to have been built particularly so that we do not get disparities between individual cases. It would in my view be very unfair to have a situation where a home was built on the same day in two different local authority areas and because of these two different judgments they are treated differently in terms of eligibility to access the compensation that is provided by the Weathertight Homes Tribunal. This bill also has retrospective effect so those who would have been eligible had this provision been in place when they were previously perhaps denied access to a claim will have that opportunity to take up their case.The final technical element relates to cases that are currently before the tribunal. Once a case has had the notice to proceed issued then they will be able to access the package even if it falls outside that 10-year limit. As we know 23 July 2016 is the cut-off date and there may be some homes where the owners are currently before the tribunal and can reasonably expect their case to be heard because through no fault of their own there have been delays particularly in the complex multi-home apartment buildings of the sort we have here in Wellington central. Those cases with those complexities can take a long time.This is an important piece of legislation. The Government is certainly not patting itself on the back but it is something we have a responsibility as a sensible Government to progress and I welcome cooperation with the Opposition. I commend this bill to the House.KEVIN HAGUE (Green): I spent yesterday in Christchurch in particular looking at housing issues in that city. It is I believe a national disgrace that people in Christchurch are still living in broken houses years on from the earthquakes that devastated that city. But in relation to this bill we are dealing with people who have been living in broken houses potentially for decades and that also is a national disgrace and an ongoing stain on this Government and its predecessors.We in the Greens have from the word go supported measures to provide justice and a remedial path for those who have been affected by this shocking failure of regulation. It is certainly sobering to hear the accounts of members in the debate today echoing the words that have occurred in every single debate on this issue in the House since the very beginning of the issue. They have been talking about the accounts that we have heard of citizens who have been exposed to these disastrous conditions in their homes with the consequences for their physical health their mental health and their financial health. They have told us their stories about the devastation that this has wreaked on their lives. It is I believe appalling that 9 years on from 2006 when the principal legislation was first enacted we are still having to patch up that legislation and are still hearing those stories.The Green Party will be supporting this bill although I note with interest some of the points that Clayton Cosgrove in particular made in his contribution to the debate and I will be looking at those points in particular during the select committee process. The changes that the bill makes are essentially technical in nature. The change to the built date which effectively the Government has been forced to move on by the Osborne decision is a sensible process and I support the points that Paul Foster-Bell has just made about that issue. I think those are points well made.The other technical change I guess is expanding the definition of the qualifying claimant and in particular this change to acknowledge those who prior to the sunset date in July next year are actively working towards meeting the list of criteria. If I may I will actually read from that list because it is one that I cannot recall and it is a lengthy one. The provisions in the bill currently state that the claimant must obtain an assessor’s report arrange funding sign a homeowner’s agreement commission a repair plan obtain a building consent and obtain quotes before agreeing to a payment plan. The fact that I had to read that probably indicates what a daunting process it actually is for a person who is already subject to the enormous stress of having their home destroyed by this blight. So we support that provision also.I think the third small matter around clarifying the ineligibility for financial assistance for those engaged in civil proceedings against territorial local authorities is on balance something that we support. It reflects the same kind of intent that underpins the accident compensation scheme—that actually we are interested in resolving these disputes. We are interested in making good the wrongs that have been done rather than wasting the time of the courts in a process that—I believe it may have been Scott Simpson who said this—makes lawyers wealthy but actually provides satisfactory solutions for few.We have always said that this legislation ought to have gone further. In 2011 Sue Kedgley referred to some of the issues that Su’a William Sio has raised today—the fact that people whose houses were built in the 1990s are ineligible for this financial assistance yet they have been subject to exactly the same failure of the Government to meet its duty to New Zealand citizens as those who are covered by the bill. It is a discrepancy an inequity that has yet to be resolved.In 2011 in that same debate I gave a speech on behalf of my colleague Gareth Hughes who was then the Green housing spokesperson. I pointed out the fact that it seemed manifestly unfair when this problem has been caused by the failure of that Government led by Jim Bolger in the 1990s for the scheme to provide for the Government to put in 25 percent of the remedial cost but still require the homeowner to meet 50 percent. Where is the justice in that? There is no justice in it. I also pointed out to the House that in our view the sunset provision of 5 years was inadequate. Here we are today coming back to revisit that issue. I point out to the Government that if only it listened to me just a little bit more often we could perhaps save some of this House’s time. [Interruption] I have got some other ideas too.In the light of this bill and the ongoing saga of this House’s time needing to be taken up in trying to find some kind of remediation for those whose lives have been so blighted by this problem of deregulation there is an irony that is just sitting on our Order Paper and coming down the tubes towards us pretty quickly—a bill to amend the Resource Management Act. It will be seeking to deregulate the process of resource management to in the Government’s mind make it easier for houses to be built. It is sometimes said that those who do not learn the lessons of history are sometimes required to repeat them and that appears to be the case here.I want to finish by coming back to something I have mentioned several times in the House in relation to housing and that is to draw on work done by a guy called Maslow on the hierarchy of needs. What are people’s basic needs? Maslow said that in order to function at all in society a person has got some really basic needs that need to be met. They need to be well fed; they need to have a safe physical environment in respect of the air and the water that they consume; and they need warmth and shelter. There is a way of conceptualising the fundamental role of the Government as being to ensure that every person has those basic needs met so that they can actually fulfil their duties as a citizen and enjoy the rights that are recognised in instruments such as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and in New Zealand law.The State houses that were built in the 1940s and 1950s are now desirable properties because they were built soundly and they were built with the ethic in mind of ensuring that everybody was housed so it is a shocking indictment on successive Governments that we now have an environment where New Zealanders are homeless living in cars and garages or as we see in Christchurch right now living in houses that have not been repaired or living in leaky homes that ensure their health needs will not be met. It is time that the Government stepped up and once again met that basic responsibility to ensure that New Zealanders have their essential rights and needs met. Thank you.RON MARK (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a short call on the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill. I have got to say from the outset that although it is nice to have a nice warm fuzzy feeling in the House about the Government coming forward with a wonderful piece of legislation to deal with a problem that has persisted over how many decades now and everybody in the House including New Zealand First saying to the Government: “Look this bill makes a lot of sense and we need to tidy up the loose edges.”—I was not here in 2011 when the last piece of legislation went through. But what stands out to me and I take it from the previous speaker’s speech is that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.I think it is very timely right now while the bill is on the floor of the House to remind people how we got there because it has been due to those decisions that were taken back in 1991 when a Government focused on deregulation. And the funny old thing is that I still hear every day how deregulation is such a wonderful thing. Self-regulation is another term that is often thrown at the House and we are told consistently and persistently particularly by one party that responsible people in the relevant industries out there regulate themselves in the best interests of their fellow New Zealanders. We are told that they regulate themselves appropriately because they want to protect their professional standards and they certainly do not want to be labelled as people who provide tardy or shoddy workmanship.But 1991 was an era that we forget and ignore at our peril. Here we are—1991 was the year when the Building Act was changed and it came into effect in 1994. Homes that were built between—what was it—about 1994 and 2004 are the homes that we are still here in 2015 attempting by this legislation to put right and to fix.Again it stands out even to the dimmest wit on the planet that here we have a piece of legislation that went through in 1991 and it cost the nation an absolute fortune just to get the legislation through. It was highly controversial under what could be described only as the most right-wing National Government that ever walked the planet—or maybe this one is heading that way too now; I do not know—and it was subsequently proven to be flawed and faulty legislation. What is the bill? Well we have heard today: $11.2 billion it has cost.Let me put it to you this way. I know a number of families and I have a lot of friends mainly in the cities who bought houses unsuspectingly not knowing that they were leaky homes. It is not hard to find people who have been driven to take—well some in fact took their lives because of the trauma that they were put through. I have got to send a message from New Zealand First to the Government: let this be the last piece of legislation that comes to this House to deal with the leaky home syndrome. Let this be the last time that this House—and please take advantage of the goodwill that exists right across the floor of this House to get this right and do the right thing by those New Zealanders who actually got shafted. They were shafted by shoddy National Government thinking in 1991. I want to say that again because I am starting to see the same syndrome on the Government benches today. It is almost like that famous Cullen line: “We won. You lost. Eat that!” for ever. Better start listening people—better start listening.To have New Zealanders having to redress this issue and have Parliament having to revisit this issue time and time again—you know is it going to come back to the House in another 4 years’ time? Are we going to make mistakes along the way? I just hope and I am confident that the Local Government and Environment Committee—there is a pretty good team in there. I am confident and I am hopeful—I am hopeful—that we will work together.The issues that stand out to me that I do worry about are around the issue of “qualifying claimant”. We have got a member of our family who is still trying to resolve issues with a leaky apartment that they live in which is part of a body corporate arrangement. Why does that problem still persist today in 2015? Because we do not seem to get it right in Parliament do we? And no matter how many times we come back to the House no matter how fine the speeches may be and no matter how much support is offered by the Opposition parties of the day to the Government of the day. And it is interesting that each time—well the last two times it has been National Governments in here.Let us just do this right. New Zealand First is putting it on the line here: we will work constructively with the committee; we will work constructively with the Government. I will be talking at length with Local Government New Zealand to get a better understanding as to how the councils are dealing with these issues. We understand the complexities and the legalities that so torment everybody including councils. We understand that the people who are being double hit on all of this are those taxpayers who are also ratepayers who are getting hit as they fund the financial assistance package with 25 percent from either direction. From our perspective in New Zealand First it has been a pretty sordid and sorry affair and one that blights New Zealand’s reputation.So there are two things I will leave the Government with to think about: let this piece of legislation and let this issue be for ever a reminder to this Government and to National Party people who think this way that deregulation is not the be-all and end-all and that deregulation does not protect innocent New Zealanders who actually trust in builders and trust in architects to deliver them quality advice. When you offer up opportunities to let loose the cowboys and the architects who want to experiment and when you create a situation in legislation that leaves local government inspectors in a difficult position where they are not really quite sure what their position is then everybody pays.This has been a sordid and sorry affair and I for one hope that this is the last time we have legislation on this matter. I would actually like to see coming out of this an indication as to how many leaky houses are still left out there. I know from my time in local government that there is great fear amongst ratepayers particularly with the emerging amalgamation that there is a second tranche of leaky homes that are still out there to be dealt with. We are hearing consistently in the Wairarapa about getting amalgamated into a super-city Wairarapa ratepayers do not have any leaky homes in their territorial authorities actually. Carterton had two—two—and that was it. They are good builders over there good architects good people. No rip-offs no cowboys. But we have paid for the restoration and the refit of those houses. For ratepayers in the Wairarapa now to be told that they may end up having to pay a share of what 1000 1500 or 2000 extra houses—that is something they worry about. That would be on top of whatever contributions they might have to make in a super-city model to the earthquake strengthening of what 740 buildings in the Wellington basin?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am just going to encourage the member to come back to the bill now.RON MARK: I will come back to this bill but those are the issues that test us over in the Wairarapa. Those are the issues that councils are talking about. I look forward to working constructively with the committee to see whether we can deal with this matter once and for all.JOANNE HAYES (National): I am pleased to stand and take a call to support the first reading of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill. When I sit here in the House and I hear other members saying leaky homes are a disgrace for this Government and the previous one I say that that happens when people and when Governments decide not to do anything about it and we are a Government that will do something about it—we are doing something about it. That is the bottom line and the only catchline that we should be thinking about is that we are getting on with it and we are dealing to it.You know it is putting things right that counts. When I hear our member Scott Simpson talking about the Local Government and Environment Committee which this bill is coming back to I say that I too am looking forward to it coming back because a few years ago at the end of 1999 I was working in Auckland and I saw some of those homes being built.In 2013 when my husband and I decided to build a home—well we did not actually decide to build a home; we had to build a home because we did not have a home—that was one of the things that went through my mind when we were designing the actual build itself. I can tell you now that when it comes to physics I am pretty poor at physics. I do not really know a lot about it. My husband would try to explain to me what a parapet was and he would actually have to draw it on a piece of paper for me so I could see what we were looking at when we were looking at the common features of a leaky home. Even the roof-to-wall junctions—even though we were building only a single-storey home he drew what that meant on a two-storey home and I thought: “Thank God we’re building a one-storey home.” Pergola fixings were pretty OK because we had a big deck around them. But yes when he started explaining it to me—especially what a flashing around a window was—and I started to get a bit of a feel about what the people the owners of leaky homes were going through I started to understand the issues that they were facing.This bill amends the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2006. In 2011 we amended it and that is when we introduced the financial assistance package to help owners repair their homes and to reduce legislation because the legislation was getting a little bit out of hand in terms of costs. We did that and I will keep reminding the House about this whenever I get the opportunity to speak. We decided to move to work on this particular legislation because it was the time when we had our global world recession which was hitting the world and this country. We were having the devastation of our earthquakes in Christchurch. Financial companies were going to the wall and then later of course we had our terrible tragedy at Pike River mine. You know the coffers were bare when we came in yet we were able to plan so that we could address the leaky homes issue that this country was facing.This bill has three main areas and my colleagues have been very articulate in being able to define what those three areas are. The location of eligibility looks at the financial assistance package which moves the criteria in clauses 1B and 1C of the 2011 Gazette notice into the Act which is good. It ensures that validity cannot be questioned over previous decisions made based on these criteria. So that is very good for this bill.The other area that it covers is the definition of what is “built”—yes my colleagues have defined that and clarified that very well. Just to round it up or to give an overview on it it is when a building is deemed to be built and not at the time of the council inspection. I am pleased to say it is at the issue of a code compliance certificate and that is exactly what happened with ours. So you know at the local government level things are working well I am very happy to say.Of course the last area of this bill is the expiry of the financial assistance package which I want to just flesh out a little bit more. Obviously it expires on 23 July 2016 but the little kind of difference about that is that for everybody who has a claim who gets it in on that day the claim will continue on. That is the key area—or I suppose a kind of little change—that we have put in here. So all of those people can claim right up to 23 July 2016 and they will qualify for assistance until they receive an issuing notice to proceed.With this financial assistance package the extension of the criterion of the date to include everybody up to that date adds another 70 applicants who could benefit from this bill. I just read in a clipping out of Stuff that the Minister for Building and Housing Nick Smith said that the changes to that particular area of the financial assistance package provided “sensible refinements” to the Act.By the end of January this year there were 1147 claims. That represents 3528 homes assessed and qualifying for Government assistance with as you will have heard before a lot more to come. Also as for the future cost we have heard before that the Government will put in 25 percent and so will local government leaving the owner to pay 50 percent of repair costs and that is a great step forward for those people who are affected by leaky homes. Essentially what we are expecting is to generate about $460 million in home repairs over that period.Really at the end of the day the bill does not change anything about the financial assistance package as I said but it does remove doubt. It removes doubt and uncertainty for the claimants and essentially it is a good bill. I am pleased that it is a bill that members across the House are supporting and that it is going to come to the select committee so that we can listen to the submissions from the applicants and/or family members as they put their cases to us in those hearings. So I am looking forward that.In summing up I just want to do a little bit of a background over the leaky homes issues because I think it is really important especially when somebody defines what a leaky home is. It is where water seeps in under the cladding system through the roof or through the sides and it cannot drain. It does not even dry out; it stays there for some time because it cannot go anywhere else. As we know this leaky home issue affects apartments townhouses and in some areas stand-alone homes that were built mainly between 1992 and 2005. I think that the legislation that is coming through has really tightened up building and the builders’ code of practice and code of compliance which is really good. So we are eliminating the cowboys within the sector and that is good for all those people who are wanting to build their new home—it was very good for us anyway.I want to say that we are prepared as a Government to stand by this awful situation. We are prepared to stand by it. I opened my speech by saying that in the first place and we will see this right through to the end for those people affected because at the end of the day it is those people who matter to us. They are the people of this country and they support what we are doing. We are spreading this package out as evenly and as fairly as we can and as I said before the Government and local government are helping with the payments of 25 percent.There is so much more that I could say on this bill but I will not. I will save that for its second and third readings. