Volume 648 Week 79 - Thursday 3 July 2008 
Volume 648 Week 79 - Thursday 3 July 2008 
[Volume:648;Page:17177] 
Thursday 3 July 2008 
Madam Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Speaker’s Rulings 
Questions for Oral Answer—Ministers’ Answers 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Yesterday the Hon Dr Nick Smith raised with me the public interest requirement set out in Standing Order 377(1). Standing Order 377(1) requires “an answer that seeks to address the question”. As members cannot hear perhaps we could have the sound up a little. A Minister must give such an answer “if it can be given consistently with the public interest”. The Minister is instructed under Standing Order 377(1) to consider the public interest in framing a reply. In considering consistency with the public interest the Minister may address such principles as privacy commercial sensitivity or national security. But ultimately the judgment of whether a particular reply is consistent with the public interest is for the Minister to make. I refer members to Speakers’ ruling 153/3: “an answer can be absolutely refused if in the opinion of the Minister interrogated the public interest would be imperilled by giving the information sought.” It is not a matter for the Speaker to judge. Nor is it a matter for the member asking the question to suggest that because that member considers the matter to be a matter of public interest the question should be answered in a particular way. 
Privilege 
Judicial Proceedings—Freedom of Speech 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I have received a letter from the Hon David Parker raising as a matter of privilege statements made in the House by Heather Roy on Thursday 26 June 2008 that may be in breach of a suppression order made in the High Court at Nelson on 4 December 2007. Such actions may bring the House into disrepute and may indirectly impede the House in its performance of its functions and thus constitute a contempt but I am not convinced that the immediate matter complained of can genuinely be regarded as tending to impede or obstruct the House in the discharge of its functions. However serious issues regarding the privilege of freedom of speech one of the House’s most fundamental privileges have been raised that I consider do warrant the attention of the House. Consequently I have determined that a general question of privilege does arise in terms of the exercise of the privilege of freedom of speech by members in the context of court orders the implications for the relationship of mutual respect and restraint between the House and the courts and the publishing of the House’s proceedings. The question therefore stands referred to the Privileges Committee. 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I ask just to clarify whether my colleague Heather Roy will be required to appear before the Privileges Committee. It seems to me that the case will revolve round Heather Roy’s statements and it would be unfortunate if she were somehow convicted without the ability to appear. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That is obviously a matter for the committee itself to determine not the Speaker. As I have made clear the matter specifically relating to Heather Roy has not been referred to the Privileges Committee. But I think members are aware that particularly in recent times there have been several instances where members themselves have sought advice and guidance on where exactly the line is drawn in terms of matters relating to the courts and matters before the courts. I think this matter is yet another instance of that type of issue. It seemed appropriate as it does involve a privilege of the House that the Privileges Committee should not look at it in the context of one specific case but should look at the general issues I have set out. 
Business Statement 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Next week the House will go into a 2-week adjournment. When the House resumes it is likely priority will be given to the remaining stages of the New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement Bill to the first readings of the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill the Judicial Matters Bill the Taxation (International Taxation Life Insurance and Remedial Matters) Bill and the Privacy (Cross-border Information) Amendment Bill and to the second reading of the Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 Noting that the Prime Minister recently suggested that the item on the Order Paper under No. 22 the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill may be something that eventually she has to seek a mandate from the country for can the Deputy Prime Minister tell us whether it is likely that this bill will be on the floor of the House in the next 3-week block of Parliament sitting? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I am unable to give the member any advice on that matter at this point. 
Questions to Ministers 
Rail and Ferry Purchase—Financial Return 
1. Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What is the Government’s best estimate of its ongoing financial return from the purchase of rail and ferry assets? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 As the Prime Minister said we are not going into this to make money. Any assessment of financial returns needs to take account of the counterfactual which was continuing subsidies to Toll and indeed increasing subsidies to Toll or major line closures increased roading costs and increased greenhouse gas emissions. The exact negotiation of course around the rate of return sought from the company will be a matter of negotiation between the board and the Government. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I am sorry the House is quite quiet but sitting here I could not hear the answer. We have a problem. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member. Perhaps those who are responsible for the sound system could enable us to hear; otherwise we might have to forgo question time which would be a great pity—joking! 
Rodney Hide 
: Given that that was a primary question and others were similarly affected could we have the answer again? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I will try to project but members must realise I have a cold so I cannot project very much. As the Prime Minister said we are not going into this to make money. Any assessment of financial returns needs to take account of the counterfactual which was continuing—indeed increasing—subsidies to Toll or major line closures increased road costs and increased greenhouse emissions. The actual expected rate of return of course is a matter for negotiation between the shareholding Ministers and the new company. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister tell us whether in making a commitment of some $1.7 billion of investment according to the Prime Minister yesterday the Government has commissioned any analysis of the costs and benefits of purchasing rail and ferry assets; if so who carried out that analysis and when was it completed? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The member’s attempt to distort the Prime Minister’s answer will not go down at all with me. The investment required at the moment is the money to go into the track system which the Government already owns—some $460 million over the next 5 years is planned—and the money to go into the operating business which is $80 million over 5 years for the steady-state case and probably approximately $300 million for the more aggressive investment programme or $392 million in total. That compares with something like $12 billion or $13 billion going into roading and public transport subsidies over that period of time. Toll is expecting a total subsidy in 2008-09 of approximately $90 million. 
Charles Chauvel 
: What reports has the Minister received on what could have happened if the Government had not bought back rail? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: For some considerable time we have been unable to enforce the National Rail Access Agreement and that was against the background that to enforce that agreement would have led in Toll’s view to the implementation of its plan B which implied closing obviously the Overlander passenger service the central North Island section of the main trunk line from Te Kuiti to Palmerston North the Northland line the Taranaki line the Hawke’s Bay line the Napier to Gisborne line the Wairarapa line north of Masterton the Picton to Christchurch line the Greymouth to Hokitika line the Invercargill to Bluff line and the Invercargill to Wairio line. That is actually the counterfactual case. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can we take it from those answers that if Toll was going to shut most of its lines then it was certainly not a viable business; if that is the case why did the Minister pay $900 million to buy them? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: First the member has the figure wrong and second he did not listen to the answer. In order to avoid that happening and for Toll to remain viable without it happening it was expecting $90 million a year in 2008-09 and probably increasing subsidies every year thereafter. 
Hon Bill English 
: Why is it that after committing to an investment of $1.7 billion the answers from the Minister—despite his having several hours’ notice of a question about the ongoing financial return for the purchase of rail and ferry assets—give us the impression that no calculation has been done of ongoing financial return and there has been no analysis of the costs and the benefits of purchasing rail just a public relations and political strategy? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I do love the member getting himself on the wrong side of this issue day after day. The member again misquotes the investment. He does not understand that the track investment occurred irrespective of purchasing the rolling stock operation. He does not understand that if Toll had retained ownership of the rolling stock operation it was looking for large—very large—and ongoing subsidies. He does not understand that Toll never met any of the agreements it had with the Crown in terms of the basic elements. Those are the actual counterfactual cases. If National is arguing for private ownership with line closures— “Make my day!” 
Charles Chauvel 
: Has the Minister had any reports concerning the introduction of wide-gauge track or bullet trains in New Zealand? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Yes I have. I understand that a National Party candidate in the Wellington region a Mr Paul Quinn has argued that we should introduce bullet trains between Auckland and Wellington and reconstruct the entire railway line on a wide-gauge basis. Wide gauge offers very little advantage and probably billions of dollars of investment and the notion for example that we would run a bullet train around the Raurimu Spiral really beggars the imagination. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister explain to the House and to the public why the board of trustees of Tiaho Primary School has to go through an exhaustive 3-year process with multiple plans to get a small amount of money from the Ministry of Education to fix its leaking roofs and sewage-soaked playgrounds but he has gone and committed $1.7 billion to rail with no analysis of the costs and benefits and no calculation of the ongoing financial return? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The member can repeat the figure as long as he likes; that does not make it correct. But from the party that plucked a figure of $1.5 billion out of the air to subsidise largely Telecom—and now everybody is realising what a stupid promise that was—that is really rich indeed when telecommunication companies make large profits without a Government subsidy. Toll could not make a bean unless it had a Government subsidy. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: What reports has the Minister received that suggest the following: “It is completely relevant because whether or not parliamentarians want to accept it in taking on this position we have a huge amount of influence in the change of public policy in this country. It might be a bit uncomfortable but if I am a shareholder of Tranz Rail and I want to get up in this House and start talking about that company then my shareholding is relevant.” and on the issue of Tranz Rail is this quote relevant? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I understand that those comments were made in the House in 2003 by Mr John Key in a debate on the Members of Parliament (Pecuniary Interests) Bill. I agree entirely with those comments for this reason: I can only assume—although the information I have is not such—if that is the case that he sold his shares in Tranz Rail before seeking commercially relevant information through parliamentary questions in 2002. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Given that Mr Key has told this House that he sold his shares in 2003 but he asked seven questions on this issue in October 2002 where do the facts lie now? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: One can only assume the reference to Tranz Rail in that speech in 2003 was some kind of Freudian slip on the part of the member Mr John Key. 
Rodney Hide 
: Can we summarise the Government’s policy as this and contrast it with National’s policy that irrespective of who owns it Labour is prepared to commit $1.5 billion over the next 5 years to keep a loss-making business going which is a cost of $400 for every New Zealander and that the National Party’s position is that it would not do that but it would spend $1.5 billion to help a business that does make a profit? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: On the latter the member is patently correct but on the former of course what the member has to take account of is if there is not an effective and efficient rail system in New Zealand what are the costs and where do they lie? The principal costs are twofold to start with—that is more traffic on roads and more accidents on roads. The costs of those lie with the Government taxpayers and accident compensation levy payers. The other costs are increased greenhouse gas emissions and the responsibility for the cost of those lies entirely with the Government and therefore with taxpayers. 
Health Environment Agriculture and Local Government Ministers—Confidence 
2.  
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence that her Ministers of health environment agriculture and local government are protecting New Zealanders from any major threats to the safety and security of our drinking-water supply? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister)  
on behalf of the  
Prime Minister 
: There are clearly significant issues with our drinking-water supplies. I have confidence that the Ministers mentioned and others are doing their best to address issues such as the supply quality and accessibility of water. Those are complex areas that cover many many aspects of policy. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: How can the Prime Minister be absolutely confident of the safety and security of our drinking water when Watercare Services which supplies Auckland’s water is warning that there is a threat to the future of Auckland’s drinking-water as a result of dairy conversion in the Waikato River catchment where it currently gets a significant amount of water and in the future plans to get even more water? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: There are two answers to that point. Firstly the National Environmental Standard for Sources of Human Drinking Water came into force just last week and secondly the member may not be aware of this but the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations is engaged in very extensive negotiations with both Waikato-Tainui and a range of other iwi about a long-term plan for the cleaning up of the Waikato River. We are of course already committed to some $36.7 million for the cleaning up of Lake Taupo as well as to massive expenditure on the nearby area of the Rotorua lakes of some $72 million over time. Expenditure on the river is likely to exceed those two clean-ups combined. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Can he explain why the special Cabinet committee for the Government’s Sustainable Water Programme of Action that the Prime Minister announced in 2003 has never met and why that lack of ministerial meetings led the Auditor-General to report last year on the poor governance of the programme and little progress being made on water quality; and does that not expose the whole sham of the Prime Minister’s sustainability agenda? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The Prime Minister does not agree with that because of the importance of the matters being dealt with directly by the Cabinet policy committee. A national policy statement on freshwater management is due out soon for public consultation. A national environmental standard for the measurement of water takes is being drafted at the present time. Submissions are being sought on the national environmental standard on ecological flows and water levels. Some progress is being made in terms of the Dairying and Clean Streams Accord. There are discussions with iwi reference groups because that is crucial in matters of water. As I said the Government has committed massive sums to the clean-up of Lake Taupo and the Rotorua lakes already. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: What assurances can the Prime Minister give the residents of Levin Kumara and Karamea that their drinking-water supplies will be safe when the Department of Conservation the West Coast Regional Council and the Animal Health Board have aerial 1080 poison drops targeted for the water-supply catchments of all three towns in the very near future? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: My understanding is that every attempt is made to ensure that those drops do not contaminate the water supply. I am aware of course that some of those interested in hunting use this issue to try to persuade us that the attempt should not be made to wipe out various forms of pest. I am afraid the Government continues to take a different view on that matter. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Is the Prime Minister aware that the Environmental Risk Management Authority somehow considers it safe to aerially dump 1080 poison in a public water catchment area provided that it is not dumped on the supply lake and is more than 100 metres upstream despite sound scientific evidence that 1080 fails to break down adequately in water at typical July winter temperatures; and does she agree that the risk to public health is therefore far too great for such flagrantly reckless operations to continue at this time? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I do not have the information in front of me to be able to give a direct answer to that question. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: How can the Prime Minister be confident as to the safety of drinking water and how can she be confident that the national environmental standard will be sufficient when Watercare Services which has to supply Auckland with safe drinking water clearly does not have confidence in the national environmental standard because it is currently committing resources to fight for a variation in the Waikato regional plan in order to protect the future of the water supply into Auckland; and is it not time we put in place a moratorium on dairy conversion until we can be sure that our water supplies are safe? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Firstly the member should have listened more carefully to the primary answer. I did not say the Prime Minister was satisfied with the state of water supplies in New Zealand as they currently are. If the Government was satisfied it would not be doing the immense amount of work that is under way at the present time. On the second matter I repeat what I said to him before. As part of the negotiations with Waikato-Tainui over their remaining Treaty issues an enormous amount of work is also going on in both negotiations and background work for a long-term plan for the better administration and clean-up of the Waikato River. What that will lead to in terms of some changes in farming practice is yet to be seen but the member will have to learn that these matters have to be discussed with iwi interests as well. If they were not then the Government would certainly end up before the tribunal or in the courts. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Why does she have confidence when Shane Cunis the Watercare Services southern area water supply superintendent stated in a submission that discharges from just one industrial dairy development in the Waikato catchment involving Landcorp could mean “the nitrate increase and increased risk of protozoa would cause a decline in water quality” and “If irrigation was allowed for this one project summer low flows in the Waikato would reduce by a further 13 percent and river nutrient concentrations could go up by 120 percent.”? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The Prime Minister does have confidence in the enormous amount of work being done by Ministers with responsibility in this area. Let me refer the member to one more major Government initiative: the $700 million - plus and eventually $2 billion Fast Forward fund. One of its major purposes is to address issues of sustainable farming practices. This country depends very substantially on farm product exports. We have to find a way of making farming sustainable not a way of closing down farming. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Does the Prime Minister continue to have confidence in the protection of drinking-water supplies when Watercare Services’ submission on an application by a Landcorp partnership for a dairy conversion in the Waikato warned that it would result in more algal blooms and algal impact which would have an impact on the production of safe water—which is obviously Watercare Services’ concern—because it would clog water intake screens increase coagulant demand foul filters increase chlorine demand produce unpleasant taste odours and toxins; and— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The reason why you are hearing a rising tempo in the House is that this is not a question any more; it is becoming a speech. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I draw the member’s attention to the fact that questions and answers should be succinct. We do strive to ensure that that is the case so I ask the member to please summarise his question. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: The summary of the question to the Prime Minister is: why does she continue to have confidence when Watercare Services itself has said that all of those nutrients flowing into the river are increasing the algal blooms and making it much more difficult for Watercare Services to supply Auckland particularly into the future with clean safe water—which I appreciate has to take place at the same time as maintaining farm production? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I refer again to my primary answer from which the member continues to draw a false conclusion to base his pre-written supplementary questions on. In terms of the particular matter that he was referring to and the submission that he made on behalf of Watercare Services this is clearly a matter for a planning consent that will be considered by the appropriate authorities. This Government has faith in the planning processes rather than trying in Parliament to pre-empt by prime ministerial fiat those consent processes. 
Road-user Charges—Increases 
3.  
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: Did she following last year’s increases in road-user charges give Road Transport Forum NZ an assurance that operators would be given a month’s notice of any such increases in the future? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Transport 
: No such assurance was given. The Minister wrote to the Road Transport Forum in April and again in July 2007 acknowledging the concern of the forum that notice needed to be given of any increase in road-user charges. The July letter noted that officials were working with the forum to investigate ways of increasing the notice of increases in road-user charges while not adversely impacting on revenue. No specific assurance was given as to the nature or timing of any particular measure. Officials subsequently indicated to the forum that the Minister had agreed that an appropriate amendment would be included in a bill being prepared to amend the Road User Charges Act of 1977. Again no assurance was given as to any change or the timing of that change. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Why does the Minister continue to deny that such an assurance was given to the Road Transport Forum when an email sent to the chief executive of the forum from the Ministry of Transport on 5 September 2007 said: “I have outlined a proposed solution that the Minister has indicated should be included in an RUC amendment bill to be introduced to the House later this year. The proposed amendment to the RUC Act would mean that 1 month’s notice could be given for any increases in the RUC in future.”? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: The quote given by the member is quite correct but he has failed to acknowledge that no assurance was given on timing or on when indeed the change would be put in place. [ 
Interruption 
] If the members listened to the answer that would help. The Minister’s response to Mr Friedlander a former National Minister will be tabled shortly if approval is given by the Opposition. 