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. It is James Shaw—5 minutes.JAMES SHAW (Green): I rise in support of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill. I would just like to start by noting that this is a bill to finish the clean-up of a problem that started half my life ago with due respect to those who were involved in that at the time. We all know people who have been heavily affected by this. In my electorate in Wellington Central there are both individual houses and also apartment buildings where people have lost almost the entire value of their house and where they have had to negotiate with all of the other apartment owners in their apartment buildings to get those fixed and it is a colossal problem.The PricewaterhouseCoopers report that Paul Foster-Bell referred to earlier mentioned that the cost to New Zealand is about $12.4 billion. I just want to compare that with the cost of the Christchurch rebuild which is about $40 billion. So the cost of repairing after an earthquake that levelled our second-largest city was only four times the size of the cost of this problem and this was an entirely human-made problem. It was made by people in this Chamber. It was a Government-created problem so I am pleased that the Government is cleaning up the mess that it created in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I would like to note that the Greens were not present at the time and perhaps if we had been we might have been able to do something about it.This is a problem of market failure and of relying too much on the market to sort out these kinds of things. I want to say that in spite of this failure it seems to me that we are on the verge of creating another generation of poor housing. There are three basic things that we need to do to create good housing. One is the orientation of the building—does it face the sun; does it optimise the sun? Two is insulation—is it dry and is it weathertight? Three is ventilation—in other words can air move through the house and stop it from going mouldy? These are not hard problems to solve but with the current round of Resource Management Act reforms that the Government is looking at it is just going to make it easier for developers to continue to ignore these basic rules. Why? Because it is cheaper and easier for a developer to go on to a site and to create a building that ignores those three basic rules of orientation insulation and ventilation and to pass the cost of those on to the occupiers of that building whether it is an individual house or an apartment building.That is something that we are in danger of going through again despite the fact that we are now nearly 25 years after the original legislation that created this problem about to introduce another round of legislation that it seems to me will do something quite similar. The Greens fully support the idea that the victims of this crisis be given the financial support that they need to be able to get themselves out of the situation they have found themselves in from this entirely human-created problem. The Greens as my colleague Kevin Hague said earlier believe that we have not gone far enough. We need to look at the whole body of legislation and regulation in relation to the housing sector and also at the role that Government has played in the past and can play again in the future. It would be very easy for us to create a new generation of houses that generate more energy than they consume because they have got solar panels on the roof; that are warm dry and healthy; and that use the scale that Government purchasing can provide to drive down costs across the whole sector. So we really believe in an active approach and we are disappointed that Government after Government just refuses to step up to the plate.In the meantime we do fully support this bill and we commend it to the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Poto Williams—5 minutes.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): Good evening everybody. It is great to be able to have the opportunity to speak on the first reading of this bill. I want to start off by saying that everybody deserves a home that is well built warm and dry. You will get no argument from this side of the House when we make those statements: that shelter is a basic human right; that our homes need to be of a condition that is warm and dry and that not having decent housing impacts on us socially it impacts on our health and well-being and for people who are struggling through this scenario to actually get their issues addressed it impacts on their mental well-being as well. We know full well from Christchurch that when your house is destroyed or when you are battling to have your home repaired your mental well-being and your well-being in general suffers. Your home is your major asset unless of course you happen to be one of the almost 50 percent of New Zealanders who cannot afford to purchase their own home. If you are lucky enough to own your own home it is your major asset. We know in Christchurch after our major disaster that your insurance does not always protect you and your assets in the manner that you expect. So we are talking about significant financial stress upon people who are impacted by leaky homes.This particular tidy-up I guess of the legislation has come in part as a result of a Supreme Court judgment the Osborne judgment where we look to the determination of the eligibility for compensation under the financial assistance package. What does it take and how long does it take to actually have these issues resolved? As many of the other speakers have already stated tonight it has taken some 20 years and we are still working our way through the issue of weathertightness in legislation that came out of this House 25 years ago. What does it take to actually get these issues resolved?The bill itself deals with three kinds of components: firstly the eligibility for compensation and the criteria that provide eligibility for that; the built date and we have quite a bit of discussion on that; and what it means to be a qualifying claimant. These are very important issues. I have to admit that it did take me some time to work my way around the eligibility for compensation and the criteria in that but I see that what this bill attempts to do is actually move what is currently gazetted into the Act itself so that clauses 1B and 1C which define the criteria actually become part of the Act which is as it should be. The built date that is defined within this bill really tidies up the definition of the term “built”. Currently the claimants have based their claims on the date of final inspection which means that it is a prior date to the certificate of code compliance.I want to refer to the regulatory impact statement because I think it is really important to ask the question why there has been such a low volume of repairs up to this date. There have been several barriers quoted within that—the high cost of repairs access and affordability of bank finance and the lack of awareness. Often homeowners do not know that they have an issue until they come to sell their home. So my final statement is about the final date for claims. I am really concerned about those people who are completely unaware that their home is a leaky home and I hope that these issues are resolved in the submissions to the select committee. Thank you.MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It is an honour to rise to speak to this very important bill the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill. I would like to acknowledge the good work of the Hon Dr Nick Smith. I would also like to mention that coming back from an adjournment week I have a spring in my step after winning the Canterbury MPs’ scone bake-off competition. [Interruption] Thank you. In good faith across all parties I would like to offer the recipe if anybody would like it. It was a very good scone actually—bacon cheese and onion. It was a scone in tribute to the primary industries in recognition of the primary industries and the role they play especially in an electorate like mine “Waimak”. The role that primary industries play in New Zealand is great because very much when the farmers are doing well the whole community benefits.This bill amends the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2006. It is about supporting victims of leaky homes it is about supporting the resolution process and it is about supporting people to get back in their homes.A key part of this bill is ensuring that people who have applied to be supported in repairing their homes through the Financial Assistance Package which is a great package of support—25 percent of the home repair costs are covered by the Government 25 percent are covered by the council and 50 percent are covered by the homeowners. At the moment what we have under the current Act is an expiry date of July 2016. I think it is only right and fair that people who make this application will see this through and receive their financial assistance post - July 2016. So I wholeheartedly support this amendment. I think that this legislation is very much about creating more certainty for leaky home owners to better assist them to get their homes repaired. I think that for a new MP like myself one of the drivers to come into Parliament is that we firmly believe that the role of Government is to support people empower them and inform them to make better decisions to improve their lives very much by legislation like this which will seek to support people and empower them by understanding. Getting more clarity around the criteria for this support can only be good for the homeowners and good for the community as well.There were a few key areas in this bill and one I have talked about is the clarification of the “built” definition. We know that this meant within 10 years of the application being received but we know that since further Supreme Court rulings this has changed. The definition has moved from the point of final council inspection to the point at which a code compliance certificate is issued. Again it is very much great for the homeowner to be provided with that clarification.I think that for me coming from a health and specifically mental health background I just want to touch on some of the social costs of leaky homes as well. We have heard from many speakers in the House today about the financial costs but I think it is very important to talk about the social costs. My parliamentary colleague Poto Williams touched on this as well about the mental costs and health costs as well. We know that growing up and living in a warm dry house is fundamental to a healthy life.Many New Zealanders look to buy a house over the course of their lives. I must say that drawing on my own experience—and many in the House will agree with me—it is very much an exciting time of your life when you talk to your spouse or partner and think about the type of house you would like to buy. You think through the rooms and the size of your family. Maybe you have got a dog you need a big yard for. What it is about is thinking about the memories you will have as a family and providing those memories with a house. I think that that is very much something we as New Zealanders focus on and I suppose this National Government which supports homeownership and is a party for homeownership. It is an emotional time when you go through that process of buying a house: putting in bids and contracts and understanding whether you have received the confirmation of buying that dream house. So you can imagine the stress at the time when after you have bought your family house that you are going to bring your family up in you find out that it is a leaky home.For me I have had constituents come through the office who have been through this situation. One couple sticks out in my mind. Even though their house was built in the 1990s they bought it only 6 years ago. Unfortunately they took the word of people that building reports had been done and did not check them themselves. After living in the house for a while they discovered the moisture. On further inspection they found out there were no eaves and no flashings in the house. On further inspection into the walls what they had to do was actually cut the cladding away and look in by the skirting boards to see the water literally running down the sides of the walls. The plywood cladding had soaked up a lot of the moisture. The moisture readings they got were 65 percent whereas the building code for moisture would be only about 18 to 24 percent. They were using towels to soak up extra moisture on the carpet and they had young kids as well so this was not a good place to be in. I am happy to say they are receiving support through this financial package but you can very much see from that example the physical conditions that then start translating into the impact on the health and mental health of the adults and the children. In their case there was the start of fungi and mould growing around the house as well. That was very hard to get rid of.We know from health research that these conditions can lead to conditions such as asthma and bronchitis in vulnerable people especially the old and young. In New Zealand where we are focusing on a preventative health system it is very much not a situation we want people to end up in. You can imagine also the power costsfor a couple like thisof running dehumidifiers and heat pumps full-time to address these issues.I know that in my electorate we cover over two councils the Waimakariri District Council and the Christchurch City Council. The Christchurch City Council has put aside $1 million a year to support home repairs for people who have leaky homes. There has been a comparison drawn between leaky homes and the earthquake recovery. I must say I am very proud to be standing with a Government that is supporting people eitherwith leaky homes or the earthquake recovery. What we have found in Canterbury is that people have actually been affected by both. Some people through earthquake damage have gone in and looked at their houses structurally and found they were suffering from leaky homes as well which has been very much a double hit for them. It is something I know that all Canterbury MPs on either side of the House are very much working hard to address for their constituents.Just to summarise I am very much honoured to support a much-needed amendment bill that will reduce litigation provide clarity around eligibility and support people who are at risk because of an expiry date. So I support this bill and commend it to the House.I am very much looking forward to the select committee work around this and the submissions we receive all in all to improve the well-being of New Zealanders. Thank you.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Before I make some specific comments about this Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill I just want to respond to one or two things that the member Matt Doocey said in his contribution. He gave us a very interesting if somewhat ponderous journey through a number of different housing issues. I could not help but notice one or two things that Matt Doocey said. He made the rather startling claim that the National Party is the party of homeownership which will come as something of a surprise to many New Zealanders who for the last 6 years have watched this Government sit on its hands while house prices in our two largest cities have gone through the roof. Homeownership rates are plummeting and this Government does nothing about it. The Reserve Bank says it is not doing enough and it should do more. Harcourts—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This is about weathertightness.PHIL TWYFORD: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No no. I have ruled.PHIL TWYFORD: OK. Well I just want to say following on from the previous member’s lengthy disquisition on his baking exploits in Canterbury that at least I am talking about housing issues. I am responding directly to outrageous claims that were made by the member who spoke previously that the National Party is the party of homeownership because clearly it is not the party of homeownership. In that member’s city this Government has presided over the snail’s pace residential rebuild which has caused rents to go through the roof in the very communities where that member lives and that is a disgrace. That he can stand up and claim to be in the party of homeownership when his party has presided over plummeting homeownership rates shows an audacity that I admire.Matt Doocey also talked at some length about the problems faced by the young and vulnerable in cold damp homes. Well he is right—big problems. One-third of New Zealanders live in private rental accommodation and by and large those houses are not insulated and we are hospitalising far too many young people in this country with chest infections and respiratory and infectious diseases because those homes are cold and damp and yet that member’s party does nothing about it. It refuses to take notice of the ground-breaking public health research we have in this country that makes the connection between cold damp homes and kids being hospitalised. What is needed are guaranteed minimum standards that would require that private rental properties be insulated and have a heating source but what does Matt Doocey’s party in Government do about it? Sweet FA.Hon Members: Oh!PHIL TWYFORD: They bake scones—they bake scones.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is not a parliamentary term that is acceptable. I will ask the member to withdraw that phrase.PHIL TWYFORD: I withdraw that. That party on that side of the House does very little at all to address the problem of unhealthy housing. All it has done is implement a pathetic little pilot scheme in a few hundred State houses and it does nothing about thousands and thousands of private rental properties where kids are being hospitalised because they are living in cold damp homes. So it shows either an ignorance of his own party’s policies or an extraordinary audacity for that member to get up in the House and pretend sympathy for the many young people who are growing up in cold damp homes and getting sick because of it.I wanted to really just underline my colleague’s comments that Labour is supporting this Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill to the select committee. What does it do? It clarifies some of the provisions—let us say the drafting errors—in the bill that was originally passed in order to help the weathertight funding assistance package to work better and goodness knows the weathertight funding assistance package needs to work better. What will the bill do? It will actually benefit about 70 homeowners—seven-zero. Seventy homeowners will benefit from this bill by the clarification of the eligibility criteria and the tweaks that this bill makes. It is a very modest very minor bill. It does very little to improve the situation of leaky home owners.I want to point that out in the context of the fact that the National Government promised a lot on this issue. When Maurice Williamson was the building and construction Minister he promised a great deal about fixing the problem with leaky homes. In 2010 he announced the burden-sharing agreement that would see the Government contributing 25 percent of the repair costs if councils contributed 25 percent of the repair costs and the homeowners contributed 50 percent and—and—promised to forgo their right to sue their right to legal action. Maurice Williamson was all over the news with this. He was all over the headlines and he announced and John Key announced that National was putting aside $1 billion—$1 billion—to help fund the repairs of leaky homes. Well it promised a lot but it has delivered very little. In July 2009 PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated that between 22000 and 89000 homes were affected with a forecast of 42000 dwellings that were likely to be leaky homes. That is the scale of the problem. Maurice Williamson said he was going to solve the problem and the Government was going to spend $1 billion helping the owners of leaky homes—$1 billion they promised.Well what actually happened here? In 2012 a year after Maurice Williamson trumpeted this new billion-dollar scheme to bail out leaky home owners Tim Rainey of Rainey Law one of the legal firms that has spent a lot of time working for leaky home owners asked the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment how many payouts had been made. In the year and 3 months after the scheme this billion-dollar scheme came into effect only 1232 leaky home owners had lodged expressions of interest only 186 homeowner agreements had been finalised and only 12 homeowners had received their final payments. Mr Rainey and John Gray of the Home Owners and Buyers Association—HOBANZ—criticised the scheme’s excessive bureaucracy long delays and difficulty getting repair jobs approved and money paid saying that although the Government scheme sounded good in theory it actually did not work in practice.So let us fast forward to 2013 when the Government had paid out only $8 million of the $1 billion that it promised. So $8 million was paid out 2 years after Maurice Williamson trumpeted his billion-dollar scheme. You know Auckland Council announced last year that it had spent $22 million on lawyers and consultants trying to deal with its share of the leaky homes problem. So one council has spent more than twice what this Government has paid out under the funding assistance package when it promised a billion-dollar bailout scheme. National has promised a great deal on this issue but it has actually delivered very very little.I want to talk just briefly about a case just outside my electorate in west Auckland. There is a building that stands really as a monument to the whole leaky homes fiasco. It is called Pepperwood Mews. It was a development initiated by Housing New Zealand. It did a deal with a shonky developer to build a whole lot of apartments. The apartments were sold by the developer under this agreement to a whole lot of hard-working Kiwi first home owners. That building now stands blighted graffiti covered and partially demolished while the homeowners—the leaky home owners—try to get their money back from Housing New Zealand through the courts. That is a fitting memorial to this whole leaky homes disaster.NUK KORAKO (National): Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. I stand to take this call as the final speaker speaking on the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill. I will continue to be audacious as well if I could particularly when talking about this bill because of the fact that there is nothing like being right at the coalface of a situation like this where you actually know people you have met people and you have heard about the tragic circumstances of this unfortunate situation.Before I do that I would just like to pick up on a couple of comments that have been made in particular around Christchurch and the rebuild. On that side of the House the glass always seems to be half-empty. The fact is that there is some incredible work that is going on there around the Christchurch rebuild. Last weekend was the largest kapa haka festival in the whole of the world. Over 20000-odd people came to Christchurch. It was the festival of Te Matatini. The situation is that I was fortunate enough to actually be talking to a number of those people who came to Christchurch particularly on the first day and on the last day and what they were saying was: “Isn’t this incredible? Isn’t this incredible because this city is actually being rebuilt? Isn’t it amazing?”. I just want to make that point first of all—I just want to make that point.Coming back to the bill the fact is that being the last speaker it has been really interesting listening to the previous 11 speakers. I just want to make a few points—an overview of the conversation of the presentations. I picked up around 13 points that I think are really pertinent to this actual debate. The first thing is the fact that OK around 80000 New Zealanders have been affected by this unfortunate situation of leaky homes. The first major point which has a consensus across the House is that there is no silver bullet for this situation. That is the first point. The second point is that people have indeed been through hell and back again. The third point is that politics aside there is goodwill across the parties to find a pathway in order that people stuck in the leaky home situation can see a way through. That is really the general view right across the House.The next point is that we all want this issue this situation brought to a timely resolution. The next point is that it was originally up to the owners to find their own leaky home costs. Well guess what? Under the National Government help is there—help is there. The next point is that this bill carries forward the good work that has already been done to rectify this unfortunate situation. The other point—with a general consensus too—is that there has been no real duty of care in some ways by local bodies. The next point is that there have been a number of speakers who have blamed the deregulation of the building industry for this situation. The next point is that there is the opportunity now—which is happening—to actually remedy the technical and administrative aspects of this situation by way of this bill.The next part of this is that we are all in agreement too that a sensible refinement of this Act in regard to financial assistance is here. The next part of it is that what this bill does—and we are all in agreement with this—is that it indeed creates the avoidance of unnecessary litigation moving forward. The other part that I make a point on is the fact that 70 houses are better than nothing. I think that is a really really important point.When looking at this bill to me and to my colleagues on this side of the House it really does exemplify the fact that the National Government does support vulnerable New Zealanders. That is the whole essence here. This legislation is another very very good example of what we are doing for those who actually are vulnerable because of this situation.The next part is the fact that National’s Better Public Services programme is really focused on getting better results for New Zealanders and giving them the support that they need and this is what this bill does. This is what it does. The Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act—and this is the beginning of the “help is on its way”situation—came through in 2006 and was amended in 2011 to establish the financial assistance package. This legislation was to help owners of leaky homes to get their homes repaired. That was the important thing.I started off by saying that I have met these people. I have met them on their doorsteps I have met them in my office in the Port Hills I have met them at various functions and things and one of the things that they have told me is the fact that yes they have a leaky home. At the beginning of that when they found that they had a leaky home there was very very little in the way of help. But they continually tell me now that if it was not for the situation of help—assistance—created by this Government they would have lost all of their confidence in moving forward. I think that is a really important part of this as well. The other part of what they tell me is that it is terminology as well. What does the terminology of something that means “built” actually mean? So they have actually seen light at the end of the tunnel for that because the fact is that there is indeed better interpretation of this kind of legislation moving forward.In conclusion then the weathertight homes legislation seeks to avoid unnecessary litigation—we have said that—that would divert resources away from repairing leaky homes. Again there are 70 properties—better than nothing. But the bill does not change anything about the financial assistance package; it simply removes the doubt and that is the whole essence of this as well. It removes the doubt and it provides certainty for claimants who want to access it. The next point is that certainty was a matter of key importance raised in submissions on this issue and which I just highlighted a few minutes ago as well. The points in this bill are important to the ongoing validity of the financial assistance package ensuring as many homeowners as possible can access the resolution service and financial assistance package and reducing the risk to the Crown of possible litigation about the validity of the criteria.Finally it is indeed the fact that not only do we have this legislation that is being put forward by the Hon Nick Smith and the fact of rectifying and embellishing the original legislation it is also a situation where not only are we doing this for leaky homes but if you actually bother—and I am saying this for my colleagues across the House—you open your eyes when you go to Christchurch and see the incredible work that is being done on the rebuild. Kia ora.Bill read a first time.Bill referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): We are waiting for a Minister. The Minister needs to move the report-back date.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration)on behalf of theMinister for Building and Housing: I move that the committee report to the House—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No no. There is wording for this so I will ask the whip to give you the wording. We must have this right.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I move That the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Amendment Bill be reported back to the House by 31 July 2015.Motion agreed to.Radiation Safety BillFirst ReadingHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration) on behalf of theMinister of Health: I move That the Radiation Safety Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill. The bill will repeal and replace the Radiation Protection Act 1965 and its regulations. It provides a much-needed update to our 50-year-old legislation on radiation safety. To achieve this the bill incorporates best-practice principles in radiation safety. It also enhances security measures that will provide a means for New Zealand to meet its international obligations relating to radioactive material. The bill remains broadly similar in scope to the legislation it is replacing. The bill will regulate the many beneficial applications in which ionising radiation is used on a daily basis in this country.It needs to be recognised that all use of ionising radiation carries some risk of harm. However where the justifiable benefits of using ionising radiation can be demonstrated those benefits should be available for New Zealanders while the risks are managed by applying state-of-the-art safety measures. In fact the majority of uses of ionising radiation in New Zealand are found in the health sector. By far the most well-known beneficial use of radiation is in the medical treatment of a range of cancers and other conditions by radiotherapists and nuclear medicine specialists.An example that people might be familiar with is the treatment of hyperthyroid conditions—or overactive thyroid glands—with small doses of radioactive iodine. This treatment usually involves ingesting the iodine in the form of a drink or capsule. The iodine is taken up by the thyroid gland and the radioactivity destroys some of the overactive cells responsible for the condition. The treatment is very selective in that it targets the thyroid gland and it is relatively permanent. The treatment is widely used for the benefit of many New Zealanders every year.Ionising radiation technology is also behind medical imaging technology which will be familiar to most people including CAT scans and X-rays. There is also a range of medical diagnostic techniques that use radiation technology to provide valuable information to clinicians about the treatment options that they can offer their patients. Veterinary medicine also makes use of similar treatments and technologies. Research institutes and universities are using ionising radiation for teaching and research purposes. There are also a number of industrial applications where ionising radiation delivers justifiable and significant benefits such as the non-destructive testing of the structural integrity of items such as aircraft and gas pipelines.As these examples indicate ionising radiation can be produced by radioactive material such as the iodine used to treat hyperthyroid conditions as I described and it can also be produced by irradiating apparatus such as X-ray machines. To ensure that both radioactive material and irradiating apparatus are captured within the scope of the bill the bill adopts the term “radiation source” to describe these two categories. However radioactivity that occurs at very low levels will not be subject to the bill. The bill achieves this by setting threshold levels for radioactive material which are published in schedule 2 of the bill. Radioactive material below the published thresholds will not be subject to the provisions of the bill.I am advised that we are all exposed to small amounts of ionising radiation every day mostly from naturally occurring sources and that these threshold levels are set at internationally accepted radioactivity levels below which no regulatory action is warranted in order to protect the health and safety of people or the environment. The threshold levels are in fact derived from International Atomic Energy Agency recommendations and are based on the published scientific literature used to generate these recommendations. It follows therefore that any material exhibiting a radioactivity at or above the published threshold levels will be subject to the bill.It is equally important to note at this point what the bill does not do. It does not regulate non-ionising radiation—non-ionising radiation such as that generated by electromagnetic fields produced by such things as cellphone sites power linesWi-Fi and other remote access technologies microwave ovens and ultraviolet tanning machines to name just a few. Non-ionising radiation will continue to be regulated under the relevant health safety environmental and consumer legislation that is already in place. The existing legislation will not be altered as a result of the bill.Significantly it does not alter in any way the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone Disarmament and Arms Control Act the Nuclear-Test-Ban Act and the Atomic Energy Act. As you know these well-established laws deal with nuclear weapons and atomic energy. These matters are outside the scope of the bill. The bill has been drafted to ensure expressly that there is no doubt that these Acts are not affected in any way as a result of the bill. I can therefore assure the House that there is nothing in this bill that alters New Zealand’s position on nuclear weapons or atomic energy. As the title of the bill suggests the fundamental and overriding principle behind this bill is to ensure that the benefits of ionising radiation are available to New Zealanders in the safest way possible. In this regard the bill is comprehensive.The bill provides a clear safety framework covering the entire life cycle of radiation sources that fall within the scope of the bill including their safe disposal. It also introduces requirements around the security or physical protection of radiation sources to account for significant changes in the international environment around security matters. The bill also provides for the development of radiation safety plans the publication of codes of practice the development of emergency preparedness and response plans and the keeping of a register of radiation sources. As one would expect in an area where only the highest standards are acceptable the bill makes provisions for the appointment of enforcement officers with powers of inspection and the ability to issue compliance orders if required. In case they are needed offence provisions with significant penalties are also included in the bill.This bill has been a long time in the making. Public consultation began in 2002 and it was not until 2009 that the Government agreed final policy decisions. Officials developing the bill have been in contact with radiation users groups since 2009. Also included in the development of the bill have been emergency response agencies such as Civil Defence and emergency responders such as the New Zealand Fire Service the New Zealand Police and the New Zealand Defence Force. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has also been closely involved as enactment of the bill will provide a means for New Zealand to ratify the International Convention for theSuppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism and the amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material among other protocol.I consider that the bill provides a comprehensive set of best-practice measures to ensure that the beneficial use of radiation can be available for the benefit of New Zealanders. At the same time the bill ensures that the risks associated with radiation use can be managed to the exacting standards New Zealanders would expect to ensure the health and safety of people and the protection of the environment. It gives me great pleasure that this important piece of legislation can now be considered and I commend it to the House.Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): Labour will be supporting this bill. In fact as the Minister of Police said when introducing this bill on behalf of the Minister of Health it has been a long time in the making. He also said that it was a much-needed update. But things travel very slowly under this Government now in its seventh year. When I was the Minister of Health I was the Minister who had undertaken the very first regulatory impact statement on this particular piece of legislation which was provided in 2004. So it started in 2002; by 2004 there had been wide consultation across many different groups on this particular piece of legislation to update the Radiation Protection Act 1965. So here we are in 2015 and this much-needed update is getting its first reading. I welcome it.I have to say to the Minister that there is a long list of these bills sitting on the Order Paper that started way back all those years ago when I was the Minister of Health—10 years ago when I was the Minister—and are still waiting. For example we have finally got a bill before the select committee that started way back then the Public Health Bill.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Hon ANNETTE KING: Mr Deputy Speaker it is always good to see my favourite cousin in the Chair. Before dinner I was raising with the House the need for this bill and the slow pace at which it has proceeded. Going back to 2002 the Ministry of Health undertook a review of the Radiation Protection Act 1965 and then we had a regulatory impact statement which was prepared in 2004 that identified that there would be net benefits from drafting new legislation. At that stage the intention was to extend the scope of the legislation to include harmful non-ionising radiation but the Government decided in 2009 that the current regulatory regime was satisfactory. Of course when we are talking about non-ionising radiation we are including electromagnetic fields including cellphone towers Wi-Fi microwave ovens ultraviolet tanning machines power lines etc. They are not addressed in this bill. According to the Minister they will continue to be regulated under New Zealand standards.This was raised when I was the Minister and when we look at what has happened since then if we look at the inter-agency committee on the health effects of non-ionising fields at the Ministry of Health it says that the research shows that extremely low frequency electric and magnetic fields cause very little harm to New Zealanders. So the fact that it is not going to be regulated under this bill but will continue to be carried out under New Zealand standards we do not oppose. Unless there is strong evidence to do otherwise then we would say that we should continue with the ministry’s current recommendations. Even the World Health Organization with regard to public health risks posed by electromagnetic fields has said that the epidemiological evidence is weakened one by the methodological problems such as the selection bias; and in addition there really is nothing to suggest that low-level exposures are involved in cancer development. So unless we have better evidence than what we have got then we would support continuing to regulate them through New Zealand standards.What this bill aims to do however is to protect the health and safety of individuals and the environment from the harmful effects of ionising radiation—for example apparatus such as X-ray machines radioactive material that occurs naturally uranium and artificially manufactured cobalt-60. That is what the bill intends to cover. The explanatory note also says that this bill will cover the use the transportation and the disposal of ionising radiation—both as I said man-made and also naturally occurring—in quantities above the stated levels. There is a fundamental requirement that stipulates that the radiation use occurs only when the expected benefit outweighs the risk that exposure must be kept as low as reasonably achievable and that prescribed dose limits must not be exceeded. So that really is the guts of what this bill is about.The bill also does enact a number of other things that are important. It enacts New Zealand’s domestic implementation of the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism and the amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material. It also allows for the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to be appointed by the director to undertake activities in New Zealand. International inspectors must be accompanied by an enforcement officer appointed by the director under clause 39 of the bill. So although these international inspectors have no powers under the bill the accompanying enforcement officers do and they would be authorised to exercise those powers to fulfil New Zealand’s relevant international obligations. The bill also introduces a new regime of authorisations for individuals or organisations using radiation material.So it is a bill that has in it some quite heavy penalties for those who contravene the authorisation or other provisions of the Act. It is a bill whose time has come. It is quite a technical bill. It is a bill that probably many people have already gone to sleep listening to me talking about but it is an important bill for the fact that it is about protecting the health and safety of individuals and the environment and as I said meeting our obligations under a number of international conventions.The Minister when he was speaking talked about the use of radiotherapy and how this bill would play a role in that. Of course radiotherapy is one of our foremost treatments for cancer in New Zealand. Ensuring that it is done the right way and the safety of individuals is protected is very important.The bill also as I said does not cover some other areas the non-ionising area and we have before us at the Health Committee the whole issue of the UV tanning machines. Of course this bill is not going to regulate them. They are under standards. I wonder whether this House will have the courage at the select committee to in fact ban those machines altogether. I think that rather than looking at a standard for our UV tanning machines—we do not need to do that—we could actually follow Australia which has already banned them. In fact I am told that their old machines that they no longer use are being transported over to New Zealand for us to tan and burn New Zealanders and lead to high levels of skin cancer—melanoma. It does not cover it. They will be covered by the standards but I would say to this House that we have got an opportunity to go past the standards by coming back to this House and actually banning UV tanning machines altogether.This bill is much needed. The update is much needed. It has only taken since 2004 to get it here in the House today but we welcome it and we will support it.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you to the member who has just resumed her seat Annette King for what I think is a really helpful contribution and continuing what is the good work in the Health Committee which will be considering after this first reading the Radiation Safety Bill. It will be the second bill before our committee. The Hon Annette King has just referred to the first one that we have been looking at. It is the one around the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill. It is dealing with contact tracing first and foremost but also has provisions around the use of solaria or sunbeds. As was raised by the previous member and the Minister earlier this bill is to do with ionising radiation. I do not presume to be a chemist a physicist a scientist or anything of that nature—Hon Ruth Dyson: Where is Aaron Gilmore when you need him?SIMON O’CONNOR: Yes I will not claim false accolades or knowledge. What we are talking about here is the radiation that liberates or releases electrons in order to create energy. This is electrons basically being taken off atoms and molecules which enables us to undergo an array of radiation-based therapies. Within the medical sphere most of us will know X-rays of course; CT scans have become quite popular as well; and a range of radiation-based therapies. One of the ones that the Minister referred to which this bill will deal with is the use of something like irradiated iodine which has been highly successful around thyroid cancers and the like. For the men on this side of the House brachytherapy—Hon Todd McClay: Oh what’s that?SIMON O’CONNOR: Well I am not really sure I want to indulge the House. It is to do with prostate cancer and the use of irradiated items that are put somewhere—but it is very effective. Again it is a radiation-based system for particularly the other side the other gender. But it can also be used for breast cancer in both males and females. What are effectively like irradiated plastic rods can be inserted into the breast and will be able to isolate the particular cancer. Again with something like brachytherapy an irradiated device or item it is very targeted and as modern medicine neurologists and others will tell you it is a fascinating technology that has been in use for a long time now. I share that briefly I say to my colleagues—briefly—to get a bit of context about what this bill the Radiation Safety Bill is about.We have heard from others who are wondering why the non-ionising forms of treatment are not being covered by this bill. It is a pretty logical distinction for things such as magnetic resonance imaging. People think of magnetic resonance imaging scans in the same way they would think of X-rays and CT scans but a magnetic resonance imaging scan is not using ionising radiation. It is using magnetism; it is non-ionising in the same way that sunbeds or solaria are and in the same way as a whole range of equipment. We have some noted in the bill—everything from cellphone sites power lines and Wi-Fi. Those are quite distinct. I know that some constituents often get concerned about these non-ionising elements. They would be wondering why we are not regulating for say the likes of smart meters Wi-Fi and cellphones in this bill. In terms of the non-ionising it is pretty clear when you read the research in good peer-reviewed scientific journals—in fact we can refer to the New Zealand national radiation authority—that these provide very little harm to New Zealanders. What we are talking about in this bill are these ionising highly radioactive substances that need to be rightly regulated.This bill is about to replace the Radiation Protection Act of 1965. It has served us well. I know there have been some concerns from other side of the House that we have taken a while to get here. Well to use the axiomatic phrase good things take time. The previous Act has been working well but it is time for reform and you are seeing that quite clearly from the National Government in the health sector—a slow and steady approach that is making real differences. I think that when we consider this bill you can see that it is sitting on the back of great work that has been done particularly by this Government in the area of oncology—that is cancer treatment. There are really stunning results that the Government is turning around there. I think it is important to acknowledge particularly those working in the radiotherapy fields—the nurses doctors technicians and so forth who are leading the charge. But it is important that we make sure the legislation is correctly and properly up to date to enable them to do their job for Kiwis and in fact maybe for some in this House in the past or in the future.As has been noted the bill is about modernising the law. That is one of the key elements of this Parliament. It is replacing the existing Act and allowing for the safety and security developments since the 1960s to be incorporated. You will forgive me if I turn to the Bills Digest because there is one thing that I think is quite important here. Whenever we start talking about radiation people often jump to things nuclear for a variety of reasons and they are concerned that this might affect New Zealand’s status. To quote: “Nothing in the Bill affects or derogates from the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone Disarmament and Arms Control Act 1987 and the Nuclear-Test-Ban Act 1999.” In fact: “The provisions of the Bill will apply in conjunction with the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act 1945.”