Darien Fenton 
: What reports has the Minister seen on the road-user charges increase? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I have seen a press release issued by the Hon Maurice Williamson in which he says “The increase is estimated to push up the costs of running a 20-tonne truck by more than $56000 a year.” I am advised that in order for that figure to be even remotely possible the most common type of 20-tonne truck would need to travel at an average of wait for it 330 kilometres per hour—that is over 200 miles an hour—24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year. What utter twaddle! 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Why does the Minister of Transport continue to deny that such an assurance was given to the Road Transport Forum when she actually received a letter from its chief executive dated 21 September 2007 stating: “The Ministry of Transport has now advised us that you have agreed to a solution being included in an RUC amendment bill to be introduced to the House later this year. My board have asked me to write to you to thank you for listening to our concerns that I raised with you on behalf of our members and thank you for the steps that you and your officials are taking to address them.”? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: In response I shall quote from the reply of the Minister of Transport to that letter: “You will be aware as I am that had the Government provided further notice of the increases there would have been a significant amount of pre-purchasing of road-user charges at the old RUC rates. This large-scale pre-purchasing would have defeated the purpose of the increase. I understand my officials have informed you that as it stood an additional $18 million of road-user charges was purchased on Friday that is on the Friday between the announcement and the effect as compared with the Friday of the previous week.” This is about hypothecation; it is actually about the amount of moneys going to roading. Maurice Williamson voted against hypothecation. National wants to be on both sides of the issue: it wants to argue one way to the road-user community—the truckies—and it wants to argue the other way to the taxpayer. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Why should anyone believe that the Minister ever intended to implement the 1-month expiry criterion for road-user charges when it was actually her own Labour Government that repealed such a provision in the Act back in March 2002? In other words it was there Labour took it out and now Labour is giving some sort of false promise that it will put it back. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: The member clearly either missed the point or did not understand it. In the notice period of 2 days given for the last road-user charge increase—which by the way was the only road-user charge increase to date in the last 20 years—around $18 million of road-user charges were pre-bought. In other words other road users subsidised the trucking industry as we have done for years. The other thing worth looking at is the amount of evasion of road-user charges going on in the trucking industry but I do not expect that the National Party would ever support concern about that. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why is the Minister troubling the country with this policy when the alternative is to have every road in this country run by four private companies as was proposed in the Jim McClay report to the National Party that was adopted by Maurice Williamson when he was Minister of Transport and as was proposed to a local body conference in Queenstown when he was last Minister? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: Yes it is well known that the National Party is wildly in favour of privatisation. But let us look at what has happened to roading. Total Government investment in roading is forecast to be $3.1 billion in 2008-09 compared with an investment of just over $1 billion in the last year of the National Government’s administration of the country. We have invested three times the amount the money to pay for it has to come from somewhere and the trucking industry should pay its share in the same way that road users who use petrol pay their share. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Does the Minister find it ironic that early this afternoon Mr English was calling for continued taxpayer subsidies of a private rail operator and Mr Williamson is now calling for taxpayer subsidies of heavy-truck operators; does he recognise a taxpayer-funded money-go-round when he sees it? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: There is a very old National Party dictum that goes something like “privatise the profits and socialise the losses”. Certainly in the case of National Party members what they are about is subsidising their mates. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Does the Minister of Transport have any appreciation at all of just how much financial strain the road transport sector is under at present because of skyrocketing fuel costs; did she not think that now would be the very worst time to hit the industry with what some operators could call a killer punch or does she just not really care? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I cannot put my finger on the direct percentages right now but— 
Hon Member 
: Why not? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: —if I am given a moment I will—the increase will amount to something in the order of 1 percent of the operating costs of the trucking industry. The increase in fuel charges is vastly in excess of that; this increase is a relatively small impost compared with the increase in fuel charges as the member himself has admitted. Road users who use petrol have had a vast increase in costs. Road-user charges are something like 8 percent of the operating costs of the trucking industry; the increase will be about 1 percent of the costs. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why did the Minister not have regard to the fact that we need international stabilisation of fuel prices over the short term before imposing such artificial costs now which will exacerbate a current and possibly short-term problem? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: The Minister is right; there are a number of costs that we could consider in terms of running all the roading automotive and transport structures in New Zealand. One of those costs is relicensing fees. To give just one example the cost of relicensing a car in New Zealand is around $200; in most states in Australia the cost is more than $700. The same applies to the trucking industry in terms of licensing costs for heavy motor vehicles. That makes a huge difference in terms of base costs before 1 tonne of freight is carried for 1 kilometre let alone fuel costs. New Zealand has the fifth-lowest fuel costs in the OECD. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Does the Minister not think there is a real conflict of interest here when on the very day that the Government becomes the owner of the competing mode of land transport—namely KiwiRail—it socks the road transport industry with a massive increase in Government charges? What is next: a return to the 40-mile limit on the carriage of goods by trucks or maybe the buying out of trucking companies as well as the ferries the airline and the railways? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: The member is quite right; it was coincidentally on the same day. That is due to the fact that 30 June happens to be the end of the financial year. On the same day changes to road-user charges were also announced as was the National Land Transport Programme which included the State highways forecast—a record $2.7 billion for the development of the New Zealand transport network. The programme more than doubles the 11 percent increase in funding for roading and provides 24 percent more funding for public transport than was provided last year. Currently we have increased the amount of money spent on public transport 15 times. I think we are doing really well. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I seek leave to table four documents. The first is an email from the Ministry of Transport saying the amendment would be made last year. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: The second document that I seek leave to table is a letter from Tony Friedlander to Annette King thanking her for introducing the amendment last year. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: The third document that I seek leave to table is a press release from the Road Transport Forum calling the Minister’s action over the increases a deliberate deception. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. If members object would they please shout it out. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: The fourth document that I seek leave to table is an amendment made to the Act back in March of 2005 that removed the 1-month notification. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I also seek the leave of the House to table four documents. The first two are letters from the Minister of Transport to the Road Transport Forum’s Mr Tony Friedlander on the topic of road-user charges 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table those documents. Is there any objection? 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I think the Minister needs to give an indication of the date of those letters. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I am very happy to do that—10 April 2007 and 9 July 2007 
Documents by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: The next item that I seek leave to table is a report from Brian Rudman seeking any evidence that the National Party and Maurice Williamson have any ideas at all. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: The last document that I seek leave to table is a statement from Maurice Williamson dated 2 July—yesterday—where he outlines how a 20-tonne truck would incur $56000— 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
New Zealand Fast Forward—Implementation 
4.  
Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Agriculture 
: What further steps are being taken to implement the New Zealand Fast Forward initiative? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister of Agriculture) 
: 
 This morning I signed a heads of agreement with six cornerstone investor groups—Dairy New Zealand Fonterra Meat and Wool New Zealand the Meat Industry Association PGG Wrightson and Zespri. Aquaculture New Zealand and the Foundation for Arable Research also made public commitments to contribute to the New Zealand Fast Forward initiative. This is a unique partnership between Government and industry focused on innovation in the pastoral food and related industry sectors. It covers dairy horticulture meat and seafood and it is the single largest boost to innovation in New Zealand history. The Government has made its contribution and with today’s signing I am delighted to see the private sector moving to match it. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: Has the Minister seen any reports of a sector group that will not sign up to the Fast Forward initiative? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: I have not seen any credible sector that is opposed to the fund. Those who are putting their own matching funds into New Zealand Fast Forward include as I have indicated Dairy New Zealand Meat and Wool New Zealand the Meat Industry Association Aquaculture New Zealand Zespri Fonterra and PGG Wrightson. There is one group however that wants it axed—the National Party sector group. The entire primary sector is evidently wrong! National has a better idea—it is promising to axe the fund; it wants to gallop backwards to the failed policies of the past. Wherever I go in New Zealand our primary sector industries are astonished to find that the National Party is opposed to innovation and is acting to undermine our primary sector industries. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: What difference will New Zealand Fast Forward make to New Zealand’s primary industries? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: New Zealand Fast Forward will help achieve a step change in our performance among the industries that form the backbone of our economy. For example Fonterra chief executive Andrew Ferrier said today that the New Zealand Fast Forward fund will enable New Zealand to build on our competitive advantage in agriculture and food production and complement the current investment in primary sector research. Meat Industry Association chief executive Tim Ritchie said that New Zealand pastoral sectors have a long history of world-leading innovation and he went on to say that “The Fast Forward initiative will make a significant contribution to ensuring that this continues and thereby growing New Zealand’s international competitiveness.” We wonder when the National Party will find out anything about those comments. It does not understand. 
Maternity Services Wellington—Review 
5.  
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What matters contributed to the decision to undertake an independent review of maternity services in Wellington? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Health) 
: 
 A recent case at Capital and Coast District Health Board involving an independent midwife was brought to my attention. I was concerned that the district health board’s ability to investigate may be limited because it was not the midwife’s employer. I have asked for the review because I want the specialist review team to look at the interface between the district health board and independent providers and report to me on whether there are issues that require action in order to ensure public safety and confidence. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Why did the Government reject the November 2005 recommendation of the Wellington Coroner that there be an independent review of maternity services following the deaths of two babies in Wellington and also reject a call for an independent review following the Health and Disability Commissioner’s recommendations for stricter midwifery supervision in hospitals—one of the key failures behind the latest tragedy? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I do not believe that the key issue unaccounted for in this latest case is that of internal hospital procedures but I am particularly interested to have regard to the interface between independent and hospital-based midwifery. 
Barbara Stewart 
: Is it true that although Capital and Coast District Health Board investigates all unexpected baby deaths in its facilities the participation of self-employed lead maternity carers in these reviews is voluntary and not all practitioners choose to participate; if so why is such an absence of accountability considered acceptable? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I am advised that lead maternity carers cooperate actively with the district health board. However I concur with the member that it is essential that accountability arrangements are rigorous and this will be covered in the current review. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: If the Government had acted on the recommendations of the Wellington Coroner instead of rejecting them could not this latest tragedy have been avoided? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: What the public will not be able to see is any reference to maternity services in the National Party’s discussion document on health nor will they be able to find any reference to maternity policy in any National Party document because one has not yet been published. I think that in a case as heartfelt and sad as this it is important for us all to focus on solutions rather than politics. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I do not think the Minister addressed the question. Could he please address the question. Does the member want to ask the question again? 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: If the Government had acted on the recommendations of the Wellington Coroner instead of rejecting them could not this latest tragedy have been avoided? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I think it would be as well for all members of the House not to pre-empt the findings of three case-specific reviews currently under way in respect of that case all of which involve quite proper natural justice processes. I am advised that the Health and Disability Commissioner is investigating the coroner is involved and there will of course be a serious and sentinel events review by the district health board. I think we should all extend our sympathy to the family for whom no words can adequately address the suffering they feel and wait for the facts to come out in the proper way through those processes. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: What is the Minister doing now that could not have been done after the recommendations of the Wellington Coroner’s report; and if the Government had acted then on the widespread concern about New Zealand’s maternity services could not that baby be alive today? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: This Minister acted immediately he received the email from Dr Moala by ringing the doctor and finding out whether there was anything that could be done to help the family and what the circumstances of that family were. That was a very difficult and moving phone call. I would respectfully contrast that with the actions of the National Party which received the same email but did not contact either the family or the doctor— 
Bob Clarkson 
: How do you know that? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: —because the doctor told me—but instead without the permission of the family leaked the email to the media in breach of the family’s right to privacy. I think that is one of the saddest and most craven political acts I have seen in my time in this House. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Why will no one in the Government take responsibility for the fact that Ministers opposite failed to act on the recommendation of the Wellington Coroner and if the Government had acted on the recommendations then this latest tragedy may not have occurred? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: As I have explained to the member it is too soon to know whether there could be any possible connection between the recommendations of reports of previous years and this case because we do not have access to the three case reviews that are currently under way on the facts of this case. Now if it turns out that there are lessons to be drawn directly from those I give the member and the family my personal assurance that that action will be taken. 
Accident Compensation Scheme—Changes 
6.  
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
 to the  
Minister for ACC 
: What reports has she received on possible changes to the accident compensation scheme? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Defence) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister for ACC 
: The Minister has seen a report that following questions in the House yesterday the National Party was forced to admit that it was planning to open up the accident compensation scheme to private competition a euphemism for privatisation. She has also seen reports from media such as Radio Live and  
Morning Report 
 
that National members have continued to refuse to front up and be open about what their intentions actually are. That is no doubt because of Crosby/Textor’s advice that although Australian insurance businesses might like that policy the New Zealand public certainly will not. She has also seen reports in the  
Dominion Post 
 that New Zealand business—as against Australian business—reactions to National’s proposals are “surprisingly unenthusiastic”. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: What other reports has the Minister received on reactions to the idea of accident compensation being opened up to private competition? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: There has been a range of reports almost all of them negative about National’s proposed privatisation. For example the convenor of the New Zealand Law Society’s accident compensation committee Don Rennie on  
Breakfast  
this morning said that the proposal would be bad for accident victims and bad for employers. He asked the very good question which National should answer of where if it is bad for accident victims and bad for employers the drive is coming from. Another lawyer John Miller who specialises in accident compensation claims says that National’s plans to restructure the system are “a potential disaster waiting to happen”. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why should New Zealanders struggling to pay their fuel bills their power bills and their food bills believe this Government has any idea of the budgetary pressures they are facing when the Government has just increased the accident compensation levy on petrol by 2c a litre amounting to a 40 percent increase or an extra cost imposition of $120 million per year; and how does the Government justify increasing the accident compensation levy on petrol from 2.3c a litre in 2003 to 9.3c a litre today? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The average New Zealander is a bit brighter than the member asking the question. New Zealanders have travelled across the Tasman and they know that the levies across the Tasman for the very system National is proposing to adopt are two to three times the level of levies in New Zealand. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: Can the Minister elaborate on comments made by John Miller as to why such proposals would be a disaster? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: He makes a lot of points and I refer to just three of them. The first point he makes is the obvious one—that insurances companies are out to make a profit; that is their bottom line. He says they want to get that money back to Australia to the shareholders and the quickest way to get the money back is of course to reduce the claims that are accepted. He says that they are interested in the quick and the dirty getting people off the scheme. Now that is good for the insurance companies but very bad for the victims. Secondly he makes the point that I have just made that the Australian experience has been that the costs are much higher than in New Zealand. Thirdly he says that he does not believe that the National Party’s system would result in costs going down but rather going up. He says that although big business might do well out of it the small businesses—the painters the carpenters the motor mechanics etc—are the ones who will find themselves hard hit by the premiums. So I tell Dr Nick Smith that if he is worried about costs he should listen to what the experts say. They say that National’s cost structures would be much higher to the consumers and much worse for the victims. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I seek leave to table the accident compensation levy orders showing that they have increased from 2.3c per litre of gas in 2003 to 9.3c per litre today. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: There is another report I should have mentioned so I will seek leave to table it. It is from Alan Clayton an Australian compensation analyst who said that under the National Party’s proposal we would totally lose the range of synergies across various accounts and that would add to our costs. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. [ 
Interruption 
] There is objection. If members are going to object could they do it quickly please. I know that sometimes members need to consider but it does help. 
Family Violence—Reporting 
7.  
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: Does she stand by her statement that “I think family violence is being reported more often because people feel more confident to come forward and report it.”? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Defence) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Justice 
: Yes because of the reported increase of 6000 offences in the violence category in 2007 5800 were family violence offences. Many of these would not have been reported but for domestic violence awareness campaigns such as the very successful It’s Not OK and the increased funding that the Government is putting into both agencies and voluntary sector support for victims. 
Simon Power 
: What confidence can victims of family violence have in reporting when an evaluation of family safety teams the Government’s flagship policy for responding to family violence by getting agencies to work together and share information has found that they are struggling precisely because the agencies involved will not collaborate or share information? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The member both in his press release exclusively to the  
Dominion Post 
 and therefore its misleading headline and in what he said today does not reflect accurately what the report states. I will quote from the conclusion of the report; this was a report a year into the implementation—it is what is called a formative report: “All three Teams had achieved some early progress but they had encountered some difficulties.”; again “Such challenges are not unexpected when implementing inter-agency collaborations.”; and thirdly “The National Steering Committee … has since developed measures to provide greater support to the Teams.” 
Louisa Wall 
: Kia ora Madam Speaker tena tatou katoa. What feedback has the Minister had from non-Government agencies closely involved with victims of domestic violence about the progress and direction of the Government’s policies on domestic violence? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Contrary to what the Opposition spokesperson suggests there has been very positive feedback from people who are actually trying to work to resolve the problem as opposed to those simply trying to make political capital out of it. Let me quote Heather Henare head of Women’s Refuge for example. She said that there is enormous support for the initiative that the member tried to rubbish in his comments that she welcomes the collaboration between agencies and that she is very happy with the direction of the initiative. Heather Henare should know; she works in the area trying to improve the situation rather than the member Mr Power who simply tries to exploit it. 