—Paul Foster-Bell: Oh.SIMON O’CONNOR: Mr Foster-Bell I did not actually realise we had one of those. So this bill does not affect the nuclear side but it does actually help New Zealand complete its international obligations around the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism and the amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material. So as people understand New Zealand signs up to an array of agreements from time to time. I think in the House prior we have talked about the bunker oil convention human rights conventions and so on. This bill is also helping to implement a variety of conventions around the radiological space.I talked a bit earlier around some of the human elements to this. I think it needs to be said that particularly in the veterinarian space this bill will also apply. They use similar techniques X-rays and the like for our beloved pets and it goes without saying that obviously there is the industrial and the research side. If you go to any of our universities you will often see the radiation sign up when they are conducting their own research. Again you just need to go to the medical labs and so forth and even our own private medical providers. The bill is ultimately going to establish that a person who deals with radiation must ensure—and I think this is very important because it affects medicine in general—that the expected benefits to people and society outweigh the risks. I am no doctor but I am assuming that when a doctor is making those choices around an oncological treatment like brachytherapy or radiated iodine—I knew I was going to get tongue-twisted on that tonight—will be trying to decide whether the use of this radiation is going to do more harm than good. By its very nature it is doing some form of harm in order to achieve a good in the end but this bill really wants to make that quite key.The bill is making sure that the magnitude of individual doses of ionising radiation that people are going to be exposed to is limited. You begin to see this if you actually go through the bill particularly from schedule 2 onwards. The House should surely look at schedule 2 but for those at home I point out that there are about 20 or 30 pages that list all the different types of radioactive material. I am sure that will be an ongoing list as to what are the acceptable levels but quite important and for those at home who are interested—and of course you can access the website easily enough—schedule 3 begins to outline the dose limits around radiation. What can look like big numbers at times—20 millisieverts or 50 in terms of radiation—are quite low doses. So we are working on that.Schedule 4 is in relation to the Radiation Safety Advisory Council. It is an important element of this bill. Along with dealing with what radiation can be used dosage and so forth we are going to establish a Radiation Safety Advisory Council. It is replacing what was known as the Radiation Protection Advisory Council. We are putting a whole lot of functions in play there again. This is a bill here that is modernising and a bill that I think is showing National’s commitment not only to good legislation clear legislation and timely legislation but legislation that has the health and safety of Kiwis in mind. Speaking as the chair of the committee there are two bills before us already that are immensely symbolic of that as we look at as I said earlier contact tracing how we can better work the epidemiological I suppose whakapapa—for want of a better word—lineage and genealogy of disease. What we are doing around sunbeds that non-ionising side—this bill is not dealing with that because it is being adequately approached there. Then there is this bill in particular around the whole use of radiation. I think that is somewhat of a summation of this bill and I look forward to it coming before my committee.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Can I first of all commend the member who has just resumed his seat for that excellent contribution to a very good bill. A lot of people say of the member Simon O’Connor that he is no Rob Muldoon and I am sure that he would see that in two lights. He might see some good sides to that comment and some bad sides but I have heard people say more recently: “That’s right and he’s no Clem Simich either.” Clem came here to Parliament to give Wellington a message he said. I know that when he left a lot of us were still asking what the message was. I do not think they will be saying that about Simon O’Connor. I think he is very clear about what he wants to contribute in this House. He is the chair of the Health Committee now I understand. Is that correct? Yes he is and I am sure that he will do a very fine job of shepherding this bill through the House.I am not surprised that he got tongue-tied on occasions. I am not even going to attempt to say the terms that he used. I am not on the Health Committee so I do not have to fall into that trap but I actually think that he demonstrated a grasp of the key issues—not only the ones that are contained in this bill but the ones that have been omitted from the bill either because they were not considered a priority or relevant or because the Government made a conscious decision to omit them.I hope it is clear from the comments that our health spokesperson the Hon Annette King has made and from my introductory comments that Labour supports this bill being referred to the select committee. In fact it was a Government led by Labour in the early 2000s that started this process of getting to the Radiation Safety Bill in 2002 instigated by the Hon Annette King who is very knowledgable in this area. She has made some quite provocative comments to the House tonight which I hope are carried forward on to the select committee for the discussion and the submissions. In fact I will be joining in the audience at the select committee to hear the debate around some of the issues that I will mention later in the speech some of them that are omitted from this bill. The Hon Annette King said in 2002 that we need to start a review of this process and that was led by the Ministry of Health.One of the critical reasons for that is that this legislation we are now proposing to amend with this bill is actually dated 1965. That is older than you Mr Deputy Speaker or me—well pretty close to being older than you or me. It is in our age range but it is certainly in need of some substantial revamp given the technological changes that have happened in that time. It is also really important to recognise that people’s attitudes towards exposure to substances that damage deliberately or otherwise have changed quite markedly over that intervening time. People are much less reluctant now to be exposed to chemicals to treatments to therapies to medicines that in the past they would have just taken and said: “This might do me some harm but overall it is for the good.” So we are becoming a little more rigorous in our consideration. That extends also to where food is from how food has been grown and how food has been treated. That is another subject that I want to get on to later in my contribution.One of the purposes of this bill the Radiation Safety Bill is to enable New Zealand to meet its international obligations relating to radiation protection. Obviously that is something that has to be a no-brainer across the House. There would not be a member of this House who does not want us to comply with international obligations but also with radiation safety and security and nuclear non-proliferation under a range of international treaties.I did enjoy hearing the member talk so passionately and give his absolute commitment that this bill would not undermine New Zealand’s nuclear-free stance. How well the National Party has progressed over recent years. It was just a few short years ago that that member’s leader was assuring the country that under a National-led Government the nuclear-free legislation would be “gone by lunchtime”. Those were his very words. And this member is not a new member either. He has been here a little while. He has proven himself to be—[Interruption] He is hungry clearly. He did not make it through dinner time. He is not a new member and giving the House that assurance is really a bit of an indication of how much the National Party has progressed but only in this area—only in this area.Sometimes you do get mixed messages from the National Party. I have heard members of the National Party say they are business-friendly for example. I have heard them say that at public meetings and here they are charging businesses and employees in New Zealand $350 million more than they need to and costing 700 jobs.Paul Foster-Bell: What’s that got to do with this bill? That’s got nothing to do with this bill.Hon RUTH DYSON: It has got to do with people saying one thing and meaning another. There is a term for that which cannot be used in this House so I am not going to. But I was giving that as an example of a second occurrence exactly in line with the contribution that the honourable member Simon O’Connor made when talking about this bill not undermining our nuclear-free status.The link is very obvious. Even for you Mr Foster-Bell the link should be obvious.I just want to raise a couple of matters. One is the issue that my colleague Annette King mentioned and that is the increasing international awareness and concern about the effects that sunbed treatments have on people. In Australia the use is now illegal I think for people of any age. It may be illegal for people under 18 for young people and for children but I am more inclined to think it is a prohibited activity for people of any age. I think that that is something New Zealand really has to turn its mind to. We have a very high incidence in New Zealand of skin cancers of all sorts. We know that they are often not just a lump that can be removed and you are all OK as long as you keep up with the checks. They can be fatal. They can take people’s lives much earlier than when that person needed to die. It has got to be a 101 responsibility of central government to say that if there is harm that is being done to people we need to educate people and perhaps protect them against it by intervention. That is something that the Parliament should at least give consideration to.Annette King threw the gauntlet down on that one and I really want to add to that challenge by saying it is not something I know enough about in terms of the impact the occurrence and the effect in New Zealand but it is an area that I would certainly like the select committee to be looking at and providing us as parliamentarians with more information. Should this be an area where we should be following Australia and taking better measures to protect New Zealanders against something that is clearly doing harm? I think most New Zealanders regard it as a little bit of fun and would not really think of it as doing serious damage particularly damage that could be fatal and cause their premature death.The next point I want to comment on which is not covered in the legislation is the Government’s consideration of importing irradiated fruit and vegetables. This is something that has pretty well slipped under the radar. I do not really know why we would even be considering importing irradiated fruit and vegetables from Queensland when we are currently hosting their fruit flies which we do not want. Irradiation clearly did not do any damage to them because they managed to make it over the border and cause a great threat to our horticultural and agricultural sectors here. Why are we considering importing fruit and vegetables that we actually have growing in New Zealand—apples peaches? These are apples that they will not take in Australia let alone allow it to have even more. Scallopini even. I have got a surplus of scallopini in the garden at the moment so if anyone is a bit short of them come and ask me rather than bringing in irradiated scallopini from overseas from Queensland.That is an area that is not covered in the bill because as Simon O’Connor pointed out in his contribution this bill does not go as far in terms of what areas it covers as the original 2002 consideration the review of the 1965 legislation and then the regulatory impact statement. It has been narrowed a bit. I hope that further contributions in this debate can explain to us—and I think it would be of benefit to all of the House as well as to the select committee—at what stage of the debate those considerations were made to narrow the parameters of the bill and what the reasons were for that. They may well be very justified.This is not a party political piece of legislation actually. It is one that as I have said was started by the Hon Annette King. We thought it was a good idea. It is a little narrower than it may have been. There may be areas that can be added during the select committee process. I hope that the deliberations are rigorous. I hope that despite the perhaps slightly dull nature of the name of the bill—and I am not referring to any contributions; I am not going to rise to that opportunity—there are a lot of submissions and that this receives rigorous debate. It is a very important issue and I am interested in its progress.BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): In 1969 man first walked on the moon. In 1965 the film The Sound of Music was released and the Beatles won their first Grammy. All are memories today and we look back fondly and say: “Oh what a great time the sixties were.” I know there has been comment from the other side of the House about some of us who can remember that and it definitely is within my age range. The Radiation Protection Act was passed in 1965. It is very true how times have changed and I have—[Interruption] He did. Is that when Winston came in? This legislation that we have in front of us is in fact obsolete. It does not reflect the current use of radiation sources and it is inconsistent with international standards.In 2015 it is clear that we need an overhaul of certain pieces of archaic legislation and this Radiation Safety Bill aims to modernise the outdated Radiation Protection Act from 50 years ago. In the past 50 years radiation technology has become far more intricate with the development of techniques that if in the wrong hands could become very dangerous and cause serious damage. Yet radiation technology has also developed for the better particularly in regard to oncology and cancer research and treatment.Seven years ago this National Government inherited some services around the treatment of cancer that were not adequate for New Zealanders where Kiwis needed to go overseas for their treatment. Thankfully now those days are over. This Government has since then invested more than $100 million to support cancer patients in New Zealand. Since then patients have received faster and more effective treatments and New Zealand is now in line with the international standards of 4 to 6 weeks’ waiting time for patients. Investment in radiation technology means that accuracy in targeting cancer is achieved and therefore more New Zealanders are receiving their treatment when they need to and on time. Those patients who need specialist attention in New Zealand benefit today by the Radiation Safety Bill which is before the House. This bill encourages the safe use of radiation techniques and technology and requires every person who uses that radiation source to ensure safety from any adverse effects of radiation.I recently spent some time with the mobile surgical bus. I was very lucky to be able to go and have a look at it as it was sitting outside a hospital in Taumarunui. It was performing a number of standard operations day visits and uncomplicated things that were expected to go without event and it meant that patients could have their treatment far closer to home. As we work in regional areas and we find now that more people obviously cannot live next to a major hospital we are looking more at primary care and we are looking at options for taking medical surgery and a range of other things around the country. I think it is really important in this safety featurethat this legislation is enacted because if it is taken up around the country in more places in the future then we need to be sure that it is safe.I have learnt a huge amount today in my limited knowledge about radiation. You know I actually looked up to see what ionising radiation was. I think the chair of our Health Committee before put it in some quite good words. I am not going to repeat them but it was a big long Wikipedia explanation of what it actually means. Patients actually do not necessarily need to know this. They do not need to understand what it means but they do need to know that it is well understood and that they are protected from any dangers associated with the use of this radiation. So the Radiation Safety Bill will enable the protection of the health and safety of all in New Zealand and it is also protecting the environment from the harmful effects of radiation if it is not used carefully and effectively and is not well monitored.This bill also has provisions for the safe use of radiation in health services and research where it is vital for development. This bill will also enable New Zealand to meet its international obligations. It needs to do this relating to radiation safety and security. The old legislation had no provision for the preparation of safety and security plans by licensed users of radiation or for the registration of radiation sources. This new legislation establishes that all sources of radiation must have relevant authorisation to source and use radiation technologies. At the moment as mentioned earlier the majority of users of radiation technology are those in the health sector who use it for diagnostic and treatment purposes. It is crucial that these services and sources are retained and regulated. However with nearly 4500 licensed users of radiation sources in New Zealand it goes without saying that there may be many sources that currently are not covering what is actually appropriate and that is what we are looking to change in the legislation as far as this bill is concerned.So we have to make sure that what we do and what people are doing out there has no potential to harm New Zealanders and their environment. This bill will ensure that the benefits from radiation usage will outweigh the risk of harm to people and any harm to society and it is imperative that this is adequately and accurately monitored and measured to prevent any mishap and harm that could result. Radiation should not be used unless it is fit for the purpose for which it is intended. Therefore this bill outlines provisions that all reasonable steps must be taken to ensure the safe containment of a radiation source to minimise accidents should they occur.The bill outlines that the general public are not able to use up their own radiation sources and for warranted reasons. If anyone was able to use radiation at their leisure the security of New Zealand and the safety of its citizens would be in a very threatened position. There would be no way to regulate radiation use and no way to make it safe. On this note if people were to use radiation technologies out in the everyday public although they may think they are being careful they might not actually be safe users and they may end up doing more harm or more damage. This bill sets out the consequences of non-compliance—which are extremely justified—with regard to the high intensity of radiation and the damage that can happen when it is misused. To manufacture possess or control a radiation source or even to import or export radioactive material could have adverse damaging effects on New Zealanders and the environment. In summary the benefits of this legislation mean that New Zealand will be in line with international best practice. We will be able to give effect to relevant international standards thereby enhancing New Zealand’s international credibility. Thank you.KEVIN HAGUE (Green): It has been an interesting debate so far—very wide ranging and occasionally tangential. The Green Party generally welcomes this bill. It seems to us that it is obvious that our legislation ought to keep up with a fast-changing field in which New Zealand has both domestic and international obligations. I studied nuclear physics as far as stage 2 but I am far from an expert and I am very much looking forward to hearing what the experts have to say about the actual content of the bill at the Health Committee which I will be pleased to serve on.There is no reason why we should not be passing legislation to complete our implementation of the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism or our agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Indeed this ought to have been done quite some time ago. I do not think there is much that we need to worry about in relation to the international monitoring of our compliance with the production and use of nuclear technology. We also welcome the provisions updating the penalties for a lack of compliance from the 1965 level of a maximum fine of $10000 to a much more reasonable $500000. Coincidentally I think that 1965 was the year of “Yesterday” from the Beatles and also “Nowhere Man” “I’ll Follow the Sun”—Hon Ruth Dyson: No don’t sing it—it’s OK.KEVIN HAGUE: If only Brendan Horan were here. So although we welcome the updating of the legislation the extraordinary degree of harmony in the House over the content of the bill makes it all the more puzzling that it has taken so long for this entirely non-controversial yet urgent bill to actually reach this point. “Slow and steady progress” Simon O’Connor said. Well it is certainly slow. As for steady I think we will have to wait and see.When the regulatory impact statement for this bill was produced back in 2004 the review of the existing legislation the Radiation Protection Act 1965 noted primarily that the legislation does not enable the regulation of non-ionising radiation in practices involving exposure to naturally occurring sources of radiation. This is inconsistent with the Australian National Directory for Radiation Protection. New Zealand is a member of the panel developing the directory and it is a quote from the statement.We do not know why exactly the recommendation to include non-ionising radiation was not pursued by the Government. Simon O’Connor in his contribution argued that that was kind of self-evident. Really the only difference between ionising radiation and non-ionising radiation is in the level of energy: is the level of energy in the radiation sufficient to dislodge electrons from the orbit of an atom? Well that seems to be a fairly slender basis on which to distinguish in the New Zealand legislation.Barbara Kuriger in her contribution just now said that the principal use of ionising radiation was in the health sector and indeed there is significant use in the health sector. But I would argue that actually the greatest use is probably in the houses of most members of Parliament in smoke alarms which all contain pretty much a radioactive isotope of americium. These are subject to the bill and yet the solaria or tanning beds that some of us no doubt might use on occasion are not. There seems to be no rational basis for that difference. Non-ionising radiation as has been covered is used in technology from magnetic resonance imaging to microwave ovens and lasers and also of course in cellphones and Wi-Fi works on radio frequencies that are regulated by New Zealand safety standards.As the bill sets out for ionising radiation non-ionising radiation can also be both helpful and very harmful. So there is no rational reason for distinguishing these two forms of radiation and saying we are going to regulate one by statute and the other through standards. It simply does not make any sense. So let me disabuse you Mr Deputy Speaker and indeed the House of the notion before it begins that the Greens want to regulate all forms of radiation. That is not only literally impossible but also undesirable. However if we are passing legislation controlling the safe use of radiation there is no reason for us not to also be exploring the safe use of non-ionising radiation as well as of ionising radiation just as Australia has done.In Australia the provisions in legislation are aimed at controlling only the harmful effects of non-ionising radiation and currently are used for example in the setting that has already been mentioned this evening: the regulation of sunbeds. Interestingly when a review of the existing legislation was undertaken in New Zealand in 2003 a submission to the Ministry of Health from the Cancer Society asked for exactly the same provisions as exist in the Australian legislation to decrease our very high rate of skin cancers. And as others have mentioned this evening the Health Committee has been hearing many submissions relating to solaria and sunbeds in relation to the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill which Simon O’Connor has mentioned. That bill contains an age limit currently of 18 and essentially puts in practice a code of practice that is currently voluntary and makes it a mandatory code of practice.I do not want to talk too much about the submissions that we have heard but my contention to the House is that the Health Committee which has now finished hearing evidence on the bill has not heard any evidence to support an age of 18. The evidence that we have heard all supports in fact taking the same kind of action that Australian states have taken in banning these things altogether. What I am saying is that just the strength of evidence of the harmful effects of non-ionising radiation makes the argument that is used to justify the provisions of this bill equally applicable to non-ionising radiation. There seems to be no reasonable basis for the alternative approach that the Government has preferred which is in fact a hodgepodge of different regulations and safety standards rather than a consistent approach to regulating the harm associated with non-ionising radiation.It is agreed that certain forms of non-ionising radiation such as UV light and high-intensity lasers can have harmful biological effects. It is recognised by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection which produced the advice used by our Ministry of Health that for example static magnetic fields can cause biological interactions such as vertigo and other sensory perception such as nausea visual sensations and a metallic taste in the mouth as well as the possibility of acute neuro-cognitive effects.It seems bizarre that the approach preferred by this Government will see the X-ray machine in the radiology department of a New Zealand hospital regulated by this legislation but the magnetic resonance imaging equipment just down the corridor not regulated by the legislation. We will be supporting this bill but listening with great interest to the submissions at the select committee and wanting to know why the same standard of safety ought not to be extended to non-ionising radiation. Thank you.BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): New Zealand First supports the Radiation Safety Bill as it basically will bring our legislation into line with the international principles of radiation safety. It is a very technical bill as we have heard from the various speakers tonight. We have heard that the Radiation Protection Act is now 50 years old and amendments are obviously well overdue. A lot has happened in the last 50 years—a huge range of technological and scientific changes—and we in this House need to be on top of what is happening.In New Zealand First we are very supportive of protecting the health and safety of our people and protecting them from the harmful effects of ionising radiation such as that produced by X-ray machines—and of course medical X-rays are the main source of exposure to radiation in New Zealand. Other uses that we have to be mindful of include the injection of radioactive materials or tracers into the body and in manufacturing determining the thickness of metal or checking for cracks or defects. There are many many uses and of course health and safety concerns are always balanced with the potential benefits of radiation use for medical research and medical purposes. So in New Zealand First we are very happy to support this bill’s referral to the Health Committee and we too are going to listen very carefully to what the supporters and the detractors have to say.We believe that although the principles of the bill are sound it does need to be tightened up in some areas and because we are not experts in this field it was easy to go through the bill to find out the areas that we thought needed to be a little more specific or tightened up. We know that that will happen at the Health Committee because it is a great committee. But at this stage we have got a few concerns that I would like to raise. One of the first ones is the effect of non-ionising radiation such as that emitted by tanning machines Wi-Fi routers and cellphone towers because these are all going to be regulated under various health and safety laws and standards. We would really like to know why it was decided to exclude coverage of non-ionising radiation for the purposes of the bill. Already I have been contacted about this very issue.We believe that these health and safety regulations need to be considered in their own right. There is growing concern out there in our communities about the potential harmful effects to our health as a result of exposure to radiation in our everyday lives. There are—and we have heard petitions on this at the Health Committee—many parents who are particularly concerned about their children being exposed to Wi-Fi radiation in schools. What it boils down to is the fact that it is important to have this information available to members of the public. It needs to be transparent it needs to be easy to find and it needs to be in one place.As we have heard from the Health Committee on a previous bill standards for minimum safety practices for sunbed operators are voluntary and they were issued in 2008. It is concerning that a Ministry of Health survey that was carried out in 2013 found that only half of sunbed operators were fully compliant with the guidelines. Given that we have the highest incidence of melanoma in the world New Zealand First believes that as a minimum we must enforce compulsory minimum standards for sunbed operators. Therefore it is timely to review these guidelines. It will be interesting to see whether or not these sunbeds are banned for commercial use but of course that is another subject for an entirely different day. We know that this bill is what is being referred to our select committee at the moment.Looking at the Radiation Safety Bill we see that it requires anyone wishing to manufacture possess control use import export perform a service in relation to or deal with a radiation source to gain authorisation from the Director for Radiation Safety. To manufacture possess or control a radiation source requires a source licence. It is not really clear whether a radiation safety plan is mandatory when applying for a source licence. The bill appears to be quite contradictory on this so that is one area that we are going to be looking at during the select committee process.We believe that it should be a requirement when you are submitting an application and that applicants are required to detail how they will comply with the requirements of the bill and the relevant regulations. These questions need to be addressed in the plan because they are critical to ensuring the safety of all New Zealanders. The plan has to identify any potential risks or adverse effects on people or the environment so it is really critical that we require applicants to complete these sorts of plans. We need to demonstrate that health and safety is really important for our people and for the security of our country so there have to be conditions in place when granting licences. One area of the bill that is quite interesting is where it states that only a “natural person” may apply for a licence. On an initial reading we all think that we are natural people but what it basically means is that it cannot be a corporate body. We are of the opinion that this term needs to be further clarified in the bill.Interestingly enough I have already been approached by a group of dental therapists who cannot be licence holders under the Radiation Protection Act. Only registered dentists can operate a licence under the Act and this means that a dental therapist has to work under the supervision of a dentist when they are actually carrying out X-rays or any form of radiography. We believe that dental therapists should be able to apply for a licence because let us face it we know that the Government wants to provide a faster more effective service and I am sure that the Hon Annette King will also agree with me on this one.The bill does require radiation sources to be registered but currently only records of individual licences are kept. New Zealand First supports this and encourages access to the register to be strictly controlled. We know that it will be the responsibility of the licence holders to register the source of the radiation but we would like to know that it will be followed up to ensure that it is actually done because we believe that it should be a part of the automatic approval process.The bill gives permission to the Director for Radiation Safety to seize a radiation source if it is suspected to be in the possession of someone without authorisation and of course we definitely agree with this. We would like to ensure that the process to agree acceptable radiation levels is really robust. We hope that it is so we will be listening carefully through the select committee process. We would like to know who or what body actually sets the acceptable levels of activity and whether it is likely to protect the public.We also noted with some amusement that there are lower occupational exposure limits for 16 to 18-year-olds. It must be queried as to why once you have your 18th birthday this suddenly means that you can move into this higher level of dose. Does it imply that some conditioning takes place in younger years or is it to do with one’s overall body weight? It is quite an interesting concept there yes.In order for this bill to be fully functional New Zealand First believes that there are a number of issues that need to be fully resourced. We need regular audits to assure New Zealanders that the Government does take their health and safety processes seriously and we will be very interested in the costs relating to this because we want this to carry on. We want the cost to be met by the Government; we do not want anything to be sacrificed. So New Zealand First supports this bill. We will be looking forward to working on it through the select committee process. Thank you.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): One of the enjoyable things about a bill’s first reading is that come the day that the bill is introduced into this Parliament and we are required to stand up and make a contribution on it it means that suddenly we have to turn our attention to something that we might know absolutely nothing about apart from going to the dentist in this case where I get irradiated once a year. I am very lucky to be irradiated once a year—well to be irradiated only in my teeth is what I think I am trying to say. But what is interesting with a first reading is that we have not yet had the benefit of the advice from officials and we have not yet had the benefit of contributions from industry experts or anybody who cares to come and speak to us about bills such as the Radiation Safety Bill. So I have been listeningtoday with my notes and I have had a look at the bill and we will be looking at this bill in the select committee process in a great deal more depth.I have been listening this evening and there were a couple of contributions that have genuinely puzzled me. There is a point that a couple of speakers have made this evening—one was the Green member Kevin Hague and the other was Barbara Stewart the previous speaker from New Zealand First. They made quite a strong point around non-iodising radiation or non-ionising radiation—there you go 2 seconds later and she has her words right—whichuntil just now I had not realised was different from the radiation that is used for industrial medical and agricultural purposes. So that is news and it was news to me. But the point that those two speakers made was that non-ionising radiation is used in devices such as cell towers power lines microwaves etc. etc. and as the Green member helpfully pointed out it really indicates that a level of radiation is being emitted yes. They both lamented the fact that these devices—microwaves power lines and their ilk—are not included in the bill and for the purposes of the point I am trying to make I will talk about microwaves. It seemed to be their strong contention to the House that well maybe these non-ionising devices such as microwaves should be included in the bill.So I listened carefully as one does in this House to one’s colleagues across the House—particularly when they are supporting the bill which I think is very helpful—and it made me wonder about several things. First of all does that mean that these devices are unregulated? The answer to that is no because they are variously regulated by other pieces of legislation like health and safetylegislation environmental legislation and consumer legislation and if you are thinking about microwave ovens then I think consumer legislation comes very much to the fore.So I am thinking about the fact that those non-ionising devices are regulated under their own Acts of Parliament which brings me to the next point that they were making. They contended that devices such as our microwaves should be brought into this bill. I started thinking: “Well what would the impact of that be?”. So for the purposes of extending their argument and testing it I thought: “OK let us run through what would happen if the microwave were brought into this Radiation Safety Bill amendment.” and then I had a look at the main provisions of the bill. I have got a microwave at home as indeed most of us have. If the microwave and its ilk were brought into this bill clause 8 would ensure that “Every person who deals with a radiation source”—a microwave—“must ensure that people and the environment are protected now and in the future from the adverse effects of the radiation source …”. That is good so far. I do not have a problem with that. You have got to keep the kids away from the microwave make sure it is used properly and not put metal in it. Good I can live with that—that is OK.So then I moved on to the next provision which says that the bill establishes that “A person who deals with a radiation source”—a microwave for the purposes of my exposition—“must ensure that … the expected benefits to people and society” of dealing with the radiation source outweigh the risk of harm to people and society and to me that seems a little heavy-handed when one is talking about a microwave—just saying. Then I moved on to the next provision in this bill which says that the bill must “ensure that the magnitude of individual doses of ionising radiation” and I am thinking: “Do you put the thing on for 1 minute? Do you put the thing on for 30 seconds? How much time does it take to defrost a packet of mince?”. So if we bring that into this legislation are we then going to be requiring people to have—and I also read it in the bill—a licence?So is the Opposition in fact contending—Barbara Stewart: No.JACQUI DEAN:—well you know that is the argument. You are saying “No” now but that is the argument that the Opposition was promoting. It was that non-ionising radiation devices such as microwaves and power lines should be brought under the auspices of this bill. So are those members arguing that we need more regulation in New Zealand and should people—for instance me in my kitchen when I am defrosting my packet of mince—need to be licensed users of the devices?What I think I am trying to say to the House is that we are on the first reading of this bill and we have got a long way to go in the select committee process but I think we have to be just a little bit careful when we read our debate notes and we have a look at the bill there on the Table that we perhaps do not jump to conclusions that might indeed be disproved as we go through the select committee process. The last thing that I want to see—the last thing that I want to see—in this bill or in any bill is it adding more regulation that is unnecessary. I believe that it is unnecessary to bring non-ionising devices into this bill because to do so would first of all require the users—and so that is you me and all of us in this House—to then become registered users and to have a licence that would then need to be renewed every 12 months or whatever the regime would be. No we are not going to do that. It is nonsense.The other salient point—and I do not know why the members of the Opposition missed it because it was there in black and white in my notes and seemed to be obvious—is that the microwave in particular is regulated by its own piece of legislation such as the Consumer Guarantees Act. We have various Acts of Parliament that keep up safe from those devices. So that is the first point I want to make.The second point that I would like to make about this bill is the one that many of the other members of this House have also made. We talked about the Beatles. Somewhere in this debate we had a conversation about the Beatles and I think what that was speaking to was the fact that we have had radiating devices around since about the 1960s or even the 1950s and times have changed. The Radiation Protection Act 1965 has had its day.The use of radiating devices is now right through the world of medicine and thank goodness it is. We had a rather uncomfortable exposition by the chairman of the Health Committee who tried to tell us about the use of radiation in treating prostate cancer. We will leave that one right there thank you very much and the less said in the committee about it the better because some of us are quite delicate in that way. But radiation has got uses—seriously—for all of those of us whose family members have been touched by illness and cancer and we just thank God for it under those circumstances. It also has uses in agriculture. It has uses in science and space exploration where I was further doing my homework this evening.So what this bill does is bring up to date the regulation around irradiating devices. I do look forward to its passage through the select committee and I do await our submissions to tell me whether I am in fact wrong when I contend that there is no need for non-ionising devices to be brought into this bill because they are adequately covered in other legislation. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a 5-minute call for the Green Party.MOJO MATHERS (Green): I would like to start by picking up on the point that was made by Jacqui Dean just now around her confusion as to why the Greens were concerned about the exclusion of non-ionising radiation in the Radiation Safety Bill. The point that we are making is that we need a consistent regulatory framework for all forms of harmful radiation. And this is the important part—we are talking about harmful radiation. I do not think anyone is saying that no forms of non-ionising radiation are not harmful and that is the point. We recognise that some forms of non-ionising radiation such as ultraviolet sunbeds are harmful. There is a well-established scientific basis for that level of harm. What we are saying is that we need to bring that into a consistent regulatory framework.We do support the aim of this bill which is around protecting people from harm from radiation and protecting the health and safety of people both consumers and workers. It is abundantly clear as many people have said that the Radiation Protection Act is outdated and that current radiation laws are not really fit for purpose any more because they no longer take into account new technology new information changing attitudes and greater knowledge and understanding of the harm that can be posed by different forms of radiation. This is why Government regulation is so absolutely essential because consumers cannot possibly know when they are being X-rayed or are subjected to radiation for any purpose whatsoever what level is harmful to them. They cannot know if the equipment is working as it should be or that it is fit for purpose. I mean it is stating the obvious—most radiation is invisible and the harmful impacts are not immediately apparent. Sometimes it can take years for accumulated damage to become clear and with that an increased risk of skin cancer and so on.Precisely because of this we the public have to rely on expert knowledge and Government regulation and we have to trust. We place a huge amount of trust—we are placing our health and safety—in the hands of regulators. So we have to have trust that the system is robust and strong. For example I need to have trust that when I go to my dentist and have my 6-monthly X-ray that that is not going to place me at undue risk of some form of tumour in later life. This is the whole point—it is based on trust and it is based on trust in the Government and in the public health experts to set levels and use all the knowledge that is available to them in setting those levels.Whereas this bill is proposing to do that for ionising forms of radiation as my colleague Kevin Hague has said it is well-established that some forms of non-ionising radiation are harmful. This is just simple basic fact. I cannot understand why people are saying: “Oh well we don’t need to consider non-ionising radiation because it’s a different kind of radiation.” The impacts are the same. They have health impacts—some forms do. So the same principles need to apply to both forms of radiation. We need to regulate both of them.The point about microwaves that was made by Jacqui Dean earlier—every point that she was making could equally apply to smoke alarms. You do not want over-regulation of microwaves you do not want over-regulation of smoke alarms but that does not mean to say you should not have some form of regulation and that same regulatory framework should apply equally to microwaves and to smoke alarms. To include smoke alarms but not include microwaves is an inconsistent approach and that is what we are asking for: a consistent approach to both forms of radiation. By excluding non-ionising radiation you are actually going to feed public concerns around the health impacts of these because they cannot understand why. They already have concerns around food irradiation Wi-Fi cellphone towers and so on. I do not think it hurts to include these forms in this piece of legislation.The original 2004 regulatory impact statement proposed to include non-ionising radiation. Our argument is that the legislation should do and it would be consistent with Australia in that approach.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: A 5-minute call from the Labour Party.SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a pleasure to rise and speak following on from that considered contribution from Mojo Mathers on the Radiation Safety Bill. I do want just to remind people who are watching this debate that the contribution before from Jacqui Dean from the National Party is rather interesting when seen in the context that she of course is most famous in this Parliament for writing to Jim Anderton when he was a Minister and asking him what he was going to do to mitigate the risks and the serious harm caused to New Zealanders by their consumption of water. That is what Jacqui Dean is in fact most famous for in this House. I think it pays to remember that. It puts into context her kind of interesting little rant about microwaves when you know some of the background about what she is famous for.It is a pleasure to rise and speak on this bill if somewhat a surprise for me to rise and speak on this bill. I can only think that because it is replacing a piece of legislation that has taken the entire course of my lifetime to replace that perhaps that is why I was chosen to speak on this bill. I do want to just let the House know that Labour does actually support this bill going to the Health Committee because it does of course repeal and replace the Radiation Protection Act 1965. That will be replaced by the Radiation Safety Bill.Of course technology has changed quite a lot in the course of my lifetime. I am not going to go into too much detail about my earliest memories and how technology has changed over the course of that time.Clare Curran: Typewriter.SUE MORONEY: The linotype—we might go back to the linotype but I am not going to age myself that much. Suffice to say that we in this Parliament all accept that over that course of time there have been major technological changes and therefore we need legislation that will keep pace with that.One purpose of the bill is to enable New Zealand to meet its international obligations relating to radiation protection radiation safety and security and nuclear non-proliferation under a range of international treaties. Labour does acknowledge the necessity of updating legislation such as the Radiation Protection Act 1965 to keep pace with technological changes. We also of course support a high level of compliance with international best standards and our commitments to international treaties. Those things are paramount and this piece of legislation does address those issues.As has been well traversed in the debate thus far non-ionising radiation is not covered by this bill but it will continue to be regulated by Standards New Zealand. It was interesting to listen to some of the contributions from the National Party members on this. Of course I want to thank Simon O’Connor for reminding us that it was indeed his party that not that long ago did call into question whether our nuclear-free policy would remain.It actually was his party—Dr Megan Woods: “Gone by lunchtime” they said.SUE MORONEY: I had almost forgotten this actually until I heard his contribution but he did remind us that not that long ago his party said that the nuclear-free policy of this country would be gone by lunchtime—it would be gone by lunchtime. So it is interesting. Maybe that is one of the reasons it has taken the National Government so long to bring this before the House. Perhaps it is embarrassed about the stance that was taken by its party at that stage or maybe that is a dead rat that it is still chewing on; I am not so sure about that.However in my remaining minute I do want to just address the issue that last year more irradiated fruit from Australia was allowed into New Zealand. Labour’s policies of having an independent food safety council and having country-of-origin labelling will help to keep consumers informed about their food choices in that type of environment. Having a food safety council independent from the Ministry for Primary Industries is I think a no-brainer. That was proven about a year ago—or was it a little longer than that—when Fonterra had its scare over botulism.So these are very serious issues that do need to be addressed. They will not be addressed through this bill but I do wish the select committee and the officials good luck with their deliberations. Thank you.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It is a pleasure to rise as a member of the Health Committee to speak on this bill the Radiation Safety Bill in its first reading. The Health Committee is so ably led and chaired by my colleague and friend the member for Tāmaki Simon O’Connor. I am pleased to report to the House that the committee is a collegial committee. It is a constructive committee. It is a committee that does very good work. Tonight I think we have heard some very good presentations some very good debates which give people listening a measure of the solid approach and serious approach taken by members of the Health Committee across the House.In fact I am delighted also to note that unless I have missed anything it sounds to me as if all parties are supporting the first reading of this Radiation Safety Bill and are doing so with a degree of unanimity that is sometimes seldom to occur in this House so that is quite encouraging.I do not have any particular specialty or knowledge about radiation or radiation matters but like most New Zealanders I guess I have got an innate sense that somehow radiation is bad that it is evil that it does bad things to you and that it is not something that humans should get too much of. But when I was doing a little bit of research ahead of this first reading speech tonight I was of course reminded very quickly that there are an awful lot of radiated items—machinery equipment medical bits and pieces and what have you—that actually do help encourage the health and well-being of humans and that radiation in appropriate use and in small doses with the right kind of science and the right kind of background and the right kind of medical approach is in fact very useful. It came as a surprise to me as no doubt it will come as a surprise to people listening that there are actually already some 4300 licensed users of radiation sources in New Zealand.I remember back to my university days when I had an opportunity at the University of Auckland to go into the engineering department. There in the bowels of the engineering department back in the mid-1980s were doors that were locked solidly—quite ominous-looking doors with these big radiation symbols across them. I can remember being quite surprised to see those. But that sort of work—that scientific educational research work that was being done at the University of Auckland back in those days and probably still is being done there today—is the sort of work that this bill seeks to license control and regulate in a way that is modern functional and going to bring us more into an age where the sorts of controls around this radiation equipment whether it be for science health or industry are going to be more appropriate than the old legislation which dates back now 50 years. It is time for a bit of a change.One of the things that I have discovered is that of course there is an awful lot of radiation equipment used for diagnostic health processes. It is used in all kinds of medical treatment and it is something that science has shown us can be extremely useful in fighting some of the dreadful medical malaise that we confront as mere humans on this mortal coil. Given that there are already so many licensed users of radiation-emitting systems devices and treatments it makes absolute sense to now update the legislation modernise it and bring us into line with international best practice around the world.I am pleased to see that the Labour Party the Greens and New Zealand First will be supporting this bill through to the Health Committee where I know—under the chairmanship of Simon O’Connor—the committee will shepherd the bill through and we will be paying very close and careful attention to the various aspects contained in it.A major source of exposure to radiation in New Zealand is of course X-rays. Medical X-rays perform a crucial and important part in our medical system butof course as Barbara Stewart mentioned in her speech to the House tonight dentists are big users of X-rays. So are podiatrists and of course in the veterinarian area they are also using X-rays and radiation equipment. All these sectors that are doing good work in medical science research and animal husbandry areas—these are all sectors of our economy sectors of our society where more radiation is being used constructively than most New Zealanders I think probably would at first give thought to.Then there are the areas that have been referred to by my colleague Jacqui Dean—the non-ionising radiation devices such as lasers and ultrasound. We will be going through the select committee process to actually have a very careful analysis of the pros and cons of non-ionising radiation. But we will also I think want to have a look at what role industry plays in the use of radiation. I was interested to read that radiation materials and equipment are used for things as diverse as measuring the contents of hoppers that contain all kinds of agricultural products. And then of course X-rays of an industrial nature are used to test for welding joints and a whole range of other mechanical components—for cracks faults and all those sorts of things.So once we start delving into this area with what on the face of it may seem to be a slightly dull but worthy bill—one that is simply designed on the face of it to bring New Zealand standards and best practice up to a modern and new appropriate level that is more modern than the 1965 original legislation—we very quickly find that there are many aspects to our day-to-day life where radiation and radiation equipment are used for all sorts of good but can equally be used for harm.I took an opportunity to have a look at the regulatory impact statement and I want to spend a second or two just going through what is wrong with the current old legislation. Why is the change necessary and why do we need to modernise it? Well the legislation that we operate under at the moment does not enable the regulation of non-ionising radiation and practices involving exposure to naturally-occurring sources of radiation. So there is a need for us as a House and as a select committee to focus on that area and I know that we will.Secondly the legislation that exists at the moment places the responsibility for the safety of radiation sources on individual users. That may have been appropriate in the 1960s and it may even have been appropriate for several years after that but in today’s modern world and modern economy it is no longer appropriate and it seems far more sensible in fact to make the business the manager or the operating organisation responsible.Barbara Stewart raised questions about who will be eligible to be a licence holder—who will have a licence to possess is the way that the bill refers to it—and those are subjects that the select committee will I am sure focus on in some detail. The current legislation which we are going to replace with the introduction of this bill does not for instance enable the Ministry of Health to prohibit the use of a radiation source if it is unsafe or has been obtained illegally. In today’s modern world that seems to be an anachronism. It seems to be something that definitely needs attention and addressing by this House and again I know that that is a matter that the select committee will want to spend time addressing.Finally—just in terms of why we need to introduce this new legislation—the current legislative environment makes no provision for the preparation of safety security and emergency plans by licensees. In 1965 the creation of emergency plans and things of that nature were probably relatively unheard of and not something that people paid a lot of attention to but in today’s modern world of course we want to plan and have plans in place for every eventuality particularly if there was to be any kind of problem.That brings us to what is really the public policy objective of this new piece of legislation. I want in closing just to quote from the regulatory impact statement. It says that “The public policy objectives are to protect the health and safety of individuals and the environment from the harmful effects of radiation to ensure the safe and secure management of radiation sources and their uses and to bring New Zealand into line with international best practice and international obligations with respect to the safety and security of radiation sources and their use.” That seems to me to neatly sum up the objectives of the bill. It is a good bill I am looking forward to participating in the select committee process and I commend and endorse the bill to the House.LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much for this opportunity to contribute to this first reading of the Radiation Safety Bill which will be referred to the Health Committee. I am a proud member of that select committee and I look forward to debating the issues that we have heard tonight with my committee members. I want to draw the House’s attention to the relevance of this piece of legislation to the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill. I also want to draw the House’s attention to the process that began in 2002 with the Ministry of Health review of the Radiation Protection Act 1965 which sees us in the House tonight debating this updated piece of legislation. The aim of this bill is to “provide an enhanced legislative framework for radiation safety that responds effectively to the range of technological scientific and organisational changes that have occurred over the last 5 decades while the current Act has been in force.” It also enables “ratification of key relevant international instruments.” Those international instruments are the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism and the Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material.The intention of this bill is to protect the health and safety of people and to protect the environment from the harmful effects of ionising radiation. What are the harmful effects of ionising radiation? They are burns and damage to tissues and organs. They lead to increased cancer risk and they also lead to brain damage in foetuses and to damage of foetal brain development. Of particular note is that non-ionising radiation such as that produced by electromagnetic fields—defined as cellphone towers Wi-Fi microwave ovens ultraviolet tanning machines and power lines—falls outside this bill. It seems to me that the difference between ionised and non-ionised is actually about low frequency and shorter wavelengths. So hold that thought.In terms of non-ionising radiation it is regulated in New Zealand under relevant health safety environmental or consumer legislation. Therein lies the relationship between this piece of legislation and the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill. In New Zealand the Ministry of Health oversees the Inter-agency Committee on the Health Effects of Non-ionising Fields. We monitor in New Zealand research into extremely low-frequency electric and magnetic fields and radiofrequency fields. Every year this group reports to the Director-General of Health—and there are representatives from the Government industry the academic sphere and consumer groups—noting that the World Health Organization (WHO) every year has ongoing projects that investigate possible health effects of these particular cellphone towers Wi-Fi power lines and ultraviolet tanning machines. A report is actually due later this year. There has been research from the International Agency for Research on Cancer which the WHO oversees.Something that I have just read is that actually there is a finding that radiofrequency electromagnetic fields are possibly carcinogenic—that is they cause cancer. And the region at which radiation becomes ionising—so from non-ionising to ionising—is actually not well defined. The relevance to this piece of legislation that we are debating actually has to be seen within the sunbed issue—the ultraviolet tanning machines. We have had submissions before the Health Committee that these particular devices actually increase the risk of melanoma for users. In fact when we look at the statistics here in New Zealand there are 2000 new cases of melanoma every year and 350 deaths. So I think the point about all the debate that we have had in the House tonight between ionising and non-ionising is actually about what causes cancer. It seems to me that there is more and more evidence that is saying that these sunbeds actually do cause cancer and if that is the reality of that particular device or piece of equipment in New Zealand and if the Government is adamant that those devices should not be included in the Radiation Safety Bill then obviously it is incumbent on it to do something about that particular device in the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill.The Cancer Society the Dermatological Society and Melanoma New Zealand—there have been a number of organisations that have made submissions to our select committee that say that in fact these ultraviolet tanning machines are causing cancer. So if the Government as I said earlier—and I noted Jacqui Dean’s contribution tonight. She is also a member of the Health Committee. We are not talking about microwaves and having them licensed. Actually we are very specifically talking about ultraviolet tanning machines. I think the select committee has got an opportunity in the next few weeks when we discuss the summary of submissions and take advice from the officials. I think the evidence is becoming more and more clear that these tanning machines should be banned as they have been in Brazil and as they have been in Australia. If the argument on that side of the House is that non-ionising machines are safe because they do not cause cancer when in fact what we do know now from current research is that these ultraviolet tanning machines actually do cause cancer and do lead to 2000 New Zealanders getting melanoma ever year and 350 New Zealanders dying every year because they have melanoma then it is going to be incumbent on the Government to do something about itwithin the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill.A lot of people have talked about that tonight because the science is not so clear. It may be clear from other people’s perspectives that cellphone towers Wi-Fi power lines and ultraviolet tanning machines are not causing cancer but if the evidence is clear that they are then we as a select committee obviously have an opportunity to review that evidence and to make recommendations to this House about whether or not the non-ionising ultraviolet tanning machines should be taken care of within that piece of legislation. So as a member of the Health Committee I too look forward to the debate and discussion that we will have. It is timely obviously that we have the intersection of these two bills the Radiation Safety Bill and the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill because I think it is incumbent on all of us to always keep principles in the forefront of what we do—principles about health and safety and protecting the interests of all New Zealanders. So I look forward to those discussions and deliberations and hopefully we can have a constructive conversation about ultraviolet sunbeds. And if they do not have a place in our society I hope we have the courage as other countries have to ban them. Kia ora.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Todd McClay—Todd Barclay. My apologies.TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): No worries. Mr McClay will be speaking on the next bill.