Simon Power 
: Does the Minister stand by the statement of her predecessor the Hon Phil Goff in launching the family safety team pilot on 18 July 2005 when he stated: “a lack of co-ordination and information sharing between agencies has been identified as a critical factor in high-profile domestic deaths … such as those of James Whakaruru and Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson.”; if so does not the same lack of collaboration outlined in this evaluation show that this policy is not getting off to the start that the Government thought it would? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: To answer the two questions: firstly the Hon Annette King always stands behind what Phil Goff whom she deeply admires has said. The second answer is that the very reason that family safety teams were set up was that there was a problem with a lack of collaboration. In a formative evaluation the ministry found at the start of the programme that that problem was still there. It has since addressed those problems and it reports that there has been very significant and positive progress. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Tena koe Madam Speaker; kia ora tatou. Does the Minister agree with the Minister of Maori Affairs in his speech about a Maori response to family violence in August 2007 which ended: “Let’s invest the same energy into this critically important kaupapa as what we invest in economic development.” and what was the scale of investment in the 2008 Budget in the critically important area of kaupapa family violence? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The two things are not inconsistent. They are in fact complementary. We need economic development; that takes economic pressure off people. That is why I am very proud that this Government has achieved the highest levels of economic development and growth of any New Zealand Government in the last 30 years. Secondly I am also proud of this Government because it has invested in this area as the member knows and in the very programmes where the Opposition is now complaining about our advances on what used to be done or rather what was not done in the past when National had the opportunity and did nothing. 
Simon Power 
: Can the Minister confirm despite her alleged deep admiration for the Hon Phil Goff that the 227-page independent evaluation of family safety teams was actually completed on 31 August 2006 but was only released publicly nearly 2 years later after the ministry added a 12-page summary and only after an Official Information Act request from National; and would this report have remained “an internal working document” if it had not been so critical of Government policy? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: To the last question the answer is absolutely yes. It was if the member had chosen to listen before a formative evaluative report done right at the start of the project so that one could work out what the teething problems would be and address them. That was produced for internal consumption. It was of course made available under the Official Information Act and the member would have done well to quote accurately fully and in context from it instead of trying to make political capital out of it. 
Simon Power 
: Can she confirm that the evaluation into family safety teams found that one of the biggest problems was the turnover of members from the agencies involved as well as the delays in replacing vacant positions; if so can she confirm that things have not improved since then when a year after the evaluation one-fifth of the positions on the family safety teams were vacant and some were vacant for as long 6 months—if the Minister wants to talk about accuracy? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Yes I can confirm that and I can confirm it for two reasons. This country has had the tightest labour market that it has had in 28 years. That affects all of my portfolios with a higher level of turnover and a level of vacancies. I can also confirm that the people who work in this area—and in the area of corrections for example—do a very difficult job in trying circumstances and it would be better if that member were to try for a moment to support them instead of constantly slandering them in the efforts that they are making while he simply tries to make political capital out of those efforts. 
Schools—Limited Speed Zones 
8.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: Does she stand by her statement that “In terms of relative transport priorities ‘switching on’ safety around schools must be right up there at the top of any list.”; if so is she prepared to promote or support legislation to make it easier for local authorities to implement speed zones around schools in the interests of child and general pedestrian safety? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Transport 
: Yes. Safety around schools is very important. Legislation passed in 2003 already allows for lower speed limits around schools. Over 70 schools now have 40-kilometre-per-hour variable speed limits installed and local authorities are considering further applications. In fact Land Transport New Zealand has developed guidelines to assist local authorities following a year 2000 trial in Christchurch to implement these variable speed limits in school zones and elsewhere around the country there are over 50 such zones in place. The Government obviously supports such initiatives. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Can I ask the Minister whether despite what the Hon Harry Duynhoven has just said she finds it acceptable that the Tauranga City Council has introduced a by-law to lower the speed outside schools which is supported by Western Bay of Plenty police traffic chief Senior Sergeant Ian Campion yet there still remains a potential risk that Land Transport New Zealand will not support the by-law; and can she assure the House that Land Transport New Zealand does its utmost to support local authorities when they request that such changes be made? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I have experience in my own electorate of just such a situation occurring. In that case after discussion between Land Transport New Zealand Transit in that case and the local district council a decision was reached where the speed limit would be lowered around schools. This matter is regularly reviewed especially on heavy traffic roads and I think every 2 years or so on main routes. Land Transport New Zealand works very cooperatively with local authorities to try to arrive at the safest solution that is consistent with not impeding traffic flows. 
Peter Brown 
: Does the Minister believe that speed zones around all schools should be better advertised so that they are more readily understood and as such become part of the national road safety programme; if so can the Minister advise what is happening in that direction? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: A number of initiatives are taking place around schools. I am sure the member will be aware that since February last year the police have strictly enforced the speed limits within 250 metres of each side of a school’s boundary. That means that if someone drives past a school at more than 50 kilometres per hour that person will be ticketed. This reflects the Government’s view that speeds around schools are a major public health and safety issue and school principals have appeared in Land Transport advertising promotions on television etc. to talk about why speeds around schools need to be reduced. 
Sue Moroney 
: What reports has the Minister seen on the Government’s commitment to safety around schools? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: There have been a number of reports but one that I have just received is a letter from councillor Dave MacPherson of Hamilton advising me of the overwhelming support for the initiatives we have taken to reduce speed to 40 kilometres per hour around schools in Hamilton City. I know that the Minister was a great advocate of that initiative and officiated when the first installation of variable speed signs around schools went live in that city. 
Peter Brown 
: What are Transit’s criteria for decreasing speed limits near schools on State highways and does the Minister find it acceptable that a long-time campaigner for lower speeds outside Tauriko School was told by a Transit official last year regarding speed limits that even a child being killed outside the school would not make a difference; and if Transit’s decisions are not influenced by children being killed what the dickens does influence them? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: First of all I find it most regrettable and unacceptable that an official would make such a comment. I want to state that right at the beginning. Transit does have a number of criteria including of course the volume of traffic the number of vehicles per hour speeds etc. and the type of environment in which the school is situated. One of the things that has been done around the country is that for schools in situations where their pupils may be at risk from traffic a great deal of effort and money have gone into providing things like off-road parking bays bus parking places off the highways etc. We do have a real problem in New Zealand because in many cases we have relatively lightly travelled country or rural roads—or State highways even—with traffic that drives at 100 kilometres per hour and we have very young children who come straight out from school and on to those roads. That is a huge issue. It does take a lot of managing and Land Transport New Zealand Transit and local roading authorities work together to try to arrive at the best and safest solution in each individual circumstance. 
Child Support—Enforcement 
9.  
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
 to the  
Minister of Revenue 
: Is he satisfied with the enforcement of child support in New Zealand given that total child support debt has increased from $380 million in 2000 to over $1.27 billion; if so why? 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue) 
: 
 Yes. I believe that the Inland Revenue Department does an excellent job given the practicalities of the world in which we live. Since the child support scheme was introduced in 1992 the department has collected 88.4 percent of the child support assessed—that is as at 31 March 2008. That collection figure compares more than favourably with the 40.7 percent collection rate achieved before the introduction of the 1992 scheme. 
Judith Collins 
: Is it not true that one-third of the $1.27 billion is owed by parents who have taken off to Australia and that 8000 of the 11000 liable parents in Australia owe more than $5000 each in child support? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: What I can tell the member is that as at 31 March this year payments were being collected from over 9000 liable parents in Australia and the Inland Revenue Department was collecting from approximately 4650 Australian liable parents in New Zealand. I can also tell the member that between July 2000 and March 2008 the department collected about $30 million from Australian liable parents and received $44.5 million from Australia for New Zealand parents. The sum collected from Australia in the year ended 30 June was $20.6 million as opposed to $13.3 million last year. So we are actually collecting more and we are giving more back to parents and New Zealand children. 
Judith Collins 
: Does he agree with a former Associate Minister of Revenue David Cunliffe who said that preventing people with child support debt from leaving the country would be “Draconian”; if so can he explain why it is OK to interrupt the travel plans of people who have not paid their parking and speeding fines but applying the same principle to child support debt is Draconian and therefore they can come and go as they please? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: The member may well be aware that come September of this year we will have good customs data-matching between Australia and New Zealand in terms of who is coming and going. She might also be interested in the following statistics. In the 9 months ended March of this year the Inland Revenue Department commenced legal proceedings against 91 liable parents. Of those 91 40 went to examination before a judge 46 distress warrants and charging orders were issued over property there were three arrest warrants and there were two orders for the sale of property. The member may be worried that only three arrest warrants were issued. That is because normally about 80 percent of the parents who are affected decide that it is better to pay up on the spot rather than go through the process that has been outlined. 
Nicky Wagner 
: Is it true that there are numerous instances of the Inland Revenue Department failing to take action against parents who have taken off to Australia who fail to pay child support but who can afford to return to New Zealand for holidays? One of my constituents has spent almost a decade pleading for the department to enforce the child support obligations of the father of her two children even providing flight details at one point. That father has eight children by five women and stopped paying child support in 2000 when he moved to Australia to take up a highly paid managerial position. What possible reason can there be for allowing this man to ignore his obligations to his children? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: I indicated in response to an earlier supplementary question that over 9000 cases are currently being pursued in Australia with liable parents based there paying money back to New Zealand. I would simply make the point to the member—my not having the benefit of the individual details she referred to—that often the information that is provided is incomplete but where it is able to be followed up it is and that is evidenced by the fact that last year we collected over $44 million from liable New Zealand parents based in Australia. That figure was up from $13.3 million. 
Judith Collins 
: When total child support debt is over $1.27 billion and one-third of that debt is owed by people who have taken off to Australia is it not time to adopt the Australian Child Support Agency’s approach to child support defaulters as outlined in its 2008-10 strategic plan where it promises to increase the number of its departure prohibition orders from 474 last year to 5000; is Australia a more Draconian country or does its Government take child support more seriously than this Minister’s Government does which is happy to stop people from leaving who have not paid their parking or speeding fines but cannot be bothered to stop child support debtors? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: I would remind the member that the collection rate over the 15 years that the current scheme has been in place is more than twice the collection rate of the scheme that preceded it. I would also remind her that the level of collection is actually increasing. I would also remind her that the number of liable parents being identified is increasing. The responsibility of ensuring that parents meet their obligations to their children is being taken extremely seriously. 
Poverty Reduction—Government Action 
10.  
H V ROSS ROBERTSON (Labour—Manukau East) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: What reports has she received regarding the Government’s action to reduce poverty in New Zealand? 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 Today I welcomed the Ministry of Social Development’s household incomes report which shows that on every measure child poverty has fallen since 2004. The report’s finding confirms that the Government’s policies including the Working for Families package are having a real and positive impact on low-income families. I expect to see further improvement in the household incomes report next year which will include the impact of the April 2007 increases in family tax credits. 
H V Ross Robertson 
: Can the Minister tell the House what the Government is doing to respond to families struggling as a result of food price increases? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: In Budget 2008 the Government responded to rising prices by cutting taxes and bringing forward inflation adjustments to Working for Families tax credits. Today I have announced further action targeted at those most in need. Assistance available through special-needs grants for food will be doubled and the limit will be raised for other emergency special-needs grants. I also outlined today the next steps towards a core benefit. The Government will remove the stereotyped language and bureaucracy so that people are treated as individuals rather than as categories. This Government’s focus on supporting those on benefits into paid work continues. 
Judith Collins 
: Is she now saying that there will be a single core benefit for all beneficiaries; is that the same single core benefit that was first promised by Michael Cullen in 1989 when he was the Minister of Social Welfare and was re-promised by Steve Maharey in 2002 and again in 2005 and is it the same benefit that she is announcing yet again today or is it just another desperate attempt to hide the massive increases in the numbers on the sickness benefit and the invalids benefit under her watch? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: As the member knows I did say that phase 2 of the core benefit work would be announced before the middle of the year. I apologise to her that I am 4 days late. What has been announced today is a range of service delivery improvements including changes to the annual review process which positively affect over 300000 clients; a new job-matching tool; building integrated case management into service delivery; establishing additional community link centres where not just several Government agencies but also non-governmental organisations work together; expansion of the health and rehabilitation services; and changes to the way that Work and Income communicates with its clients. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Kia ora ano tatou. What support will she offer to KidsCan to emphasise how significant the issue of child poverty has become given that the All Blacks endorse this organisation which amongst other things has handed out 240000 meals a year to disadvantaged children and 17000 Adidas raincoats to children in 68 low-decile schools around the country? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I understand the point the member is making. The announcements I have made today do two things. First of all they show that our overall Government policies have for the first time since the late 1980s reversed the trend of the 1990s which was literally when the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. The household income survey today reverses that trend for the first time since the 1980s reducing that inequality. Secondly they also acknowledge the very real need that a number of families are feeling at the moment with regard particularly to increased transport and food costs. That is why those additional supports are being released. 
Education Ministry—School Properties 
11.  
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Is he satisfied that the Ministry of Education is managing school properties well; if so why? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Generally yes; but as the House heard yesterday there are examples where the Ministry of Education should have done better. I have directed that the property issues brought to my attention this week be fixed with speed. The ministry is reviewing how it manages the school property portfolio and I am assured that the Secretary for Education is taking a very close interest in this matter. 
Anne Tolley 
: Is the lesson to be learnt from the experience of Tiaho Primary School in Wairoa that if schools have problems with sewage no heating in classrooms leaking buildings and stench-ridden toilets they should not spend time filling out three property plans they should not spend $24000 on consultants and they should not go to 25 meetings with Ministry of Education officials; instead they should go to  
Close Up 
 because then they will get action overnight from the Minister? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: No. The lesson to be learnt from the experience of that school is that this Government has put over $3 billion extra into school property is absolutely committed to a first-class education system is passionate about education has invested— 
Hon Bill English 
: Wassup! 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I have just been asked what is up. I will tell the House what is up. This Government has put $5 billion extra into education. 
Jill Pettis 
: Can the Minister further outline to the House what investment the Labour-led Government has put into school property? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I am delighted to tell the House that we have put in a great deal. Since 2001 we have allocated $3.3 billion to schools to upgrade and maintain property and to build new schools and classrooms. These projects include $18 million for Porirua College for its rebuild and $31.5 million for the brand new Albany Junior High School. In stark contrast National’s education spokesperson Anne Tolley recently told 200 primary school principals in Auckland that National would not put any more money into education. What she forgot to tell them was that Mr Key has already promised to double the funding for private schools which educate just 6 percent of our students. 
Anne Tolley 
: Did the Minister ring up the Ministry of Education after watching Television One last night which showed a Papamoa school that also has leaky buildings; and can he tell the House why for the second night in a row he did not front up to explain to the public why his ministry has failed to provide the very basic requirements of classrooms where children are learning rather than shivering and school-grounds where they are not having to dodge sewage? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: What I can tell the House about is a very interesting conversation with the principal of the school at Papamoa. He said he was really embarrassed about last night’s programme. He had not gone to the media but funnily enough Tony Ryall and Bob Clarkson who had visited the school a week before did. 
Chris Tremain 
: Will the Minister be ringing the Ministry of Education to ask it to explain why Napier Intermediate School whose toilet blocks are in such a bad condition that young girls will not go near them and whose classrooms are so old that they are falling apart has to continually butt heads against the wall of education bureaucracy without making any progress; does Napier Intermediate School need to go on television too before it will get acceptable toilet and classroom facilities? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: What I can tell the House is that last week I visited Napier Intermediate School. I looked at the facilities that the member has raised and I am confident that the school is in for a major upgrade. 
Jo Goodhew 
: Will the Minister be ringing up the Ministry of Education and telling it to action the Waitaki Valley School rebuild programme which was promised 4½ years ago when his colleague Trevor Mallard went around brutally closing and merging schools but which has seen no progress since then; should the school contact a television station to get the rebuild started? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I can assure that school along with every other school in New Zealand that $3.3 billion has been committed to repairing and expanding schools and a total of $5 billion extra has gone into education. We are a Government that is proud to support education. I did not tell 200 primary school principals in Auckland last week that my party would not put any more money into education; that is what Anne Tolley told them. 
Dail Jones 
: What action has been taken in respect of Albany Senior High School by the local member of Parliament over the last 6 years bearing in mind that this school has been planned for a long time and despite the failure on the part of the local member—who I understand is Mr John Key—to deal with the Minister— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would the member please just ask his question. 
Dail Jones 
: —we now have a situation where senior high school children are housed in prefabs on the old site and we are running the risk of the new school never being built and young children and their parents being totally disillusioned by the lack of work on the part of— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The member will please be seated. The member was testing not only my patience but that of every member in the House. Members know that they do not make speeches. If they want to ask supplementary questions they should think about them before they stand. 
Dail Jones 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I was asking a supplementary question. Supplementary questions tend to be heard in a degree of silence. I was being totally put off my effort to point out the failure of John Key to do anything in this area. If the members from the National Party had not raised a continual barrage of noise I would have been in a much better position to ask my question. I ask you to protect members who are subjected to such barrages when supplementary— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The member goes on too much. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I cannot comment on what the local member has done but I can say that I have met with parents and I have had extensive dealings with Albany Junior High School. We are working closely with the North Shore City Council and the Auckland Regional Council to work through the consent process. We have set aside over $70 million to have the project completed. The Labour-led Government is committed to resourcing education. It has set aside over $70 million for Albany Senior High School. That shows our commitment to education in this country. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Can the Minister confirm that John Key has made representations to him has worked with the local community constructively and has been joined by his colleague the Hon Murray McCully in trying to get a reasonable outcome in the case of Albany Senior High School? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I cannot comment on what engagement has taken place locally but I can confirm that I have had a discussion with Mr McCully and Mr Key on one occasion over this issue. 
Jo Goodhew 
: I seek leave to table a report of 6 December 2006 stating the view of a Labour Party spokesman that the Waitaki Valley School had a way forward and was already sorted— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Immigration Minister—Mary Anne Thompson 
12.  
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
 to the  
Minister of Immigration 
: When was a Minister of Immigration first made aware that Mary Anne Thompson was the staff member at the centre of an investigation into unlawful decision-making in the Immigration Service? 
Hon SHANE JONES (Acting Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I am advised that the former Minister of Immigration was briefed in April 2007 about a situation where Mary Anne Thompson’s family members had obtained residence in circumstances that appeared irregular. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Just to get this clear was the Minister of Immigration at the time David Cunliffe told that the inquiry involved the head of the Immigration Service Mary Anne Thompson? 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: I repeat the answer I have been given— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Answer the question. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: Mr Smith just because puku is sitting next to cuckoo calm down! On behalf of the Minister— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: No—would the Minister please be seated. That is unacceptable. That is just unacceptable. I know that interjections do provoke a response and then we get disorder which is exactly what happened. So I will ask all members to restrain themselves. The Hon Shane Jones will please just address the question. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. You brought the Minister to order and warned him and immediately one of the two members somewhat humorously referred to interjected before the Minister had a chance to respond. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Yes. Obviously if the member could reflect on what I said that would be greatly appreciated. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: I repeat the answer that I have been given for the House: in April 2007 the former Minister of Immigration was briefed about a situation where Mary Anne Thompson’s family members had obtained residence in circumstances that looked irregular. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I wonder whether you would please reflect on the answer just given by the Minister where he said: “I repeat the answer that I have been given for the House:”. He is speaking today as if he were the Minister of Immigration and therefore he should not be able to preface an answer he gives so as to indicate it may not be the right answer. Clearly if he says this today it stands as the words of the Minister of Immigration given to the House. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: It might come as a terrible shock to members opposite but Ministers actually have draft replies to principal questions which are put down on notice in the same way that members opposite have draft supplementary questions written out in full for them. The member is simply indicating that he is repeating the previous answer he has been supplied with on behalf of the Minister. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Yes. I think obviously that the Minister is responsible for the answer. It is just the expression. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Did the Minister of Immigration at the time David Cunliffe give the Prime Minister a heads-up that an inquiry was under way into unlawful decision-making involving the head of the Immigration Service Mary Anne Thompson? 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: Upon the Minister of the time being informed of such a situation he was informed that an independent investigation by senior officials within that department was about to be undertaken. I have no advice in respect of what if anything was said between him and the Prime Minister. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The Acting Minister is answering as the Minister and he should not be able simply to say that he has no advice. The question has been on notice it is a very specific question and my question was very clear: did the former Minister of Immigration for whom he is speaking today—the Hon David Cunliffe—give the Prime Minister a heads-up that an inquiry was under way involving the head of the Immigration Service? Given the nature of the primary question it should be possible for the Minister to answer that. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Ministers come to the House with prepared information but that information does not always cover every issue raised in a supplementary question. The member has given an absolutely accurate answer in that case. Members may recall that I gave a very similar answer in the House earlier this afternoon. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I think the point here is that even Dr Cullen was suggesting at the start of this question that this line of questioning had been going on for quite some time. Indeed it has. We have for some weeks now been endeavouring to find out more and more about this particular situation. The revelation in the answer today from Shane Jones—albeit it was just advice he got from the department—was in fact that David Cunliffe did know that it was Mary Anne Thompson whom he was advised about. It seems to me that when Government Ministers have over such a long period of time avoided answering the question which has been put in those terms on many occasions previously it might be the case that matters relating to that—in other words the involvement of the Prime Minister and the knowledge of the Prime Minister in this situation—are something that Mr Jones was apprised of. If in fact the Government’s policy is simply to pick a Minister who knows nothing so that that Minister cannot say anything to get into trouble then really that does defeat the point of question time. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: If the member had a question that was as specific as that he should have asked that question as the principal question. Ministers cannot be expected to guess in advance every supplementary question the member may ask—particularly when this member keeps asking the same supplementary questions week after week. This at least was a new one. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: As members know I think that in this instance certainly the Minister did address the question. If members want to be given a more specific answer then the matter should be put down in the primary question. The Minister in this instance I think has addressed the question so we will move on. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Does the Minister believe given the Prime Minister’s “no surprises” policy that the former Minister of Immigration David Cunliffe would not have alerted the Prime Minister to the fact that an investigation was going on into unlawful decision-making involving the head of the Immigration Service—the former acting chief executive of the Prime Minister’s own department? 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: The Minister of Immigration at that time was briefed and it was dealt with in the context of being an employment matter. Section 33 of the State Sector Act precluded the Minister from overstepping that boundary and I repeat in relation to a repetition of the question from the member I have no advice on that matter. It was an employment matter. 
Land Transport Management Amendment Bill 
Third Reading 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) 
: 
 I move  
That the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. This bill involves major improvements for New Zealand’s land transport planning and funding system. The bill addresses the issues raised in a number of reviews into the land transport sector and aims at improving value for money. It also provides a mechanism for regions to accelerate capital works through a regional fuel tax if they wish to. There will be full hypothecation of fuel excise taxes for land transport purposes. Those taxes will be ring-fenced exclusively for land transport activities. 
For many years our land transport planning and funding system has been based on an annual cycle. The National Land Transport Programme will now need to be produced only every 3 years therefore reducing compliance costs and increasing certainty in the sector. The bill will enable provision for a 3-year Government policy statement that will provide strategic guidance in the spending of the National Land Transport Fund. 
The New Zealand Transport Agency which replaces the existing Crown entities Land Transport New Zealand and Transit New Zealand will give effect to the Government policy statement when it develops and manages each new 3-year National Land Transport Programme. Other approved organisations as specified in the bill will need to incorporate the statement into their decision making. The Minister of Transport will remain responsible for decisions around the allocation of the fund to New Zealand Police road safety activities based on recommendations developed by the New Zealand Transport Agency. 
The bill also provides for moneys from the National Land Transport Fund to be used for activities that benefit the users of pleasure craft as well as for search and rescue generally. This is in lieu of a refund of the petrol tax paid by recreational boaties. Might I add that I am delighted to see this move as it is something I have advocated for years and I am really pleased that the Minister has seen fit to include this in the bill. 
Under the bill regional land transport committees will be replaced by regional transport committees. These committees will have enhanced functions including the preparation of new 3-yearly regional land transport programmes and also regional fuel tax schemes if they wish to develop them. The 3-yearly regional land transport programmes will feed into a 3-yearly National Land Transport Programme. 
I am very pleased that this bill has inserted an express reference to rail and coastal shipping into the purpose section of the Land Transport Management Act. The bill ensures that the New Zealand Transport Agency is transparent and accountable given its role as funder and provider of some land transport activities. 
Finally the bill will allow regions to opt for a regional fuel tax to fund priority projects that cannot reasonably be funded from another source within the time frame wanted by that region. I confidently expect that crucial and critical projects such as the electrification of the Auckland rail network will be amongst the first to benefit. It will be up to each region to decide whether to introduce a regional fuel tax of up to 10c per litre with a maximum of 5c of that amount available for roading projects. The bill phases in the amounts of the tax that can be levied in 2009 and 2010 and includes a number of measures to ensure that a robust decision-making process will be followed before a regional fuel tax can be introduced. 
The measures set out in this bill will allow New Zealanders to have confidence that our land transport system is being planned and developed in a fully integrated manner for future generations. I am pleased to commend this bill to the House. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 The problem with legislation in this Parliament when it includes lots and lots of elements is that if the Opposition likes certain bits of a bill it would love to be able to vote for those bits but because there are also some bits of this legislation that we found quite obnoxious and obscene it has proved difficult for us to vote for it. So the National Party will actually be voting against the third reading of the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. But I want to make it very clear—I want it to be on record—that had the Minister been sensible enough to drop the regional petrol tax stuff then probably National would have definitely voted for it. 
But there are some steps that we are very strongly supportive of. For example there is the dreadful word “hypothecation”. That means that all of what comes from the roads goes to the roads. It is something that National has been out campaigning on. At the last election members will remember our billboards were promoting that very policy and it was Labour that was opposed and was saying that we must have been three sandwiches short of a picnic for advocating such a thing. But then it turned out that Labour saw the light—as has every other party in the House I think—and it believes now that hypothecation is the right way to go. 
We support some other things in this legislation as well—for example the restructuring of regional land transport committees into regional transport committees and the setting up of a planning regime that has a 3-year planning cycle and a 3-year Government policy statement accompanying it. We are quite interested in the concept of the Government policy statement which will basically be a structure of how land transport is to be funded for the coming 3 years. It will set out the priorities and specifics of that regime. The difficulty with it is that we do not know what that Government policy statement will look like so it is hard to be 100 percent supportive of legislation where even the Minister herself I think still has some ideas to flesh out about how the Government policy statement will be structured. Nevertheless we actually agree with it we think it is a great idea and we think it is worth supporting. 
There are some other aspects of the bill that we were not comfortable with and we are still not sure of their exact rationale—I do not think we have been given it. For example for a long time back in the 1990s the argument from local government in New Zealand and from councils up and down this country was that Transit as it was was both the funder of all roading and the provider of State highways. I can tell members that I got beaten up on a regular basis at local government forums and so on by people saying that Transit was abusing that privilege and that we must separate the funding and providing roles. They told me that we should get a funding agency that is independent of the road provider so that it would not have incentives to fund itself but would actually have a more transparent process. 
So the National Government went ahead and did something that was being asked for and was actually quite sensible: we separated the role of funder and provider. We set up an agency called Transfund and an agency called Transit. The Transfund agency had no reason to fund State highways over and above local roads because it had nothing to do with that agency. However in recent times the Transfund agency became absorbed with the Land Transport Safety Authority—something we did not object to; in fact the National Party thought it was probably reasonably sensible given that the agency did not have any conflicts. The Land Transport Safety Authority was involved with the safety of our land transport sector and with regulating and controlling safety and Transfund was to do with the funding of roading. So we were comfortable about that merger to form Land Transport New Zealand and we said so. 
But now we have come to the Next Steps review which is bringing what was Transfund and Transit back into this one agency to be called the New Zealand Transport Agency which will be the funder. It is all back into the one agency again. I think we were given some assurances during the course of the select committee process that there were enough checks and balances to prevent the old claim of conflict of interest. What I found interesting was that so many of the agencies from the past that had whinged and grizzled at length that there was such a conflict and had demanded the roles be separated were all quite carefully silent in that respect. When asked at the committee I think the best response came from one of the councillors on the Auckland City Council. His answer was brilliant. He said: “Well that was then; this is now.” I have to say that my “gast” was completely “flabbered”. That was as good as the answer could get—“That was then and this is now.” That was the only thing he could say to explain why Auckland City Council had changed its stance. 
Some other issues in the bill are worth thinking about. For a long time there has been a perpetual and ongoing debate about the designation of State highways. I give notice to this House that if anything we really have to go back as a nation and make a major review of what those delineations are. We really have only two types of roads in this country. A road is either a State highway which gets 100 percent of its money from the road users by way of the petrol tax road-user charges and so on; or a local road which is administered run built and maintained by the territorial local authority. Local roads get some form of a financial assistance rate averaging about 50 percent but the other 50 percent must be found from ratepayers. 
I know that every time Transit used to do the State highway review there were always huge arguments from territorial local authorities on why a particular road really should not be their responsibility any more—it was too big there was too much traffic or it was meeting the definition of a State highway. The reason was that if they could get a local road off their books and move it over to being a State highway then it became 100 percent funded by the State or central government and it came out of their responsibility. Interestingly this legislation will actually move the job that Transit used to do—a very methodical and actually quite frustratingly long-winded process of determining which roads were State highways—over to the Secretary for Transport. New section 101 which is to be inserted into the Land Transport Management Act by clause 32 proposes that the role of delineating what is a State highway will reside with the Secretary for Transport. That will put a lot of pressure on the Secretary for Transport. I understand we have a new Secretary for Transport as of Tuesday; it will put a lot of pressure on that person. 
The reasons for our objection to the regional petrol tax are manifold. First of all we felt that while hypothecation was being introduced it would probably guarantee enough of a revenue stream but there were other reasons. 
For example Land Transport New Zealand the funding agency finished the last full financial year with $220 million unspent. I guess the question is if it has this big pot of money in the National Land Transport Fund and was unable to spend $220 million in the last financial year—and it will be interesting to watch what happens when the current financial year is over and we have it reported back as to whether there is any more of that—then how on earth can we justify adding more cost impost to the poor old long-suffering motorists out there who are suffering shockingly at present from very very high petrol prices and to the trucking industry which is suffering from very very high diesel prices? How can we justify socking them with another thing called a regional petrol tax which will be up to 10c a litre and will be artificially broken down to 5c and 5c because again the Government took no heed of what was asked for by a number of parties like regional councils? 
The Taranaki Regional Council said: “Please understand that we know that in Auckland public transport is a big issue and it needs to be funded and we understand why the Government may be doing a 5c split to public transport and a 5c split to projects like some roading project. But in our particular area of Taranaki we do not have an issue with public transport; it is not even on our books. We have a major problem with roading. So please please at least take that artificial barrier of 5c maximum for roading and 5c maximum for public transport out and allow us to configure up a bid to the Minister.”—because we must remember that it is the Minister who will approve any regional petrol tax applications. The Government instead of saying that it will trust the regional council to at least make the application based on the needs of its area because it should at least trust it to do so has said: “No that is it. The 5c-5c split stays.” 
National members are opposed to the regional petrol tax. I am happy to tell Brian Rudman from the  
New Zealand Herald 
 that we are opposed to it for a number of reasons and the main reason is that there are a multitude of other funding devices. There is debt there is public-private partnership debt there are infrastructure bonds there is debt/equity ratio stuff there is long-term stuff. There are a multitude of ways of funding land transport and this Government has shut its eyes to it and said: “It is only petrol tax. We will ramp it up on the poor old motorist and that is it.” 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 That was a speech of a member of the National Party Maurice Williamson really struggling with the instructions from Crosby/Textor not to get into anything difficult. He spoke a lot about the good things in the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill and waited until the last minute to tell us why National is voting against it. I want to quote from the  
New Zealand Herald 
 editorial about the previous speaker. He is the National Party’s transport spokesman which the  
New Zealand Herald 
 found out. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: Is he? 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Yes. “The legislation foreshadowed in the 2007 Budget but still awaiting its second reading”—so this was a little while ago—”in Parliament has run into opposition from National. The party’s transport spokesman Maurice Williamson has questioned the desirability of such a tax at a time of spiralling living costs especially for food and petrol. He says a National government would look at other ways to pay for the project such as infrastructure bonds or a public-private partnership. The party was committed to electrification and did not rule out regional fuel taxes as a long-term possibility said Mr Williamson but “right now is the worst of all timings” to quote Mr Williamson. “This sort of thinking has reduced”—listen this is the good part—”Auckland public transport to its present lamentable state. Quite simply the large sums involved mean no time is the right time.” 
That is the editorial critical of Mr Williamson and the National Party and it is absolutely right. How are public-private partnerships paid for in the rest of the world? Mr Williamson has been around the world looking at them. He is on that plane so often that he has more airpoints than anybody I know. I ask Mr Williamson how they are paid for. Oh they are paid for by the motorist through a toll! National members say: “Oh no no no let’s not have something simple like a regional fuel tax to pay for electrification let’s have a toll instead. Let’s have a toll to pay for the infrastructure bonds the borrowing and the debt funding he has talked about.” What a load of nonsense! 
National members desperately want to vote for this bill but Crosby/Textor has said “No don’t do anything that might upset the public. Don’t show any bravery. Don’t go into Parliament and do the right thing for Auckland or for Wellington or for Bay of Plenty.” Submitters from those regions came to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and said: “We need this money and we are prepared as the local authority to impose it.” It does not even need the Minister of Transport to have the courage to do it. The bill allows the councils to make the decision. The Minister of Transport will not impose a regional fuel tax; the councillors elected by the ratepayers in their region will make the decision. So if the Hon Maurice Williamson were the Minister he could not get hurt—although it would be too hard for him to have to approve anything. He had 9 years in Government approving nothing. That is why nothing was built. That is why the public transport system had its funding frozen for 6 years. That is why National spent $40 million on public transport whereas the Labour Government has spent $300 million—because he would never sign anything that would approve something. Oh no that would require some work! 