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I was looking at him earlier. He is coming up next.TODD BARCLAY: I wish I could be speaking on a piece of legislation as fascinating as the tax amendment bill that is up next but unfortunately I will refrain and speak on the Radiation Safety Bill. Like a number of the members who have spoken tonight I am not a member of the Health Committee nor do I claim to know a huge deal to do with radiation but I think that as was the point made by Simon O’Connor earlier on all New Zealanders have an inherent level of appreciation and understanding of the level of dangers and risks associated with radiation. I think that given that originally this piece of legislation came into force in 1965 it is timely to review the current legislation and what it achieves. Just reflecting back to 1965 in fact I was not around. I was not even a twinkle in my mother’s eye at that point. My mother was only 10 years old. I think none the less it just goes to reinforce the fact that this legislation has been in place for quite some time and as times change and as new technologies develop and as new uses for radiation develop it is timely to review how we are legislating and regulating against such uses.I just wanted to pick up on a point that my colleague Jacqui Dean pointed out as well—while we are on the topic of sunbeds just before with the previous speaker. I wanted to make just a reflection on some of the points that Jacqui Dean was making around microwaves. I think they are equally as important potentially from a radiation point of view but probably more from a health and safety point of view. As a user of microwaves on a regular basis for Jimmy’s Pies every now and again you are always cautious that you do not leave a piece of metal equipment such as a fork or a knife in the microwave while you are heating up your pie. But just to concur with the points that Jacqui Dean made I think it is probably appropriate to keep that within health and safety legislation as opposed to the Radiation Safety Bill.As I said I do not sit on the Health Committee but I wanted to acknowledge Simon O’Connor his leadership of that committee and also the rest of the members who do sit on that committee. There is a wealth of experience including previous health Ministers such as the Hon Annette King. That experience cross-party provides a strong level of expertise in considering such an important bill as this. Some of the sources of radiation in New Zealand include medical X-rays industrial manufacturing and research purposes such as research assignments and other projects as talked about at universities and also from consumer goods such as smoke alarms. We have already heard about how the legislation is relatively outdated and it does not necessarily reflect the current use of radiation but going forward I think we have a responsibility for the safety of radiation sources for individual users.One of the points that has been mentioned tonight one of the fundamental changes is the fact that currently—dating back to the 1965 regulations—radiation licences are issued to individual users as opposed to organisations. This is probably an example of how the uses have developed and how organisations now more broadly are using the service. It is more widespread. From an organisation perspective and also an efficiency perspective in issuing licences you would want to ensure that the organisation more broadly takes greater responsibility for the use of radiation.I just wanted to pick up on a point that the Hon Annette King made when she was talking about when she was Minister of Health in 2005 when these regulations were initially first reviewed and how long it has taken for them to be implemented so far. I just pose the question: why did she not do anything a bit earlier in the piece when she had the opportunity as the then Minister of Health? But I suppose that it is a credit to the Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman for taking forward the legislation now. It is great to see that the Hon Annette King who has such a strong passion about this can participate on it from the other side as a member of the select committee now.I just wanted to quote a pretty important statement from the regulatory impact statement which I think sums up the public policy objective around this. It says: “The public policy objectives are to protect the health and safety of individuals and the environment from the harmful effects of radiation to ensure the safe and secure management of radiation sources and their uses and to bring New Zealand into line with international best practice and international obligations with respect to the safety and security of radiation sources and their use.” There are a number of points that are quite salient too within that statement and I think we can see all of those points thoroughly reflected in the main provisions of this bill.I just wanted to talk a little bit about the duties of the licence holder. There are a number of duties that the licence holder must adhere to including with regard to the transportation of the source of the radiation in the first place. One is to ensure that the radiation source is properly maintained and stored. I think this is an important element with regard to the husbandry of the particular equipment that is so dangerous if not used and administered correctly. The second is around ensuring the appropriate security arrangements are in place to avoid accidental or miscellaneous use of radiation sources. It is important given that an individual organisation or user is issued with a licence to ensure the proper use of the radiation source so that it does not fall into the wrong hands and people who are not authorised or might not know how to administer radiation correctly find themselves in possession of such dangerous goods.The next point is not to abandon the radiation source which seems self-explanatory. Following on from that the disposal of the radiation source must be done only in accordance with the regulations. I think it is important on the one hand how you administer the use of radiation in a medical sense a research-related sense or any other industrial sense but equally so it is important how that radiation source is then disposed of following that. It is equally important to ensure that the licence holder properly accounts for and manages the use of that substance from the beginning right to the end to ensure again that it does not fall into the wrong hands. The next point is that the licence holder must comply with the requirements of the radiation safety plan if any is in place. It is another step that the bill introduces to try to ensure the proper use and maintenance of these dangerous goods.I wanted to touch just a little bit on the importance of the investment in radiation because I think one of the main drivers for this bill I suspect is the increased use over the last 50 years of this. I think we have seen it particularly in the health area because of the significant benefits it can bring to the treatment of cancer. I think that it is a shame—I think there would not one person in this House who has not either been directly or indirectly affected whether it be themselves a family member or a friend or an indirect family member by the harm from cancer. I think as we are investing more in trying to curb the existence of cancer we need to be ensuring that we are managing and monitoring the use of the mitigation substances in accordance with that.I think a lot of members tonight have already covered off the various uses of radiation. Just to touch on a couple again that are probably most commonly known to most New Zealanders who come into contact with it on a regular basis it would have to be through the use of X-rays CT scans in oncology regarding many types of cancer including breast cancer and prostate cancer and also in mammograms. Also of course we cannot forget about the extended and broader use of radiation within our universities and other tertiary institutions. I think that is equally as important as the use currently in the health system because the use at an academic level is to try to expand our knowledge and uses within the health system so that they are one and the same.The other point that the Labour members particularly Louisa Wall the last one homed in on quite significantly was the issue of the use of sunbeds. The point has already been made and I think it is worth reiterating that the Health Committee is currently considering this I understand through the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill. I think not to distort the purpose of this bill to the purpose of that one although there is an equally strong argument as to whether or not it is a dangerous use and whether it should be used it is just a question of which piece of legislation it most appropriately fits under. It is good that the chairman of the Health Committee made that point initially tonight and that we can reinforce that. To that end I obviously do not sit on the Health Committee but I support the contributions that the other members who sit on the committee have made tonight. I commend this bill to the House.Bill read a first time.Bill referred to the Health Committee.Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) BillFirst ReadingHon TODD McCLAY (Minister of Revenue): I move That the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider this bill. The purpose of this large omnibus bill is twofold. First it continues the Government’s work in supporting New Zealand businesses to grow by delivering the initiatives and the policy reforms that will help to create a more productive and competitive economy. Second it focuses on the important job of maintaining the tax system over time so that our tax rules remain clear certain and current and so that they work as intended for all taxpayers. With both these considerations in mind the principal items in the bill deliver important changes to ensure that the current tax system does not get in the way of innovative start-up businesses investing in research and development.Proposed changes to the tax rules for research and development were announced in Budget 2014. As part of the Government’s Business Growth Agenda they focus on enabling business innovation. The first set of proposals that the bill deals with are timing difficulties for small innovative start-up firms. These businesses are often unable to use their tax losses in a timely way—or at all—because the tax rules require them to carry their tax losses forward to deduct against future income. For innovative start-up companies this can pose a significant barrier to undertaking research and development compared with larger firms which generally have the ability to offset losses against existing income streams. For this reason the bill addresses this problem by proposing to allow eligible start-up firms undertaking research and development to claim up to 28 percent of their losses from eligible research and development expenditure in any given year. This cash-out will be delivered in the form of a refund and the losses cashed out will be capped at $500000 for the first year increasing by $300000 over each of the next 5 years to $2 million.These proposed changes are intended to provide a temporary timing benefit only and may be thought of as being in the same category as an interest-free loan from the Government. When the business makes a return on its research and development it will be required to repay some or all of the amounts cashed out by either income tax paid by the business or from any gains on a sale. The proposed changes will apply to income years beginning on or after 1 April 2015.Further measures are designed to relieve a problem with the tax rules for businesses undertaking research and development whereby some development expenditure is never able to be deducted for income tax purposes. This sort of business expense is commonly referred to as black hole expenditure. To deal with this problem the bill proposes to enable capitalised development expenditure either to be deducted over time as depreciationor if no depreciable and tangible asset is created including when a research and development project ultimately turns out to be unsuccessful to be taken as a one-off deduction upon write-off for accounting purposes.The proposals in this bill reflect submissions made in response to the Government’s initial proposals to deal with the problem of black hole research and development expenditure. Most significantly the scope of the initial proposals has been widened to also provide tax deductibility for capitalised development expenditure on intangible assets with uncertain useful lives if the intangible asset has been written off for accounting purposes. These proposed changes to the tax rules for research and development will be welcome news for our innovative start-up firms.A third set of changes proposed in the bill will give taxpayers greater certainty over their tax affairs by clarifying the GST rules for bodies corporate. These proposals will give assurance to bodies corporate by confirming that services provided are supplies for GST purposes and by giving bodies corporate the option of registering for GST. This approach should give some comfort to New Zealand’s 13800 bodies corporate on their GST position. Registered bodies corporate will be able to remain registered although those currently unregistered for GST will not be required to do so. This means that the majority of bodies corporate will not need to take any action. There are also several rules to protect the tax base from the adverse consequences of bodies corporate being offered this choice.Although these are the main items in the bill further business-friendly changes are also proposed. These include changes to tax pooling rules to enable pooling funds to be used to meet outstanding interest liabilities arising from an amended tax assessment or resolution of a dispute and to extend the grace period for community housing providers that are removed from the charities register so that they are not subject to the new tax rules on net assets. Other proposals focus on the important task of ensuring that tax rules operate as they should.These amendments reflect part of the tax policy process that reviews the law after implementation to identify any remedial issues that need correcting or clarifying to ensure the original intent is achieved. They include changes to strengthen the controlled foreign companies test grouping rules to prevent unintended tax advantages as well as measures to clarify the tax treatment of income received by individuals from a superannuation scheme residing outside New Zealand.Measures are also proposed to ensure that the intent of the reformed child support scheme is achieved and to focus the Inland Revenue Department’s effort on reducing child support debt which is currently $3.2 billion and rising. This is the first time the system has been reformed since child support was introduced in 1991 and it will deliver a child support scheme that is much fairer to both custodial and liable parents and their children. Along with the changes proposed in the bill it will also ensure greater compliance and a reduction of outstanding child support debt.There are also changes to Working for Families tax credits and the general filing requirements in order to simplify the administration and to remove unnecessary requirements. This includes reversing the filing changes that were enacted in 2012 but are not yet in operation. These changes will be dealt with as part of the Inland Revenue Department’s wider transformation programme. Clarifications are also being made to the recently reformed tax rules relating to Working for Families mixed use assets and employee allowances and to the livestock herd scheme rules.Collectively these changes recognise the importance of maintaining the tax system for all New Zealanders. They are the result of much consultation review and reprioritisation by the Government with businesses and taxpayers so that our tax system remains current and continues to support New Zealand’s economic growth. I commend this bill to the House.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): I must say that I do feel sorry for Todd McClay. He is the ministerial version of the guy walking behind the elephant with the shovel. After 15-plus years of Peter Dunne being Minister of Revenue—I think he holds the record for the person in that portfolio of any Minister of Revenue in the Commonwealth—suddenly we get this piece of legislation and I give Mr McClay credit because he has made the best fist of it. He has polished it up. He has shellacked it a few times. He has got the spin as best he can but I have to say there is the conspiracy theory and the cock-up theory and we certainly have the latter today.He touched on bodies corporate. Well let us have a look at the history of that. On 6 June the then Minister of Revenue announced that bodies corporate were to be deregistered for GST from that date. The result of that of course was that those bodies corporate lost the ability to claim input tax refunds on their expenses even if that expenditure was funded from levies on which GST had already been paid—for example a double tax of GST on the same expenditure. The Minister’s announcement of course overrode the finding in law reached by the Inland Revenue Department. So that was June 2014. This bill that comes before the House is a clean-up is a reversal of that decision. It is a stuff-up a total—Hon Todd McClay: Clarification.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: No no it is a reversal. What it means of course is that this was bad policy. It was bad in principle. It was bad process. It overrode the Inland Revenue Department but I have to say that bodies corporate will welcome the sort of reforming zeal of the present Minister of Revenue because he is prepared to reverse it. But you have to ask this: where has the institutional knowledge in the Inland Revenue Department gone and why has it taken—and this is just strike one—the change of a Minister from a veteran to a newbie for us to find about these sorts of things?Then of course we come to the child support issue. So Mr Dunne the longest-serving revenue Minister in a Commonwealth Parliament says that he looked at this issue and the expenditure went from $30 million to $120 million within a couple of years.Hon Damien O’Connor: How much?Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: From 30 million bucks to 120 million bucks. Now we asked Mr Dunne: “Could you please explain?”. You know it is a bit like Manuel on Fawlty Towers—“Esplain?”. There was silence from a 15-year veteran who took a quarter-of-a-million-buck salary every year for 15 years. Now he has another job and he passed the steamy brown bag with the mess in it to Todd McClay. So then we asked Todd McClay since he took over what has happened. It went from $120 million to $210 million—that has to be some sort of Guinness Book of Records job that one. Then Cabinet decided to paper over the cracks and revise it down to $163 million.Grant Robertson: By not implementing it.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: By not implementing it. I was coming to that bit—by not implementing it. So we have got clauses in this bill tonight to roll back Government policy on child support that was trumpeted before the last election because the Budget blew out.I know how tough it is. I have sympathy. Like Mr McClay I was a Minister. There were late nights. You have to read past the executive summary you have to actually ask some questions and you have to know what questions to ask and sometimes at the weekly staff meeting with your officials when you are dealing with IT projects and the like it pays to say: “Are we on budget? Has it clicked up a notch? Why have we gone up a couple of million bucks?”. Mr Dunne probably waited. Maybe it was like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?—“I will wait until I hit 120 million because we’ve already got 30 million in the locker and then I might wake up and ask the odd question.” Then Todd McClay comes in and says: “No I can do better than that. I’ll wait till it gets to 210 million and then I will go running into the Cabinet room and say: ‘Boys and girls we’ve got a problem. We have to do something.’ ” Then they send the poor chap down here to try to shellac over the problems.So I have to say that this is on top of course of what we now know is a massive blowout—and I look forward to the select committee tomorrow; that will be a cracker—in the business transformation programme. What an oxymoron that is. That is 83 million bucks so you have got $163 million—four times Novopay and counting; at least $83 million that we know of—spent for no gain whatsoever in a “business transformation project”. Well it is transforming all right. It is transforming a lot of money out of the pockets of taxpayers down the toilet and at 250 bucks in stipend per day on accommodation fees and trans-Tasman flights I think it is goingto Accenture to these multiple consultants who fly over every day who write papers and do all sorts of things. It is transforming the Inland Revenue Department. It is transforming it into the best example that we have had since INCIS. So we have had Novopay. The Government has not learnt anything from that. And we now have a budget blowout which we are trying to peel back tonight of 163 million bucks. What has the Government learnt from Novopay? Zero.So I have got to say that I have some sympathy for Todd McClay tonight. He has been sent down here. He has been given the hospital pass. Although he has got associate trade so fair go that must be the sort of gift that keeps on giving. That will get him out of the revenue portfolio when Tim Groser heads off to a diplomatic post at some point. So maybe that is the consolation prize for taking the bullet and taking the hit tonight.But this is serious. This is serious. Who is accountable Minister for the $163 million blowout? We asked some questions last week and not one Minister—not yourself or your 15-year veteran predecessor—would ante up and tell the taxpayer how this blowout occurred. There was some waffly explanation about depreciation and the capital charge. All that proves Minister is that your department has spent a chunk of dough a big chunk of capital. But there is no explanation at all; no accountability. Maybe tomorrow at the Finance and Expenditure Committee we will get some sort of explanation out of the Minister’s departmental head the Commissioner of Inland Revenue. But one would have expected a Minister—although again I have got sympathy for Mr McClay. I think Mr Dunne is around here somewhere in the ether. He is very happy to wax eloquent on all sorts of other issues except a 15-year legacy of hundreds of millions of dollars of blowout under his watch. But at least he had the ability to admit that he sat there and watched it go from $30 million to $120 million and did nothing. He did absolutely nothing.The other measure that has been waxed eloquent on is the research and development so-called cash-out. Here is the difficulty Minister and I will be very interested to hear what your officials have to say on this. Given this is a highly complex instrument that is based on shareholding based on labour to research and development ratios and a whole series of complex formulae not even consistent with the general definition of research and development has he taken into account the need of small to medium sized enterprises—if they want to participate in this—to have a bucketload of professional expensive accounting advice? I can remember the words of Bill English when we were in Government and we introduced proper research and development tax credits. Bill English said: “This will be a joy for the accountants. This will be a joy for the accountants and the tax lawyers. They’ll make all the dough.” Well I wager that no small to medium sized enterprise Minister will be able to deal with this and take full advantage of this unless it has the resources to go and seek expensive tax advice. This is not simple. Small to medium sized enterprises require simple transparent legislation that is workable. It may be well intended but I would put it to this Minister that it is unworkable.So what we have in conclusion tonight is a botched series of policies embarrassing reversals paper-overs some shellacking by the Minister rolling back of many of the parental clauses simply to save money and tinkering around the edges. But the taxpayers have one little bit of certainty. They know that this Minister took the bill from $120 million to $210 million and then revised it back to $163 million and his predecessor