It is interesting that the National Party will vote against a mechanism that the Hon Dr Lockwood Smith said he would cross the floor to vote for—Penlink. Penlink is a road in his electorate that he said is absolutely vital. I saw the Mayor of Rodney District Council the other day and she is absolutely hanging out for this vote today so that her people in Rodney can get Penlink. National is going to vote against it and we are looking forward to Dr Lockwood Smith coming to vote on this side of the House as he said he would. Maurice Williamson would like to be voting for this as well. He claimed in his last election manifesto to be all for hypothecation—absolutely rock-solid. The only policy one could find on National’s website about transport was a policy to spend all the petrol tax and all the road-user charges on transport infrastructure. That was National Party policy. Is it still National Party policy? 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Yes absolutely. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: It is still National’s policy but in a few minutes’ time he will vote against it. What courage what leadership what vision and what optimism for the future! Are they not the lines that were told to John Key—the vision the optimism taking us forward? Yet in a few minutes’ time National members will vote against their only policy—hypothecation. They will not vote for it. 
The other day I was out with members of the coastguard from Maurice Williamson’s own electorate—the Howick people. They are in Mr Williamson’s electorate are they not? They are looking forward to the passing of this bill because they will get some well-deserved money. They take their boats on the water they pay petrol tax. That petrol tax did not pay for the water it cannot pay for it to be improved because the petrol tax builds roads—it pays for buses. The National Party knows that. The members of the coastguard from his electorate who are volunteers who give up their own time also have to pay petrol tax to run their boats along the water. The National Party knows that is not right but will it vote for this bill? No Maurice Williamson will vote against that as well. He can go back to those people and explain as can all of the other National members. 
Bob Clarkson did not know about the provision that benefits coastguards. He has just found out about it from my speech. Bob Clarkson will go back and tell the coastguards from the Bay of Plenty that he did not support it. He thinks they should pay petrol tax as if they were running on the road even though their boats are on the water. I ask Mr Clarkson and Mr Bennett whether that is sensible common-sense stuff. Mr Bennett will not care because Hamilton does not have a coastguard. So he will be able to get away with it. He will be able to go back to the search and rescue people and say that he did not care and he did not vote because there is no coastguard in Hamilton. There is no coastguard on the Waikato River probably so he can say that he did that in all good conscience. 
Everybody in Auckland knows that we need electrification of the rail. The Auckland Regional Council and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority are hanging out and all the people are hanging out for the ability to get electrification of the rail. The National Party says it supports that but they will vote against the method to pay for it which is in this bill. Oh! Pansy Wong has just figured that one out too. I think the excuse is that no trains go to the eastern suburbs of Auckland where Maurice Williamson lives. That is what I heard him say the other day. There are no trains. Well no ferries go to Otahuhu so I should be voting against the bill—we should not subsidise ferries because no ferries come to Otahuhu or for that matter to Onehunga or to Mount Albert or to west Auckland. Where is the logic in that? You see Pakuranga does have a very good public transport system. It is called buses. Those big maroon-coloured things that drive past Mr Williamson’s office are buses and they will benefit from public transport infrastructure being improved. 
This is a good bill. Remember that the National Party said it will solve all the problems and give everybody a tax cut if it becomes the Government because it will take out the bureaucracy. At the moment we have three separate sets of bureaucracy created by National; they are called Transfund Transit and the Land Transport Safety Authority. Not so long ago this Government put the Land Transport Safety Authority back into a single organisation with Transfund and with this bill we get rid of another set of bureaucrats—another chief executive another board another set of people doing duplicate work in two organisations. One would think the National Party would be voting for that. National members say they are against all those bureaucrats doing that work. They say they are for efficiency. No. They want to keep three separate boards and they want to keep three separate chief executives because Maurice Williamson came up with that idea back in the early 1990s. It was so sad watching him question all these people who he said had demanded that he do this. They demanded that so why were they not demanding that we keep it? Well it is because the world has moved on. That was then and this is now. 
As the Auckland City Council transport chairman said—I think he might be closer politically to Mr Williamson than he is to me—that was then and this is now. Even he could see new in the job as he was when he came before the select committee that having a single organisation made sense. Then we asked a whole lot of people—not politicians but experts in looking at whether separate organisations were the way to go—and they said no bring them back together under the Next Steps programme. 
The National Party will be voting against a reduction in bureaucracy. It will be voting against its policy on fuel tax—hypothecation—it will be voting against getting less bureaucracy it will be voting against the search and rescue people it will be voting against the Penlink project and it will be voting against Auckland getting electrification. What vision! What vision we are getting from the National Party. That is a good description of its lack of vision. 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 I just want to remind the public that today we are actually debating the Labour-led Government bill the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. I thought the public might be very confused after that 10-minute speech. The Hon Mark Gosche sounded like he is practising to be an Opposition member. He treated my colleague the Hon Maurice Williamson as if he were the Minister responsible for the bill. Here he is attacking Maurice Williamson as if it were his legislation. None of the Labour members seem to be proud of the bill because Mark Gosche could not seem to find much to say about Labour’s own legislation but spent his whole 10 minutes attacking Maurice Williamson. 
I would change tack and say that we should come back to debating the third reading of the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. The reason the National Party is voting against the bill is that we support only one initiative in it which is to make sure that all the tax collected through the fuel tax will be put towards transport but I am afraid that we could not find any good reasons to support the rest of the legislation. We find even fewer reasons to support it because right at the beginning as the Hon Mark Gosche correctly pointed out regional councils city councils and everybody rushed to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to support the bill because they thought they would get additional funding. They thought the Labour Government was courageously promising them that they could go out and start consultation and start to put in a 5c or a 10c tax and then they could build their roads—[ 
Interruption 
] Well what happened? Everybody rushed to the various centres to make their submissions. We travelled to Christchurch and to Auckland to listen to very earnest submitters who really believed that if they put in the hard yards they would get a reward on the passage of this bill. But before we even reported back to the House the Prime Minister the Rt Hon Helen Clark unilaterally made the announcement that it was all off. Petrol prices are too expensive so it was a no go. So I tell the Hon Mark Gosche that I am afraid the Rodney District Council project no matter what the council has been promised by the Labour Government will not happen. There ain’t going to be a regional petrol tax. What happened to the courage the vision etc. that was announced by the Hon Mark Gosche? 
I want to bring something into the debate because it was suddenly brought into this legislation on Tuesday. When we thought we were going to do the Committee stage of the bill the Minister of Finance suddenly tabled an urgent Supplementary Order Paper apparently on the theory of tempting the Toll Holdings shareholders to buy back the rail now we know that the cost is going up every day. By the way the Prime Minister was not too sure what the cost was. She thought it was an additional $80 million to upgrade and $300 million over 5 years. But the Minister of Finance said that it was actually $80 million over 5 years. It just shows amazingly that the Labour Government members do not seem to go into any detail and the Prime Minister does not know the costs when it comes to the use of a huge amount of taxpayers’ money. When schools apply for a little bit of funding for upgrading their sewerage or for maintenance the Labour Government makes them go through all sorts of reports to justify the $5000 or the $10000 but boy oh boy when Labour members spend $1 billion of taxpayers’ money they do not seem to do the sums. 
That Supplementary Order Paper demonstrates that the Labour Party which always proclaims it is the workers’ party actually forgot about its workers. The Government brought in a Supplementary Order Paper to ensure that the staff transferring from Toll to KiwiRail will have their superannuation contributions recognised by the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. That was quite a revelation for a party that proclaims itself to be on the side of workers. I wonder what happened to the union delegate—did he or she forget to remind the Labour Party? 
It is quite ironic that we are standing in this House today debating the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill while at the same time we have angry truckies out there because the Minister of Transport the Hon Annette King told them that they are the ones who have not paid their way and they are the ones doing all the damage to the roads. She has increased the road-user charge despite the fact that last year there was quite a clear undertaking from what we can gather from question time that the truckies were entitled to 1 month’s notice. Well the trucking companies—the owners the staff etc.—go out every day and earn their money by working long hours. They cannot afford a sudden increase in road charges by a Labour Government seeking more taxpayers’ money. Those people have to earn their money and they cannot rearrange their lives just like that with 24 hours’ notice. Tomorrow the truckies are going to drive to the main cities and demonstrate their anger by protesting so I warn all workers to make sure that their travel arrangements for tomorrow are made smartly otherwise they will get caught in gridlock. I am not sure how the passage of the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill will resolve this type of issue where the Government simply increases charges at a drop of a hat while hard-working New Zealanders are already finding the cost of living and the cost of fuel beyond their reach. 
Even Local Government New Zealand is not very happy with this legislation. First of all it strongly preferred a partnership approach rather than a top-down approach. The Minister of Transport says that she and the officials will issue a 3-year Government policy statement to coincide with the timing of transport and local government planning which is fair enough. I think the time-line is fine but how about the process of arriving at that Government policy statement? In its submission Local Government New Zealand felt very strongly that if the Government simply goes out and tells it that national priorities rather than regional priorities will make their way into that Government policy statement what is the point? That means it is a top-down approach rather than a partnership approach and it does not take Local Government New Zealand’s point of view. 
Of course we also have district councils outside the main centres that say that that idea is an inflexible top-down approach because some of those councils need all the money to go towards roading—they do not have public transport. Yet they will have no choice. They will almost have to dream up projects—cycleways on farm roads etc.—in order to utilise part of their regional petrol tax funds. 
If this bill is serious about improving transport management it should take into account local situations and give the flexibility for people to put in their priorities. Of course I am not too sure that one super-bureaucracy is necessarily better than three in light of the fact that 10 years ago the Hon Maurice Williamson was being got at every day about the terrible super-bureaucracy that failed to take into account local concerns. We are not sure that this bill is the right way to go. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Let me make it clear that parts of this bill concern us. Our first concern is the Treaty of Waitangi clause. We cannot understand why the words “principles of” are included. Nobody in this House can explain it. Nobody in this House took a call in any of the debates to attempt to clarify what it means. Frankly to include those words in such a clause is at best patronising to Maori and at worst insulting to all New Zealanders. That clause should have been amended by omitting any reference to the word “principles”. Nobody understands it and it should not be there. It is not good law. Many in my caucus are exceedingly angry about it. 
We also object to the regional fuel tax. We do not object in principle—we understand there needs to be a basis for local regions to get funding—but because it could have been done by alternative methods. It could have been done very simply by using windfall GST. And if it was to be phased in as it is in the bill now just the windfall GST on petrol alone would have given sufficient funding. [ 
Interruption 
] Actually I say to the Minister they are not. Ultimately they might but right now they are not. The GST collected on fuel at the moment is still on the increase. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: We’ll see Pete. 
PETER BROWN 
: Well it might ultimately go down. But the point is that it could easily be funded equal to the funding that is now currently in the bill—1c or 2c next year 4c on petrol and if necessary windfall GST on diesel. The motorist is getting slugged enough in this country—they are the only words I can use for it. I would have thought that the Government would take note of their concerns and say that it would look at using the windfall GST to some effect. 
However there are some things in this bill we are delighted to see. The bill provides for better longer-term planning and we think that is an excellent move. The bill makes provision for combining Transit and Land Transport New Zealand into one entity and we think that is a good move providing that the governance is correct—and it appears to be correct—and that there is competent management accountability and transparency. When I read the bill I think it has addressed virtually all those concerns. 
We are absolutely delighted that there will be some funding for the leisure boat industry in terms of aid for search and rescue. The excise tax paid on the fuel that goes into leisure boats will be transferred on an as-required basis—and it amounts to $19 million a year—to aid search and rescue operations and to fund a regime of education for maritime safety. We think that is excellent. That measure is written into New Zealand First’s policy. That is the only place I have ever seen it written down and the Minister of Transport was gracious enough to acknowledge that it came from New Zealand First’s initiative. 
We are hugely delighted that finally the Government has decided to hypothecate all the excise tax on petrol. Currently $600 million a year or thereabouts—the figure might be in the high $500 millions but it is very close to $600 million—will go into the National Land Transport Fund and that is something that New Zealand First has long advocated. Certainly well before New Zealand First had any strong position in this Parliament we advocated that all the excise tax taken on petrol should go into the National Land Transport Fund. 
I am disappointed in the Hon Maurice Williamson because this is the third time—the third time—he has walked away from achieving that. In 1995 when the Rt Hon Winston Peters had a bill that did just that Maurice Williamson as the then Minister of Transport led the attack on it. He said it was a silly idea as there would not be enough projects to cover the money that would be transferred across and that it should be dismissed. National voted against it. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Well that was then; this is now. 
PETER BROWN 
: Oh that was then; this is now! That is what I like! But the member has done the same thing now. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Because of other stuff in the bill. 
PETER BROWN 
: Let me say that in 1998 when Winston Peters was Treasurer and he transferred 2.1c across into the land transport account from the Crown account within months of us leaving the coalition it was all transferred. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: You walked out. 
PETER BROWN 
: The member is saying we walked away but we did not walk away. We got the grand order of the boot and the member is well aware of it. 
As I was saying that measure was stopped dead in its tracks. After his road to Damascus experience and just before the last election he said: “This must occur. We must hypothecate all the excise tax into the National Land Transport Fund.” Now when the National Party has the opportunity to do so it will vote against it. Six hundred million dollars or thereabouts a year will go into the National Land Transport Fund and the member is voting against it. I have to say that I cannot understand the logic of the member. 
Pansy Wong who spoke before me said that the regional fuel tax will amount to nothing because of the Prime Minister’s statement but National members will vote against that. There is no rationale at all. The Hon Maurice Williamson said that in 1993 or whenever he listened to local councils and separated Transfund and Transit—because he listened to the local bodies. The local bodies came before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and with as much passion as I dare suggest they displayed in 1993 they said: “Give us a regional fuel tax.” There was not one exception—there was not one exception. 
But the Hon Maurice Williamson and National will vote against it. In 1993 they listened to the local bodies and voted accordingly; in 2008 they listened to the local bodies and voted against their wishes. Where is the consistency? We have to take note that by approving the regional fuel tax we are simply giving local bodies the ability to apply for it if they have the right projects. Parliament is not imposing a regional fuel tax on anybody. We are giving the local regions the ability to apply for a regional fuel tax if they have sufficient projects that are worthy of such funding. 
Hypothecation is a long time coming; a long time coming. The correct use of excise tax on roading some years ago would have resulted in huge economic advantages for this country. We could have avoided much of the congestion in Auckland if we had built the roads earlier. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: The Tories would have lowered taxes you see. That’s what their prime purpose in life is—to privatise and lower taxes. 
PETER BROWN 
: The member has already had his call but I am sure he could take another one if he sought leave. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: He didn’t say much when he had his call. I wonder why he’s saying a lot now. 
PETER BROWN 
: He had a short call yes. I think that this country is suffering because of the lack of finance injected into roading in this country and it is about time we addressed the issue. Public-private partnerships are not the answer. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Why? 
PETER BROWN 
: Because they add another component to the equation and that is profit. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Why do they work elsewhere? 
PETER BROWN 
: They do not necessarily work overseas. I spoke to the British and they gave me the rules and regulations that they work to. True they choose public-private partnerships in certain areas but not always. 
Bob Clarkson 
: Any advantage to coastal shipping? 
PETER BROWN 
: The member talks about coastal shipping. I almost overlooked that. I thank the member very much. This bill will allow the Government to inject the $36 million into coastal shipping which has been a long time coming. The National Party ignored that issue when it was brought to its attention 11 years ago. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The Green Party’s position on the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill has been made pretty clear in the first reading the second reading and the Committee stage. So I thought that in the third reading I might go a little wider and look at the new systems that the bill is setting up and some of the things I hope they might do in the future. 
We have the new Transport Agency. We have been changing the institutional structure of how the funding of land transport works over and over over the years. We have had many different ways of funding public transport and we still have not got it right. We had a funder/provider split then we re-merged funders and providers. We have changed functions and we have changed boards. The important thing is what they actually do. 
The bill gives increased weight to regional land transport strategies and that is a good thing. It gives some local control over how money is spent. The bill establishes that Government policy statements have a statutory role in guiding the whole thing. But guiding it towards what end and for what purpose? The concepts in the Land Transport Management Act—integration responsiveness and sustainability—are well chosen but they are so high-level that it is very difficult to rule out a project on the basis that it does not meet them. 
What we need is a system of transport agencies that acknowledges we are entering a new era when oil is never going to be cheap again; an era when the fuel that has driven our entire economy for 200 years will become unaffordable for many and in the end less available. At the same time burning too much of it is changing the climate. So we need a radical shift a transition an economic transformation towards a sustainable economy and a less oil-dependent economy. The real question here is how much the changes in the bill lead us in that direction. 
David Bennett 
: What do the trains run on? 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS 
: I guess the easy thing to say is that it is much cheaper to run a train using electricity than it is to run a truck using oil. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Electric trucks aren’t that far away. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS 
: Electric trucks are some way off into the long-distant future I think. The first thing that I hope the agency does is true cost-pricing. We want prices for transport modes that reflect the real costs. We want an end to the subsidies that are happening now because some transport modes pay more of their cost to the economy than others. 
This has been recognised for a very long time. The National Government asked that it be looked into and it produced the Land Transport Pricing Study. It was many many years in the making. We welcomed it when it came out in 1998 but it did not really lead to any change. Then Labour had a go at it. It brought out  
The Surface Transport Costs and Charges Study 
. That did not really lead to any change either but the two of them showed the same thing. They showed that big trucks are paying less of the total cost that they cause to the economy than any other transport mode. They showed that trucks pay 56 percent of the cost they cause to the whole economy and the rest is subsidy. They showed that motorists pay 64 percent—a bit better than trucks but they still have a subsidy. They showed that freight trains pay 82 percent. They still have a subsidy but not nearly so much. If we are trying to consign freight from one end of the country to the other on a long-distance haul and we are deciding how to send it then if the trucks are subsidised much more than rail is we will choose trucks even though they use four to five times as much fuel to take a tonne of goods a kilometre and even though they cause road congestion and require the building of more roads and more maintenance costs. 
So the first step towards making wise transport choices is to have the real costs reflected in prices. The Government took a step in that direction today. I am interested that Maurice Williamson who has been applauding what I have been saying about true cost-pricing and not having subsidies is opposed to the rise in road-user charges for trucks despite the fact that it is the first step to narrowing the gap between what trucks pay and what trains pay. Surely we want a system where if the train is the best and most economical way to go we use the train rather than the truck. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: It was more that we were going to be given notice of the change; that’s all. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS 
: OK. I thank the member for clarifying that point. 
I hope we will go further and have the courage to have an in-depth look at the plethora of charges that now make no sense. Why do petrol users pay for use of the roads through their fuel and diesel users pay through a mileage charge? We all know the historical reasons why that is the case but is it sensible to perpetuate it? Should we be looking at different ways to pay for roads? Are we going to find a way of charging people for the use of roads that does not invade their privacy by creating a Big Brother State where the State knows exactly where every vehicle is at any time of the day? That is one of the main reasons why private motorists oppose a global positioning system for charging for road use. I am sure there are technical ways around it and I think it is time we had another look at it. We certainly need to look at the inequities between petrol cars and diesel cars and between small diesel cars and 3-tonne diesel trucks which pay the same road-user charges. 
We need to recognise that the more new State highways and motorways we build the higher our maintenance bills will be in the future and the higher road-user charges and petrol tax will be in the future because with every new road we build we are committing future generations to a big maintenance bill even though with high fuel prices they probably will not be using them as much. 
The other thing that I hope will be done by the new Transport Agency the regional strategies and the Government policy statements is a review of the financial assistance rate. As I have told this House many times before it really does not make sense that if Auckland decides to ask for a new State highway to take people from South Auckland right across to the North Shore it is paid for entirely by central government through the National Land Transport Fund but if Aucklanders want a railway line to do exactly the same thing Auckland has to find half of the cost. In fact with the regional fuel tax provided for in this legislation Auckland has to find more than half the cost because there is a crafty arrangement whereby Auckland is allowed to levy a 5c regional fuel tax which it will put into electrifying the rail system along with the loan that it will raise and pay interest on; the Government in its generosity funds its half of the electrification by raising a second loan but hang on who will pay the interest costs on that loan and who will service it? Aucklanders will through another 5c regional fuel tax. And that is supposed to be a fair split between local government and central government. 
The Minister of Transport is fond of saying that she will not make an old lady in Invercargill pay for a rail system in Auckland that she will never use. But for some reason the Minister has no objection at all to making an old lady in Invercargill pay for the Waterview Connection which is a gigantic new motorway in a tunnel that will cost half a billion dollars per kilometre—$2 billion for just 4½ kilometres. It is absolutely fine apparently for an old lady in Invercargill to pay for that. I cannot see the difference. 
Let us hope this legislation will give us some transparency some level playing fields and some equity in the way that transport is managed. The Greens are voting for it mainly because we want the electrification of the Auckland rail system to go ahead. This bill is the only way on the table for doing it so let us get on and do it. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa. It seemed an uncanny coincidence that as this bill entered the Committee stage the deprivation map hit the news-stands this week. This is the map that describes scales of deprivation across Aotearoa as determined by variables like income family support employment and transport. The map demonstrates that there is still a massive gulf between the rich and the poor with a high degree of inequality spread across cities. In Porirua for example a large number of people live in the most deprived areas a large number in the least deprived and very few in the middle. Whole regions are red—the most deprived—and they are areas where coincidentally there are large numbers of Maori such as my electorate of Waiariki—the Bay of Plenty—as well as the East Coast and Northland. The rolling out of the map certainly underscored our serious concerns about this bill. 
It is a difficult tightrope to walk—balancing out the development of public transport as a key response to the dual challenges of peak oil and climate change with the inevitable impact that will occur for taxpayers. But it is a journey that we cannot avoid. We need to go with it and of course public transport is the most sensible way to go. Our concern has been primarily about what measures might be put in place to assist poor people to pay for petrol price rises in the short term. It was in that context that we welcomed Supplementary Order Paper 209 during the Committee stage. We believe that that change is positive in that it phases in the regional fuel tax from a maximum of 2c per litre in the first year 2009 to a maximum of 5c per litre in the second year 2010. This type of sensible and equitable yearly staggering of costs could be introduced into the emissions trading scheme rather than it giving blanket exemptions and corporate welfare subsidies to those responsible for the greatest level of pollution. We believe that staggering the costs in this way will help to alleviate the increased costs for low-income earners. 
The other positive development from this amendment is the assurance that any roading projects in Auckland will need to be consistent with the Auckland regional land transport strategy. This is a positive and constructive change which we hope will ensure that all projects are both economically and environmentally sustainable. The last thing we want to do is to end up with an open cheque to allow cost-intensive projects in the future. The inevitable trend of rising oil costs means that the building of major new highways will be extremely costly in the future and we were pleased to support that change to ensure that certain boundaries are in place. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee recommended I believe the inclusion of the new clause requiring the New Zealand Transport Agency to take account of existing regional land transport programmes in preparing the National Land Transport Programme. 
Our fundamental interest in this bill comes from our longstanding commitment to ensuring that immediate action is taken to address the peak oil phenomenon. We did some research. We drew on the analysis of the Science Applications International Corporation report to the United States Government which tells it like it is; it talks about the urgent need to address an ailing global economy. In that report the corporation’s analysis reveals that waiting until world oil production peaks before taking action would leave the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for more than two decades. We are trapped in a time that is full of uncertainty and we must make an intense effort to put in place now strategies that act on many fronts. We know that petrol prices will continue to rise as the demand for oil continues to increase. We know also that the availability of oil on the international market will continue to decline in the face of this demand which new oil production does not offset. It would appear that for every new barrel of oil being discovered five barrels are being used. So every step that we can take towards preparing for a pending energy crisis must be taken seriously. 
The Maori Party is of the view that the priorities of members across the House must be to significantly reduce oil dependency and to plan for the utilisation and development of sustainable energy resources while also ensuring that all New Zealanders are able to access affordable transport options in a world where oil shortages will mean ever-increasing petrol prices. We have therefore voted in support of this Land Transport Management Amendment Bill as an act of faith that the Government’s high-level priorities for transport must make significant investment in public transport as a means of reducing our reliance on oil. 
But in the context of a genuine progress index we return again to the important issue of striking a balance between expenditure to reduce oil dependence and expenditure that our low-income people cannot afford. We cannot leave this debate without continuing to raise the concept of poverty injustices—the correlation between low levels of income and the reduced likelihood of being able to afford healthy food warm and uncrowded housing and primary health care. We must also be concerned about the trends in the number of children being admitted to hospital with serious infectious diseases—a trend that is closely linked to the rising level of poverty. I remind the House of the case currently being heard by the Human Rights Review Tribunal that exclusion from the in-work tax credit component of Working for Families leaves our poorest children vulnerable. 
On behalf of the Maori Party I bring to this debate a recent report from the Auditor-General Kevin Brady. It stated that his investigation had been abandoned because the ministry’s financial reporting systems were very poor. I am talking about the Ministry of Defence and the investigation into why its $2.2 billion programme for buying new ships and helicopters and upgrading planes had blown out by a massive $392.6 million. Mr Brady’s report stated: “My staff were unable to complete the audit as originally intended. A lot of the detailed information that I expected the defence agencies to have was not readily available. Although the defence agencies’ guidance states that cost estimates should be robust when they are submitted to Cabinet for approval to commence acquisition in practice they are not. 
In our view this information is not enough for the defence agencies to demonstrate how well they are managing the projects or for Parliament or other stakeholders to reach a view on this.” 
I have taken time out to quote from that report because I believe that it is a matter of such significance that it must affect every area of Government expenditure. Here we are expecting ordinary New Zealanders to dig deep into their pockets again for this brand new regional fuel tax yet the military’s cost estimate of a whopping $2.2 billion for new weapons is described as “not robust enough at this point”. It is all about credibility. Big-ticket items like helicopters planes and ships must be managed effectively responsibly and with great concern for accountability. How can this Labour-led Government expect to have any credibility if the state of mismanagement is so apparent? I guess the answer to the question is already well known as recent poll results continue to show. 
Although we make public these criticisms about the area of defence we do not move from our responsibilities to make a difference in terms of addressing the ongoing crisis of peak oil and the complex web of issues attached to the provision of public transport. The Maori Party will support this bill at its third and final reading. 
As an add-on to the discussion and the debate this afternoon I want to say that I was interested in Mr Brown’s reflection on issues about the Treaty of Waitangi and I thought that for his assistance I might tell him that the issues around the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi are noted in the Waitangi Tribunal in the courts and in Government statements. In fact a Government statement of 1989 states that the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi are the principle of kawanatanga or Government; the principle of self-management or rangatiratanga; the principle of equality; the principle of reasonable cooperation; and the principle of redress. If the member is looking around for an interpretation of or an understanding about those principles that statement will hopefully be a start. He might like to try googling it. 
The second issue he talked about was what is and what is not the view of Maori. It would be a good idea for him to ask Maori about how they feel about those principles. At the end of the day without anything else in place I think that Maori are quite happy for the principles to stay as they are for now their knowing full well that down the line there needs to be a debate about Te Tiriti o Waitangi across the board in all legislation. Kia ora tatou. 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 There is a statement attributed to the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George that could be a good metaphor for our approach to transport policy in this country over the years. Lloyd George is reported to have said at the time of the People’s Budget in 1909 which brought in the welfare State in Britain at the price of attacking what he described as entrenched privilege that everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die. That is a very good summary of the way in which we have approached transport funding policy in this country over the years. 
We all want the infrastructure but we are not prepared to meet the cost of providing it. When I say “we” I mean Governments as much as individuals over a long period of time. Our response up until comparatively recently—and I will come to that point in response to the member in a moment—has been simply to defer to downplay or to downsize our requirements. When we talk now about New Zealand being a modern First World economy and when we talk about all the slogans—we used to say “first half of the OECD” and all of those sorts of things—we come back to deficiencies in infrastructure being one of the major impediments as to why we do not achieve those goals. 
There has been a huge investment in roading and public transport over the last decade and I acknowledge that. I think that it is long overdue but all it has done really is highlight the fact that we have more to do. We still have significant problems around our two major cities and in many other areas as well. We have to upgrade public transport. I hear members say that we should be placing much greater emphasis on public transport. Yes we should but it needs to be of a standard that will attract people and it needs to be reliable. There will be a good test of that I suspect in Auckland and Wellington tomorrow morning but I fear that what will happen yet again is that public transport services will be struggling to cope with passenger demand. All that does in the longer term is fuel a public view that those services are unreliable and therefore should not be diverted to in times of need. 
So we have to crack that suspicion of the worth of public transport at the same time as ensuring that our roading infrastructure is up to scratch to meet the needs we place upon it in a modern and dynamic economy. It is not a question of one or the other; it is a question of moving both together jointly in a reasonable period of time. I think that the bill in its essence attempts to set out structures by which those changes can be facilitated and by which decisions can be made about how that infrastructure can be paid for. 
A lot has been said about the regional fuel tax proposals and I acknowledge that in the times we are living in at present with mounting international oil prices there has to be a measure of huge sensitivity as to the acceptability of imposing fuel taxes to provide for transport services. But I come back to my opening point. We all want these additional facilities and services and we have to find the mechanisms by which they are to be funded. I think that the bill strikes a very useful balance in that it provides for a maximum of 10c a litre but a maximum of 5c on any particular project and it says that the projects that will qualify have to be designated by the region as specific and high priority. So it is not just a case of saying: “Let’s chuck another 5 10 or whatever number of cents it is into this vast amorphous pot called transport funding.” It is very much project-dedicated and I think that that will impose a discipline that has been lacking previously. 
The question then arises as to what level to impose. That is a matter frankly for regional councils as they determine the projects coming forward that require their funding. In the Wellington context Transmission Gully stands out as the obvious example. What we know about that at the moment is that on the table is a revised costing of around $1 billion. About half of that is already potentially funded because of the Government contribution. The balance now needs to be determined. It will come I suspect through a variety of mechanisms. Part of it will come through a regional fuel tax part of it will come from income from tolling and part of it may well come from some form of debt financing. But the point that we have to embark upon is a debate about the best way of putting that package together so that the roading programme can go forward. I think that that is the key point that is lost sight of often in this debate. We have moved on now from asking whether something should happen to recognising what has to happen and the question now is about how we achieve that objective. 
Over the years we have had many attempts through many restructurings of transport funding to try to strike the best mechanism for making progress. We had the notion some years ago of trying to equate road rail and other forms of transport in terms of what a funding allocation might be but it did not work. We went through the idea that perhaps we should simply privatise the whole network in various forms. That did not work. We have now come back to a much more mixed position. But what we need to have—and what this legislation is all about providing—is the framework within which those decisions can be made and more important within which the decisions that are made can be implemented. 
We cannot afford as a country to continue to have a situation where in our major city the ability to do business is being severely curtailed by transport requirements. I know as a frequent commuter to Auckland that it is now impossible to have more than two or three appointments in a day get around the city and go to and from the airport. In fact at some points of the day in Auckland it takes longer to drive from the airport to the city than it does to fly from Wellington to Auckland. That is an intolerable situation. People cannot get about their normal course of business efficiently and those in the transport industry in Auckland are telling me that they are now effectively dropping at least one if not 1½ runs per day simply because of the cost of gridlock. 
In Wellington we face a similar situation for different reasons. A different typography constrains the ability of this city to expand naturally but the numbers of vehicles and people coming into it continue to increase. We have roads that were designed for flows of around 15000 to 18000 vehicles a day now having to cope with 20000 or 30000-plus vehicles a day and we do not have the physical capacity to extend those roads. The public transport network in this city is stretched virtually to breaking point. In Auckland there is a developing system. It has a long way to go to be comparable to the needs of a city of a million-plus people. But we have to start to seriously address the issues and we have to start to put in place the mechanisms that will deliver change. 
I think that one of the things this bill will do particularly in the Auckland context—assuming that the royal commission on the governance arrangements for Auckland comes up with some viable solutions—is start to put a fresh focus on making sure that we can actually make significant process and on making sure that people in that city do not spend most of their working day in trying to get to and from work that people do feel able to move about and that some of the boundaries being established almost artificially because of transport requirements can be broken down. In the city of Wellington I think the situation is much more about facilitating the flow of people across what is a very wide region. 
The point is that unless we are serious about funding and serious about organisation we will not make that progress. And then we will continue to have to confront the argument about why our economic performance overall is so lacklustre. Why is it that with a good ability to produce high-quality products but in a very long thin country we are unable to be as efficient as we might be? The question automatically then turns on the transport network. 
This bill seeks to address that. I think it is a positive step forward. I acknowledge though that there will be sensitivities about how aspects of it are applied. I hope good judgment applies in terms of the execution of the bill’s provisions. But do I see that the crisis it is attempting to resolve is one that we as a country simply have to grasp by the nettle and actually seek to make significant progress on if we want to continue to maintain a reasonable standard of living. 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party rises to oppose this bill and we oppose it for two fundamental reasons. The first is contained in the title which states that this bill is the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. We would be a lot more comfortable voting for this bill if we thought there was some management for the land transport sector of New Zealand but clearly what we have seen over the past few days demonstrates that there is none. 
The second reason why we oppose this bill is the concept of a regional tax. Again if the Government was lean and efficient and taxed us very very little we could understand maybe an additional tax to go into the roads. But when we see the Government increasing its expenditure from $34 billion to $61 billion in 10 years that is an 80 percent increase. And then it comes along and says it has not enough money for roads and needs a bit more tax. We say “Hang on what about all the money that you have already taken and have been spending?”. When we see a Government that can gaily—and I use that word in its old-fashioned sense—come along and say “Over the next 5 years we’ve got $1.5 billion to spend propping up rail and by the way we need a regional tax to fund new roads.” we start wondering what the priorities of the Government are. 
We cannot deal with land transport in New Zealand until we get some principles right and just piling up an extra tax is not actually addressing the principles. Let me explain what I mean. The Prime Minister Helen Clark has stood up in this House and said that the reason for buying back rail and putting in—what is it—$400 for every man woman and child in the country or $2000 for a family of five into rail is that it is a sustainable business. 