took it from $30 million to $120 million. There were no questions asked—because he would have told us—no holding the department to account no saying: “I want to know if we’re going off the rails.” or: “The million-dollar mark is clicking up. No I’m going to monitor this closely.” There was not a thing—asleep at the wheel. Solid Energy I suspect Mark II. And they send the junior Minister down here to try to paper it over at 9.30 at night hoping everybody is asleep.I say Minister that we will support this going to the select committee because that is the tradition with these tax bills. But this will come under close scrutiny. I suspect we will have a large number of submissions from small to medium sized enterprises from the tax fraternity and from others. We will await with bated breath some sort of explanation from the Minister in the chair or maybe—he is around here somewhere—from his veteran 15-year predecessor who went “ker-ching” every day and let the cash flow out of the taxpayer’s pocket down the proverbial.DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): It is a pleasure to take a call on the first reading of the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill.Hon David Cunliffe: More breaks for dairy farmers.DAVID BENNETT: Well it is not actually. If you actually read the bill and looked at the livestock—Hon David Cunliffe: Prove it.DAVID BENNETT: Well we will go to the livestock section then. This is coming from the former leader of the Labour Party. There is what is called a capital gains tax in dairying and that is on stock. And that is the only capital gains tax you have apart from where you sell property within 10 years. So go and see that one Mr Cunliffe and see what it actually means. Mr Cunliffe would love to be able to extend that. But there is something in this bill around the herd scheme livestock and that is around the valuations—that taxable status that you get under the herd scheme for increases in value. So I think Mr Cunliffe should read the bill rather than make accusations in the House.We look forward to this bill progressing through the select committee. I think members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee would like to get their teeth into it. I look forward to working with our officials from the Inland Revenue Department who no doubt will be able to give us some good advice and with the submitters who come to the committee and who will no doubt have their own opinions on how this bill would be presented in the best way possible.The previous speaker the Hon Clayton Cosgrove did not really focus on the bill but there was one thing at the end of his speech that he did talk about and that was the need for some kind of simplicity in tax law. That is a very difficult thing to achieve especially when you are looking at things like deductions and especially in areas like black hole expenditure or foreign investment funds or in research and development. They are not easy areas to deal with in our tax law. They are not things where you can set the simplest of rules and expect to actually have compliance or to actually achieve their purpose. But this bill does look into those three areas along with other areas and intends to provide solutions in that area.One of the first areas that was talked about by the Minister—and it was mentioned just before—was the research and development cash-out tax credits. Basically under the changes that have been looked at in this bill there will be some changes around that to enable research and development - intensive start-up companies to have early access to all or part of their tax losses in the form of a cash receipt rather than carrying those losses forward. So that would be a big advantage to many small or medium sized businesses in New Zealand that feel as the Minister said that they cannot carry those losses forward and have other revenue that would take account of them. So this is something that would be to their benefit.Another area that has been mentioned is in regard to black hole expenditure. The proposed amendments would enable capitalised development expenditure either to be deducted as depreciation or to be deducted upon the intangible asset being written off for accounting purposes. Those amendments would provide relief for black hole expenditure on both successful and unsuccessful research and development. So that is another thing that would assist small and medium sized businesses—and actually larger businesses as well—in terms of that business expenditure that previously was not immediately deductible and was part of the cost of the depreciable asset for income tax purposes and therefore could not have been deducted as depreciation.There are also the GST and body corporate changes. These are to give some clarity to organisations in that area. There are some concerns and some impacts on GST registration for bodies corporate from a tax accounting point of view. This bill seeks to give clarity in those areas so that the bodies corporate have better tax positions in the sense that whether they are GST-registered or not the approach to GST is primarily neutral from a Government perspective. The amendments also include rules on the tax base for any adverse consequences from those changes. This is something that should assist bodies corporate and should assist the Inland Revenue Department in the management of those bodies corporate as well.Those things are significant. They are delicate and detailed tax treatment areas that in many cases will inevitably require professional advicefor many firms. But that is the nature of much tax advice and we should not say that we cannot make these changes or make legislation in this area just because it is going to need professional advice because it is a very complex area. That is something that often happens in this area. Also some changes—Hon David Cunliffe: This is the member’s worst speech of the year.DAVID BENNETT: Well Mr Cunliffe are you up next? I would like to hear your speech.Grant Robertson: Somebody’s trying to avoid talking about something.DAVID BENNETT: Oh that is from the arts graduate who could understand the poem given to us but that was about it.So there are also child support reforms and—Grant Robertson: Oh here he goes.DAVID BENNETT: Yes and—Grant Robertson: Tell us about those.DAVID BENNETT: Well those reforms are going to be great. Basically they should ensure greater compliance and a reduction of child support debt and that is something that all political parties in this House would be looking for. That will be done by clarifying the penalty and write-off rules to ensure that they operate as intended and by bringing forward the commencement of some of the write-off provisions. There have been some changes around child support legislation in this bill which assists in the tax planning.Also there are some other changes in regard to international-type tax treatments. For foreign superannuation there are some changes in regard to the tax treatment around foreign investment funds and also controlled foreign companies. Controlled foreign companies and foreign investment funds are complex areas that often do involve changing legislation as the Inland Revenue Department gets to grip with the changing nature of how business operates in those areas. So this is part of that process of trying to make sure that those rules are as fair and as accurate as possible. There will be some changes around the areas regarding the controlled foreign company test grouping rules and one of the changes is in regard to the acquisition and disposal of a group of controlled foreign companies part-way through an accounting period. So there are a number of changes in that area that would be important in the context of tax.The Working for Families tax credits—there are also changes made here in regard to deposits made by persons in their associated companies and trusts in the main income equalisation scheme. So that is part of the change in this bill as well. Then there are a lot of other minor changes including some issues around the herd scheme tax pooling provisional tax disputes and other parts of the tax system.So overall this is a bill that will cover a lot of tax areas. The main areas are research and development black hole expenditure and child support. Those are the fundamental areas that are being addressed in this bill. But it also covers off a number of other issues that you find in the tax system and this is normal for a tax bill at this stage. There are always some tax planning bills that have to be passed that will encourage a better system and a more accurate ability for us to collect tax also for taxpayers so that they have greater certainty and also so that we get the right payment of tax by the right people. Thank you.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): Is it not interesting that in the two contributions that we have had from the Government speakers so far they have devoted a grand total of around 30 seconds to Part 1 of this bill which is around child support. There is a reason for that. What we discover when we look at the regulatory impact statement and we cast our minds back to the Child Support Amendment Act of 2013 is that Part 1 of this bill is about trying to clean up one of the biggest messes that we have seen in the administration of government in many years. We are talking here about a patch-up job to make sure that there is only additional expenditure of $163 million. That is how bad it has got—it is actually an improvement on the situation when an additional $163 million has to be shelled out.Part 1 of this bill relates to measures around the changing of collection of child support that were supposed to be implemented by 1 April 2013 then by 1 April 2014 and are now being implemented already today for 1 April 2015. And this legislation will not have passed by then so it will be retrospective legislation on legislation that was meant to have been passed 2 years ago. This is incompetence. This is incompetence that is costing New Zealanders hundreds of millions of dollars and it lies at the feet of this Government and of the revenue Ministers Mr Dunne and now Mr McClay.Do not think that this will stop at $163 million because what lies at the heart of the problem here is a capital project—an IT project at the Inland Revenue Department—that is out of control. No one on that side of the House over the last 3 or 4 years has had their hand on the wheel of this project and it has spiralled and spiralled out of control. We are talking about a billion-dollar IT system upgrade that the Inland Revenue Department claims it needs and the costs just keep on increasing. It is going to make Novopay and the stuff-ups around Novopay look like a rounding error in David Bennett’s cheque book reconciliation. This is the biggest stuff-up that this Government has overseen and more details of it will come out.What we learn when we look at the regulatory impact statement on this bill is that the original cost of implementing these child support reforms was $30 million—a big price tag. There were people in the Inland Revenue Department at the time who baulked at that cost. But what is interesting is that as the business case was developed the costs escalated to $120 million—a huge level of expenditure. As those costs escalated one of the reasons they did—and this is from the regulatory impact statement—was that “One of the main assumptions in the business case was that the vast majority of expenditure would be operating cost.” So that means that at the get-go the Government did not even realise that fundamentally changing the way it collects child support might have some IT impacts and it might actually mean that the old clunky Inland Revenue Department system was not going to cope. So the cost escalates from $30 million to $120 million and then as 2013 and 2014 go on as small changes are made to the bill the cost escalates out to $210 million of extra expenditure.We are raising questions in the House every day about how Bill English is going to scrape through to a surplus. Well he has got big problems coming down the line here—here is another $163 million. So it goes out to $210 million and Todd McClay comes in on his white horse to save the day by choosing an option that delays part of the child support reforms. So actually it is not like we are saving the money; the Government is just not implementing part of the reforms. So actually it is still costing $210 million; it is just that today we are approving spending only $163 million of it. This is a shambles and Peter Dunne and Todd McClay have to answer some questions about where the oversight was. Did the National Government learn nothing from Novopay? Did it learn nothing from INCIS? What we have seen here is poor incompetent management of taxpayer money and every head on that side of the House should be down because this falls at the feet of the National Government—the people who tell us that they are great managers of the economy the people who shout and scream across at parties on the other side that they think have ideas for expenditure that might cost a bit of money. Well look after the $163 million. We are not taking it from the National Government any more. This is straight-out incompetence.When we actually go through and look at what was said at the time the Child Support Amendment Bill was passed—and I do want to give credit to the Labour Party members who when the bill went through in late 2012 actually raised with the Government the issues with the implementation of the system. The Labour members said in the minority report: “We continue to have concerns about the adequacy of [the computer system] at Inland Revenue … The Prime Minister admitted [that the system is not up to this]”. It goes on to talk about the fact that although the Inland Revenue Department suggested there would be implementation issues it thought that it could deliver this. It could not. It did not work and no one on that side of the House was keeping watch over the expenditure of taxpayer money.So what we find ourselves with now is a bill that is in front of the House to try to clean up this mess. And we are going to have Government speaker after Government speaker talking about anything else other than that. Yes there are some other measures in this bill that are worthy of consideration and that we must look at. I am sure that other colleagues will talk in more detail about the issue around research and development. But we have had calls consistently from the business community for a simple solution on how to encourage and support research and development and on how to make sure that those companies at the beginning of their lives can invest—but not just at the beginning; onward throughout a company’s life so that they can continually make investment. Companies want certainty; they want simplicity. That is why the Labour Party has consistently proposed a 15 percent research and development tax credit. What we have got in front of us here is a complex system that will benefit a small number of companies and nobody is completely clear yet about how it will really operate.This was an opportunity for the Government to actually adopt a clear and consistent policy. It is worried about the fact that business wants something like the research and development tax credit. But what is being proposed here is a fraction of that in a more complicated way and we will obviously want to ask questions about that when the bill comes back before the House. We recognise on this side of the House that the best kind of tax system is one that is fair one that is simple and one that is appliedconsistently and where there is avoidance it is followed up. There is a failure in this bill on two significant counts on those core principles of a tax system. The first of those is the failure to come up with a decent idea on research and development and the second of those is a child support system that is completely out of control.I might say that electorate MPs from all sides of the House I imagine—and perhaps some list MPs as well—will have been starting to get people coming into their offices in recent days as the first letters about this new system are going out. And there is confusion—there is complete confusion going on. There are so many issues here that we believe the Government has not thought through properly. When the Child Support Amendment Act that is being amended through this bill went through minority reports were issued by the Labour Party the Green Party and New Zealand First. All of us raised concerns about adequacy of payments and about the implications particularly for women of the changed apportionment of care costs. The 28 percent shared care threshold in the legislation is low. It is going to provide a significant concern for a number of parents and they are the ones showing up now in offices saying: “How is this fair?” yet here we are in March 2015 with the legislation finally in front of us for that very thing. It has been implemented in law. People are getting letters telling them that they have got to make these payments and the Inland Revenue Department is not even ready for it. The Inland Revenue Department does not even have a system to manage it today. How could this be managedany more incompetently?We will support this bill going through to the select committee because we have to sort this mess out but mark my words the cost to the taxpayer of this stuff-up—of this failure of management by the National Government—will be hundreds of millions of dollars and this Government must take ownership of its incompetence.JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): In the speeches we have had so far from the Opposition members I have heard them complaining and moaning about things they would like us to be talking about. Well let us just be reminded that this is a tax bill and let us just be reminded that the Labour Party on the other side is the big-spending big-taxing party of Parliament. If the Labour members really want to talk about the issues that New Zealanders are concerned about it is the big-spending monster sitting on the other side of the House and if it were putting forward this tax bill the tax that New Zealanders would be facing would be substantially more.Hon David Cunliffe: What hogwash! Nobody believes you.JAMI-LEE ROSS: I see David Cunliffe interjecting on the other side. Can I say to Mr Cunliffe while I have an opportunity please do not go up those kauri trees because that will provide an incentive for those kauri trees to be felled. So Mr Cunliffe stay away from the kauri trees and stay away from interjecting in Parliament here tonight. I know he is interjecting because he does not like the bill but when Labour proposed about $18 billion of extra spending under his watch which led to thousands of people staying home and not voting Labour he was ashamed. I am glad that Labour is not putting forward this tax bill because that would not be good for New Zealanders. Taxpayers would be very concerned about the bill they would be facing. It is one that we are proud to be bringing to Parliament and one that implements some changes.The Minister of Revenue talked about two new tax measures to support business research and development. Labour talks a lot about research and development but we are the Government that is delivering on research and development for New Zealanders. Through the systems we have put in place there is more research and development taking place in this country and there are more opportunities for research and development to take place. That is important for the country. Innovation is something that this country is very good at. Innovation is something that this country thrives on and prospers on and it is important that research and development is supported by the Government. This Government is delivering in that area. We have already committed to spending $566 million—Hon David Cunliffe: Less than half the OECD average—miserable.JAMI-LEE ROSS:—over 4 years on research and development to grow business research and development. If Mr Cunliffe got out there and talked to real people instead of trees he would probably find that there are people out there who are prospering through research and development grants we are putting in place. Innovative Kiwi businesses in this country are investing in research and development and they will benefit from the tax measures that we announced in Budget 2014 that are put in place in this bill.Loss-making start-up companies will be able to cash out all or part of their tax losses from research and development expenditure. Although all businesses will be allowed tax deductibility for research and development black hole expenditure is currently neither deductible nor able to be depreciated.Hon David Cunliffe: What about Chatham Rock? No rock star.JAMI-LEE ROSS: They keep going on the other side. I feel sorry for them—I feel sorry for them. I feel sorry because they are at a loss as to what to produce for New Zealanders. The member over the other side cannot handle the fact that he was resoundingly defeated last year—resoundingly defeated last year. [Interruption] Well Mr Assistant Speaker if he is going to interject I am going to give it back because New Zealanders sent him a message. I am happy to send him a message here in the House tonight as well.When it comes to this tax bill I want to get back to research and development because it is something that this Government is putting in place new measures to assist with. The two initiatives that are going through in this bill are together estimated to return a net $58 million in tax to innovative companies over the next 4 years and both are part of the Building Innovation stream of the Government’s Business Growth Agenda. The Government is targeting an increase in business research and development to 1 percent of GDP by 2018 to help build long-term growth and prosperity for New Zealand.We heard previously from Mr Robertson about what he believes electorate MPs will be hearing from their constituents. Well I happen to be in an electorate with a very big manufacturing sector that is thriving. I know that members sitting alongside me are in electorates in strong regions that benefit hugely from growth through the innovation that research and development helps to bring to their regions. If anyone wants to hear about what electorate MPs over this side of the House hear about it is the fact that we are supporting business. We are putting in place the economic settings that allow business to grow the economic settings that allow jobs to be created and the economic settings and the tax policies that allow businesses to invest more in their companies and invest more through research and development.We are the Government that is delivering for New Zealanders. This Taxation (Annual Rates for 2015-16 Research and Development and Remedial Matters) Bill is another area in which we are delivering for New Zealanders. With over $1.5 billion in expenditure over 4 years through the research and development grants and then further through the tax changes in this bill we are seeing improvements taking place.Hon David Cunliffe: Desultory performance—desultory.JAMI-LEE ROSS: What is that Mr Cunliffe?Hon David Cunliffe: I say it is rubbish.JAMI-LEE ROSS: It is not rubbish. Mr Cunliffe rubbish was less than 25 percent in the polls. That was rubbish Mr Cunliffe. That was rubbish Mr Cunliffe and that is why he is sitting on that side of the House and not on this side.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 10 p.m.