That is where the fundamental principles are wrong because a business cannot be sustainable if it cannot cover its costs. It cannot be environmentally friendly if it cannot cover its costs; that has to be a necessary condition to be environmentally sustainable. What rail is doing is sucking in more resources than it is creating by definition because the cost of rail exceeds the return. I will allow that it is quite possible to have a business that is profitable and not environmentally friendly—that is possible—but there cannot be a business that is environmentally friendly a loser and costing resources. Rail is wasting New Zealand’s resources; it is wasting our environment it is wasting our labour it is wasting our capital and it is wasting our time. The Prime Minister Helen Clark has come here and proudly said “Look at us. Aren’t we wonderful because we are propping up this business that is somehow sustainable?”. Well it is not. 
Here is another principle that we have got wrong. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Should we rip up the railway lines Rodney? 
RODNEY HIDE 
: If they consume more resources than they create then yes of course we should. We should not be going around pouring our resources into say a horse and cart or into rail— 
Sue Kedgley 
: What about the cost of roads? 
RODNEY HIDE 
: I am coming to the cost of roads if Sue Kedgley can hold her horses. The idea that we run along and prop up a failing business and think that is being environmentally sustainable is frankly nuts. 
Here is another principle: it is not smart in a land transport management sense to give $700 million - odd to an Australian company and think that is a smart deal and to let it keep the largest trucking company in New Zealand for free. That is not a smart deal yet we have done that as though it is somehow wonderful that now we own the trains. So I disagree with all those principles that we have seen displayed here. 
Here is the next one. Yes we should have public transport but let us not make it a bottomless pit that poor taxpayers have to pour into without any return. Let us have public transport that is actually cost efficient. Let us help people on a low income to get around the city and around the country but let us not apply subsidies just indiscriminately like we are doing here—no one now knows what things cost. Let us also admit that roads are a great way of getting around. They are great when we are in a car they are great when we are in a truck and they are great when we are in a bus. Actually rail is a horrible way of getting around because we cannot get a bus we cannot get in a car and we cannot get in a truck. The trains do not go where we want to go they do not go when we want to go and they do not end up at our house. That is why rail is a difficult proposition in New Zealand. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Can’t you walk? 
RODNEY HIDE 
: I am quite happy to walk along of course. But it is very very hard to walk from say Auckland to Hamilton. 
Bob Clarkson 
: Go on your pushbike. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: It is very very hard to ride a bike from Auckland to Hamilton; and actually it is quite hard to catch the train from Auckland to Hamilton no matter how much money we put in. The best way to get from Auckland to Hamilton is to take a bus or a car or to drive a truck. 
Bob Clarkson 
: Horse? 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Well maybe if we followed the Greens’ policy we would all be in a horse and buggy and be covered in pollution as a consequence. So roads are a good idea. It may well be that the price of oil continues to climb—who knows? The great thing about living in a capitalist world with entrepreneurship and invention is that I think we will be driving around in the future in electric cars. They will not be invented by Governments; they will not be invented by committees. Wasting billions of dollars on rail does not help us one jot. I just wish we would reflect a bit more on the ability of entrepreneurs and of New Zealanders to make the right decisions when confronted with the proper costs. [ 
Interruption 
] I also wish we would not sit in Parliament like Judith Tizard who I notice quite happily drives around in her new BMW and then lectures the rest of us about climate change. I think if we did that a bit less we would actually get on a lot better. 
Here is what we need to do. We need to reform the Resource Management Act so that roading projects can go ahead. We need to allow the private sector to invest in roads and charge tolls. We need to consider user-pays—if we use a road particularly at times of congestion we have to pay the cost. If we did that then we could afford a decent roading network. Let us stop just taxing people—the opposite of user-pays—which is what we do now. We force non-users to pay. That is unfair wrong and inefficient and it wastes resources—something that I would think our environmentalist friends should be concerned about. Thank you. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 This is the final reading of the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. It is a pleasure to take a call when I think about what will happen tomorrow morning: there will be trucks up and down this country blocking the roads in protest at this Government. Trucks in Hamilton Auckland Wellington Christchurch and Invercargill will be blocking the roads showing the dissatisfaction there is amongst the public at what this Government has done to the economy. This is not just about petrol taxes and the price of fuel; this is mismanagement by a Government. This is mismanagement of the New Zealand economy. It is the purchase of a rail system which is seen as some kind of universal panacea but it will not deliver the answers in road transport it will not deliver the answers in passenger transport and it will not be the answer for New Zealand. 
Hon Shane Jones 
: Why not? What’s your policy? 
DAVID BENNETT 
: Because there are things going on in the transport industry. If we look at what is happening around the world we will see that it is probably a balance between what we have heard from the last two speakers—from the Greens and the ACT party. There will be technological advances. There will be electric cars before we know it and those cars will run on roads. There is a huge investment in the infrastructure of roads going on around the world. The new technology will be invested in things that travel on those roads. In 10 to 20 years’ time we may even be building roads for the cleanest greenest form of transport which may be cars that are not powered by fossil fuels. That may be the answer in 10 to 20 years’ time. The answer may not be in public transport; the answer may be in roads. 
There may be a role for public transport in the sense of trains as well. It may be part of that equation. But it certainly is not part of the equation that the New Zealand Government has to buy that part of the equation. We had a very sophisticated and efficient system going and this Government has come in and spent billions of taxpayers’ dollars on a system that it will turn just to rack and ruin. 
New Zealanders will get up tomorrow and find they cannot get to work on time; they will find that there are major traffic jams around the country because the public has had enough of this Government. It is their way of saying that they do not want any more silly ideas from the Labour Government; they want practical decisions and government on the economics that will build this country strong. That is the message members will get tomorrow. That is the message that will be on the streets of Hamilton tomorrow morning. People will be saying they have had enough of this Government and they want better management and economic management that will deliver for all New Zealanders. That is what they will get at the election at the end of the year. 
When we look at this legislation we see that it encompasses the regional petrol tax. If this was such a visionary thing for the Labour Government to include in its legislation why does the Prime Minister go out and say that there will be no implementation of this regional petrol tax? Why has the Prime Minister gone out and said that over her dead body will she implement a regional petrol tax next year? The reason is political expediency. She knows she cannot go into an election campaign putting another tax on New Zealanders especially on top of high fuel prices. That is the reason why the Labour Party will not enforce that tax next year. It will pass the legislation today that gives it the right to put another tax on New Zealanders but it says it will not implement it next year. Well we do not believe the Labour Party. We have seen Labour’s policy in this area in the past where it says one thing and does another. This will be another case. 
I bet that next year the Government would put regional petrol taxes on as quickly as it could. It would whack the motorists of Auckland with 10c next year even though the Prime Minister has said she would not because the Government does not care about its word. Its word does not mean anything and it will do whatever it wants next year and the punters know that. They know they cannot trust these guys and they will not because is the Government going to pass legislation that gives it the ability to put a tax on and then not put a tax on? Get in the real world. These guys would put a tax on. They are just waiting until after the election to do it. New Zealanders out there need to understand that they cannot trust Labour on taxes. Labour has shown that in the past. Labour said it was going to give reductions on taxes and it did not. The Government is going to put a tax on New Zealanders next year; a tax which it said it would not put on them now. That is the reality of this Government and we know that is the case. 
Another big part of the regional petrol tax was the 5c-5c split. That was the ability for regions to have their say. The regions came into the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee one after another saying: “We want to have discretion. We want to be able to build our roads in our area if we want to. We want to be able to put money into public transport if we want to. Give us that discretion.” What is so hard about Government giving the regions discretion? Is that not what we are here for to do what the people want? The people came and asked for discretion but the Labour Government said: “No. We won’t give discretion. We won’t give the people what they want. We will give them what we think is right what we think is the best thing for New Zealand what we think is the answer in this case.” That is classic Labour Party mentality. It knows best and the people the public and the regions do not count. They are just a tax-and-grab incentive for this Labour Government and the regions are distraught at that. 
The small parties that came into this House had the ability to change that. I hear members such as those from United Future talk about reasonableness and how we need to have a balance between public and private transport and passenger and roading transport mechanisms but they did not want to give the regions that discretion. When it came to the crunch parties like that were not willing to give the discretion to the regions. They were not willing to go out there and do what the people wanted. So they can talk about reasonableness until the cows come home but when it came to the crunch they were not there for the regions just like the Government of the day. That is something that the regions will not forget. 
The regions of New Zealand will look upon this Government and see that they have been told that they have to have a certain split in their spending when they wanted to have the justification and the discretion to do it themselves. It is a sad indictment on this Parliament and this Government if the regional voice of New Zealand is not accommodated in this Parliament. 
When we look at road transport one of the big issues is planning—long-term planning. People need some certainty that there will be projects going into the future. They need that certainty so that they can have the capacity to deliver on those projects. This bill goes some way in dealing with that planning capacity and that is a good step. However much more is needed. 
When we look at the history behind this bill and why it was set up it was in reaction to the need to finance public transport in Auckland. The Prime Minister the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Finance said in the Budget that they were going to have the electrification of Auckland rail. Then they had to work out how they would pay for it. They had no mechanism to pay for it so they decided to have a regional petrol tax instead. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: It’s a bit like they were going to have a stadium. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: As Maurice Williamson said they will have these things but they will not actually fund them. Now that they have to work out how they will fund it they have decided to put another tax on New Zealanders. They will put another tax on hard-working New Zealanders to pay for the promises they made in a Budget. That is the history behind this legislation. 
The other history behind this legislation is the total mess in relation to the value for money that people were getting out of the transport sector. There was report after report showing no value for money in transport construction and maintenance. We had the Ministerial Advisory Group on Roading Costs and the Next Steps review. Those reports showed that there was no value for money in the transport sector and that major improvement was needed. This legislation is a half-stop measure that came in within a very short period of time in response to those things. This legislation has not been fully considered; it is just something the Government wanted to rush through before the election to say that it has dealt with that value-for-money issue. 
The Government of the day should have been much more reflective. It should have taken a more conciliatory approach that looked at the options rather than just ramming through one option it thought it could get through in a bill before the election. The true test of a Government that wants to do its best for New Zealand is not only identifying a problem but also working for the right solution. This measure is just the solution on the table that was the easiest and I say shame on the Labour Government for doing that because it has not taken the regions into account. It has not done the hard work needed to get the right solution for New Zealand. Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. 
NATHAN GUY (National) 
: 
 What a week it has been for the Government. Let us just think about this week. Government members have come to Wellington and launched KiwiRail but we still cannot get them to front up and say how much the Government has paid for it. The people of Canterbury might be impressed with the colours red and black but when people are struggling to get food on the table and to pay the second-highest interest rates in the Western World the Government is splashing out on this investment and we still cannot identify how much it has cost the hard-working New Zealand taxpayer. Our finance spokesperson Bill English has tried to ask the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance how much it has cost New Zealand taxpayers but they still cannot front up and tell us. 
Then this week there has been another increase of 2c a litre on the price of petrol at the pump as a result of accident compensation levies. Since the Government came into office in 2000 it has increased the accident compensation petrol levy from 2.3c to 9.3c a litre over that time. This increase will put another $120 million into the Government coffers. It is now costing people who are filling up at the pump every week over $100 to fill the average-sized car and they are wondering where their money is going when they consider all the wastage on the growth in bureaucracy that this Government has endorsed over the last 8 years. 
Do members know what has also happened to cap off a bad week for the Government? Road-user charges are going up by 7 to 15 percent and there was no consultation for those road-user transport operators. As a result the highways into our major cities will be clogged and congested in the morning. What an embarrassment that will be to the transport Minister Annette King because she did not consult. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: They’ve had a gutsful. 
NATHAN GUY 
: These truckies have had an absolute gutsful. They are going to meet in my area tomorrow at MacKays Crossing. I have been invited there to address them. All these transport operators who are fired up will be meeting at MacKays Crossing at half-past 6 and they are going to gridlock the highway—which I think is an embarrassment. They are doing that because the Government has given up on them—it is not listening and it does not care—and transport operators are saying that that is pathetic. So productivity tomorrow in our major cities will be slowed down. Right now people are leaving the city and telling their employers that they probably will not see them tomorrow; they probably will not see them in at work because the highways will be congested. That is because this Government has not consulted with these trucking operators and those Government members should hang their heads in shame. 
Let us look at the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill because we support some of its provisions. One of those examples is the hypothecation—that is the moving of all the petrol tax that is collected into roading; we know that we need to do more. But the big thing we are opposed to in this bill is councils being allowed to put another fuel tax on motorists when motorists are already hurting at the pump. Why would the Government want to do that right now when people are paying hugely just to fill up and get to work or take the kids to school. I cannot understand that. Sure we have to invest in our projects but we should just look at the wastage. 
The example I give people when I am out and talking to people in my region—and Chris Finlayson will know because he travels up and down from Mana quite regularly—is what has happened to the area in Plimmerton commonly known as the T2 lanes. It is just a section of road that is about 1.5 kilometres long which Transit did not design very well from the start. It has been open for 3 years but do members know what Transit has been doing? This is a clearway area; it is open for certain periods of time then closed for others so that residents can park their cars in front of their homes. But most of them are petrified to do that now because there have been some nose-to-tail accidents there and residents are not parking in the clearway. So this is an example of wastage from this Government. A section of State highway has not been designed properly. And do members know what has happened? Transit has had guys standing there with video cameras taking imagery of whether vehicles coming through have a driver and a passenger. Then they have collected the data and sent out warning notices. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Oh you’re kidding. 
NATHAN GUY 
: Yes they have sent out warning notices. They have sent out 8000 warning notices saying: “You’ve been a very naughty driver. You’re operating in the wrong lane. You should be travelling in the other one.” There is so much confusion. And do members know what? They have had three reports—three reports—on this 1.5 kilometre section of road. It has cost $500000. It has cost the taxpayer half a million just to do reports and administrate costs for those guys in their fluorescent jackets. The point I am trying to make for the benefit of those listening in the congestion of the traffic getting out to the Kapiti Coast now is that this legislation in terms of a regional fuel tax is not needed right now. It might be needed in the future but right now motorists are hurting. There is no way they can afford to pay another 3c 8c or 10c a litre when they are sitting in congestion and seeing all the wastage in some of those examples that I have put in front of the House this evening. 
So National is opposed to this bill. There are some good parts in it but we are extremely opposed to the regional fuel tax right now when motorists are hurting. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 70 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Noes 51 
New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 2; Independent: Copeland. 
Bill read a third time. 
Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill 
First Reading 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Associate Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage) 
: 
 I move  
That the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill be now read a first time. 
 At an appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Government Administration Committee and that the committee report finally to the House on or before 22 August 2008. 
The Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill will establish a scheme that makes payments to New Zealand authors in recognition of their books being available for use in New Zealand libraries. As Associate Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage it is my pleasure to introduce this bill which gives legal recognition and support to New Zealand authors. As Minister responsible for the National Library of New Zealand I applaud the acknowledgment the bill makes of the public benefit of having New Zealand authors’ books widely available to New Zealanders through libraries. 
The bill will establish a new scheme to replace the New Zealand Authors’ Fund currently administered by Creative New Zealand under section 31 of the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Act. The bill repeals section 31 of that Act. The Authors’ Fund was established by a Cabinet minute on 2 July 1973. It approved “the establishment of a scheme for making payments to authors for the library use of their work”. This scheme had been foreshadowed in the Labour Party manifesto in 1969 and 1972 and was originally I understand the idea of Professor Keith Sinclair who was a Labour Party candidate in 1969. In 1972 the then Prime Minister Norman Kirk said: “one of the purposes of the public lending right is to make it possible for authors’ earnings to be increased to a point where they could provide authors with time to put into writing.” 
New Zealand was the first English-speaking country to introduce such a scheme. The fund was administered by the Department of Internal Affairs until it was transferred in 1991 to the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand now of course Creative New Zealand. The Hon Doug Graham in creating the organisation that became Creative New Zealand had proposed that the Authors’ Fund would be taken up or indeed lapse—as he said to me it would—under that organisation. So basically he had proposed that it would die. 
In 2000 it was then put into the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Act through the work of Richard Northey the Hon Christine Fletcher and me and I am very proud of the fact that the Authors’ Fund exists today because those members of Parliament decided to take that action. So we received the Authors’ Fund in the form it is and in 2002 the Government topped up the fund by half a million dollars with the assistance of the Green Party. I acknowledge the work that Sue Bradford did in enabling that extra funding to come into the Authors’ Fund. There was also of course other money allocated which was used to promote books and New Zealand writing in other ways. 
Under the Authors’ Fund authors have the expectation of payment rather than explicit entitlement to payment based on the library holdings of their work. The available fund is divided amongst eligible authors and is on the basis of the number of books held in libraries and as the number of authors and the number of books have increased the book rate has gone down. This situation and the lack of clarity around the entitlement or expectation has developed and the Government’s specific purpose in funding this scheme to provide for these payments needs to be clarified. Section 31 of Creative New Zealand’s legislation follows the 1973 Cabinet minute and states that the purpose of the scheme is to provide compensation for loss of royalties as a result of books being available in New Zealand libraries. However such loss is very difficult to quantify. Payments under the scheme represent compensation in only the broadest sense. In reality payments have come to be seen by authors as a justified income stream and a form of recompense to which they are entitled as fair payment for allowing their works which often have taken years of research writing illustrating and developing to be available for wide public use in libraries without every individual having to buy a copy. 
Mandating the current scheme within Creative New Zealand’s legislation and requiring that agency to fund and administer it has proved an uneasy fit on occasions. The New Zealand Authors’ Fund provides payments from a set fund to authors who are registered for the scheme based on eligibility criteria. Creative New Zealand’s core business on the other hand is to disperse its funding through application-driven processes contestable funding decisions based on merit and its own strategic priorities for the development and expression of the arts across New Zealand at arms length from the Government. Creative New Zealand supports the transfer of the Authors’ Fund from its responsibility. 
In line with comparable schemes overseas such as those in the UK and Australia the bill establishes a public lending right scheme that recognises there is a public benefit for the use of books in public libraries for which authors deserve and should be entitled to payment. Internationally there are 28 such schemes. In line with international practice the bill does not include in the scheme non-book material held in libraries such as CD-Roms audio tapes music scores on-line services videos or CDs. We are willing to consider this issue further and will if convinced include such material in future policy. 
There has been an ongoing call for stand-alone legislation to give clear direction on the scope eligibility criteria and administration of the public lending right scheme to replace the current legislative arrangement for the New Zealand Authors’ Fund. Providing for the scheme within stand-alone legislation will give the public lending right statutory protection and reduce the risk of it being abolished. Stand-alone legislation would also bring New Zealand in line with comparable arrangements in Australia and the United Kingdom. 
The provisions of the bill reflect calls from authors and take account of a major review of the Authors’ Fund that was completed in the year 2000. This followed the Labour Party’s 1999 manifesto commitment to “develop a satisfactory statutory basis for administration of the Authors’ Fund in consultation with authors and Creative New Zealand;” and to “work towards a book rate that properly compensates authors for loss of royalties”. I recognise that this process has taken rather longer than I had thought when I put those words into the Labour Party manifesto in 1999 but I would also argue that this Government has done a great deal for authors and literature across New Zealand of which I am very proud. This bill has been developed with input from representatives of the New Zealand Society of Authors and many others. 
The details of where the newly established public lending right scheme will be administered are a matter for debate and I would expect submissions to discuss this. Both the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and the National Library have been suggested. Both have advantages but may have conflicts. My preference is not to establish a stand-alone organisation as this will always be a comparatively small fund and we want as much of the money as possible to go to authors. 
Until now the New Zealand Authors’ Fund guidelines were issued from time to time with no required consultation with authors or with the Minister. The bill requires regulations to determine the criteria on which authors books and libraries are to be included in the scheme and changes to legislation will be subject to both consultation with an advisory group established for the scheme and recommendation from the responsible Minister to the Governor-General. 
The bill requires the chief executive of the administering department to appoint an advisory group in consultation with the responsible Minister and the advisory group will consist of representatives of authors and librarians employees of relevant Government departments and others who have appropriate experience knowledge and skills. The establishment of such a group is something that authors have strongly advocated. The responsible department will make annual payments under the scheme in accordance with the regulations and each registered author will receive an annual payment based on a book rate that represents an amount payable per copy of eligible titles held in New Zealand libraries. 
The amount of funding available to the scheme will be subject to the usual Budget cycle processes. In May 2008 the Prime Minister the Rt Hon Helen Clark who is also of course the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage announced that an additional $2 million will be added to the Authors’ Fund over the next 4 years raising its current annual funding to $2 million. The Authors’ Fund will continue to operate as currently administered by Creative New Zealand until the date the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Act comes into force. 
The bill gives recognition to the vital contribution that New Zealand authors make to the Government’s cultural provision. As a comparatively small market of 4.2 million people New Zealand will not be able to support all writers to write full-time without significant exporting of New Zealand literature in spite of the very high rate at which we buy and read books especially New Zealand books. By establishing a public lending right there is a clear recognition of the entitlement to rather than the expectation of payment to authors for the books they write that are read across New Zealand. I also note that we are about to see the only district in New Zealand without a public library the Chatham Islands get one which will mean that every New Zealander will have a library. 
I am grateful to all of the parties that have given their support to this bill and I urge them to support the first reading and the bill’s referral to the Government Administration Committee for the calling and hearing of submissions and further consideration. I commend this bill to the House. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 National will support the first reading of the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill and its referral to the Government Administration Committee. The bill does however require a great deal of work and I will touch on that in the course of my speech. We have heard from the Associate Minister this afternoon the official history of the Authors’ Fund since say 1973 but I want to give members the real history—the real oil. 
National recognises the huge contribution of authors to New Zealand’s culture. Indeed it is fair to say that in the last 20 or 30 years there has been a real explosion in all types of writing and this bill represents one way in which that magnificent contribution can be recognised. It is fair as we finally get to talk about the public lending right in this House that I recognise some great writers and some great New Zealand authors like Dame Fiona Kidman who is a wonderful New Zealand writer and Owen Marshall who is our greatest short story writer. I mention those writers because they both served on the Arts Board of Creative New Zealand with me and made a huge contribution in their 3-year terms. Karl Stead is another one who has made a great contribution to New Zealand literature. He too served for a very brief time on the Arts Council but he resigned in disgust after one meeting because of the state of the Authors’ Fund. I will also mention good old Tony Simpson who works for the Minister of Agriculture and Philip Temple who worked long and hard to see the establishment of the public lending right in New Zealand. 
I also recognise some great historians. I particularly want to mention Dr Barry Gustafson who was once a member of the Labour Party but saw the light. He stood for us in Birkenhead in 1987 and is the author of a wonderful book on New Zealand’s great former Prime Minister Sir Keith Holyoake. It would be inappropriate to go through some of the great writers without mentioning New Zealand’s pre-eminent historian Dr Michael Bassett who has just published an outstanding book on the Lange years. As Mr Groser and I were sitting and contemplating this issue before I was called to speak I was wondering who this Government’s Michael Bassett will be. Who will tell the real story of the Clark Government? 
Hone Harawira 
: Shane Jones. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: I initially thought that it would be Mr Maharey but then I do not think he would be an appropriate choice because he specialises in polysyllabic sociological claptrap and anything he would write would be unreadable. I agree with Mr Harawira. Mr Groser and I reached the conclusion that it would have to be Shane “I am surprised I am not the leader yet” Jones because we think that Mr Jones will tell the story. 
The starting point for a discussion about the public lending right is former Prime Minister Norman Kirk who introduced the Authors’ Fund by Cabinet minute in 1973. Norm was an odd mixture. Apparently when he was Prime Minister he used to shoot at pigeons from his third-floor office. But that marks a great contrast with New Zealand’s very own Senator Joe McCarthy—the current Prime Minister. Norm shot at pigeons but as we know from yesterday’s question time the Prime Minister prefers to shoot herself in the foot. 
Initially the Authors’ Fund was administered by the Department of Internal Affairs then it was transferred to the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council and then over to Creative New Zealand when that body was formed in 1994. The Authors’ Fund should never have been administered by Creative New Zealand because it is anomalous for a grants funding agency to administer that kind of fund. Moreover it is fair to say that the Society of Authors used to get very annoyed with Creative New Zealand because the administration of the fund was messed up more often than not. 
The next stage in the narrative is to talk about a person of whom everyone in this House is or should be fond: me. I was chair of the Arts Board in 1998 and I used to dread my meetings with the Society of Authors because all its members would ever do was to complain about the Authors’ Fund and that Creative New Zealand had never administered it properly. 
Hon Shane Jones 
: You gave them great cause to complain. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: So I commissioned a report I say to Mr Jones into whether New Zealand needed to have special legislation—whether we needed to have a public lending right Act. That report was completed towards the end of the 1990s by Geoff McLay who is now an associate professor of law at Victoria University. Geoff McLay is a very fine copyright lawyer; he is probably New Zealand’s leading intellectual property academic. Indeed he is the co-author of the leading text on the subject. Mr McLay reported to Creative New Zealand and recommended among other things that New Zealand follow both the United Kingdom and Australia in recognising the public lending right in a separate statute. That comprehensive report made a number of detailed recommendations on a variety of subjects related to public lending rights. 
Labour has been lobbied hard by authors because its 1999 manifesto promised there would be an overhaul of the Authors’ Fund. But nothing happened. Like many of Labour’s promises to the arts community it was all show and no substance. The Prime Minister has always used the arts to promote herself. She is renowned for turning up at functions giving a quick speech and then leaving. One of her more notorious recent performances was at the music awards. But she has been hopeless when it comes to the policy detail and that is why so many areas of the arts require comprehensive reform. They have been neglected for far too long. 
Nothing happened regarding the Authors’ Fund for years. Then after I came into Parliament in 2005 I thought it would be a good idea to have a regular round-table meeting with representatives of the New Zealand Society of Authors. That turned into an excellent opportunity for an inter-party dialogue with authors on issues of interest. I note Ms Kedgley is in the House and she is a member who has appeared at meetings. Tony Simpson representing the Progressive party has appeared as has the Associate Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage Judith Tizard and indeed Mr Hide the ACT member turned up last year as well. I always recall the first time the Associate Minister turned up at one of those meetings. She was very dismissive about public lending right legislation and when someone asked her a question about the statutory recognition of the Authors’ Fund she snapped at that person that there was no point because it was all covered by section 31 of the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Act. But if she had bothered to read the McLay report on the adequacy of section 31 she would have learnt that we had slipped behind the United Kingdom and Australia—the countries to which New Zealand can be most compared. 
So why is there legislation at this time? The answer is that when nothing has been done for 8 years after promises to do something were made in 1999 and when one knows that authors are particularly annoyed and that the Opposition spokesperson on the arts has a particular interest in the subject something needs to be done very quickly. So all of a sudden we found that the Labour Government had rediscovered the public lending right and had become interested in this issue. 
This bill is the fruit of all its hard work. We have only to look at clause 10 to see that the work is inadequate and probably breaches the Legislation Advisory Committee guidelines on primary and delegated legislation. Indeed clause 10 is one of the laziest clauses I have ever seen in any legislation. 
Dail Jones 
: Appalling! 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: I hope that Mr Dail Jones will be making a contribution because he will agree with me that to leave all the key questions to be answered by clause 10 is simply unbelievable. Those matters should not be dealt with by regulation. Labour cannot even define an author or a book. What a lazy piece of work this bill is! It is an insult to our talented and hard-working literary community. After 8 years authors deserved something better than this bill. The resale royalties legislation is misconceived but at least there is some detail in it. This bill is a disgrace in terms of lawmaking and as I said I think the literary community deserves a much better piece of work than this. 
I am pleased that finally we have had the bare bones of public lending right legislation introduced into this House. I very much hope that I will be able to play some part on the Government Administration Committee in considering the bill because the subject has been of personal interest to me for many years. But there is a lot of work to be done if we are to knock this legislation into shape for the literary community. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First will be supporting the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill. Obviously it is very long overdue. As the New Zealand First spokesperson on the arts I read a book or two now and then and I am only too pleased to support a greater remuneration for the authors of New Zealand. 
I recall the background of the Authors’ Fund. Members may know that I opposed Dr Michael Bassett and won the seat of Waitemata in 1975. I had many discussions with Dr Michael Bassett in subsequent years when he came back to Parliament. One of his little asides always was that he established the Authors’ Fund. Maybe Dr Bassett was the one who told Norman Kirk that something needed to be done and the minute was passed. I am sure he will give submissions to the select committee and no doubt this piece of history will come forward and become substantiated as the real thing as the years go by. I give credit to Dr Michael Bassett for always mentioning this for some reason or other when we were having discussions. I am very pleased to see it being brought up to date. 
Of course there is one question that does cross my mind. I suppose there is no possibility of deceased authors being recognised in any way in New Zealand. This bill seems to apply only to living authors. Often we give credit to deceased authors so that was just a thought that went through my mind. Maybe we have never done it in the past and maybe we will never do it in the future but perhaps some sort of recognition might be given to their estates. 
We have done very well in recent years internationally—Lloyd Jones who is no relation with his  
Book of Fame 
 and of course his most recent book  
Mister Pip 
. He is Bob Jones’ brother. Of course we should now say that Bob Jones is the brother of Lloyd Jones because Lloyd Jones surely is much more famous although having said that I am sure Bob Jones might write a book on it to dispute the fact. I say good luck to both of them for being authors in New Zealand and both of them being entitled to receive a dollar or two although I am sure Sir Bob Jones would donate it to an appropriate charity being the nice kind of bloke that he is. 
Other authors are Margaret Mahy and her works  
The Lion in the Meadow 
  
The Boy With Two Shadows 
 and  
The Man Whose Mother Was A Pirate 
. These books are very well read amongst a certain sector of the population—very young people. She has done extremely well in New Zealand and I think she is even published overseas. As the previous speaker Chris Finlayson was saying and as the Minister was saying I believe we need to export some of our work and full credit to her. Keri Hulme has been mentioned as has Joy Cowley who wrote  
The Silent One 
 and the poet Witi Ihimaera whom my son studied at school and of course Bill Manhire who wrote  
Dawn/Water. 
 Let us not forget Maurice Gee the author of  
In My Father’s Den. 
 I think that has been made into a film as well. That sort of credit and encouragement needs to be given to New Zealand authors and the Authors’ Fund will clearly be one way of doing it. 
I had the misfortune perhaps of suggesting to an English literature teacher that there is one author who does not get enough credit in New Zealand and that is Barry Crump who has long since passed away. I did suggest while Barry was still alive to a literature teacher at a school that students should study him. She was complaining about boys not studying literature and not reading. So I said: “Why not give them Barry Crump?” but for some reason she was absolutely horrified. I feel that there is a snobbery around sometimes and that books that boys will read are sometimes not made available in schools because they are not highbrow enough. But I read  
A Good Keen Man 
 and one or two others and they flowed well. I can almost see people turning up their noses already at my view of literature when I suggest Barry Crump but books are there to be read and if people are not reading them then maybe that is a criticism of the book itself. 
I take the point raised by the previous speaker as far as the regulation provisions of this bill are concerned. I said that provision was unbelievable and I am pleased the member took up that issue. I have never seen a regulations clause in a bill as small as this. There are only 17 struggling clauses in the bill and the regulations clause clause 10 has 10 subclauses all of its own. I wonder whether any work was actually given to the preparation of this bill. The things that are set out in clause 10 “Matters that may be dealt with in regulations” should really have been taken into account. However let us give credit as the saying goes. The Minister has taken the trouble to prepare the bill. It is on its way. The problem with this institution is that if something never reaches Parliament it never will. If we can get something into Parliament we have something that Parliament and one of the various select committees can work on and improve. I take Sue Kedgley’s view that now that we have a bill we can of course criticise this regulations clause but we can work on it and the select committee can work on it. We can ensure we know who an author is and define what a book is and perhaps extend the matter to CDs and such like as the Minister has said. 
Some praise was given to academic historians and their contributions to writing. I find that the most boring histories ever written are those written by academic historians. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: Keith Sinclair’s  
A History of New Zealand 
 was a wonderful book. 
DAIL JONES 
: Keith Sinclair’s work on Walter Nash really put me off Keith Sinclair totally. Keith Sinclair was my favourite lecturer at Auckland University. He had a marvellous command of the English language. If people read his autobiography  
Halfway Round the Harbour 
 which I have read and which I have in my library at home they would believe it was Keith Sinclair talking to them. But reading his history of Walter Nash was utterly dreary and boring and if it was not for the fact that he found some Security Intelligence Service papers in his garage no one would ever have known that Keith Sinclair had written a book on Walter Nash. Maybe that is some of the hype that goes around as publicity. Historians should almost give up writing history books. Some of the other people who have written books on New Zealand—and there are plenty of them—make it so much more enjoyable compared with the likes of with due respect even Michael Bassett and my favourite lecturer ever Keith Sinclair. 
New Zealand First supports this bill. We look forward to a considerable amount of work being done on it at the select committee because a considerable amount of work is required. But I congratulate the Minister on bringing the bill to the House and giving us something to work on. New Zealand First will be doing all it can to ensure that the authors of New Zealand receive at least the amount of recognition they deserve if not even more. 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I am delighted to follow my most excellent colleague Christopher Finlayson. I so admire his breadth of intellect and his incredible understanding of the arts and the work he does so diligently as National’s spokesperson on the arts. 
National welcomes the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill even though the Minister put forward this legislation 8 years after a review was conducted in 2000. Is it not incredible that last year she was on a panel for the Society of Authors and said that section 61—which is only about five lines long—was absolutely adequate. She has changed her mind. It is a case of “Oh my goodness it’s election year. We had better hurry up and do something. Perhaps we should hurry up and make some sort of placatory gesture to the authors of New Zealand and to the Society of Authors and promote this bill to the House.” [ 
Interruption 
] Of course National will support the bill. 
National members think it is eminently suitable to support the authors of New Zealand not least because we want these books in our libraries and we want the public to be able to access them. But the moment I looked at this legislation and saw those regulations—all 10 of them—I thought that if Ian Wishart wanted to put a book into the library—maybe called  
Absolute Power 
—he would have to go through all these regulations. And what is that book about? It is about the current Prime Minister. If he wanted to know what the regulations said he would find out that books had to meet certain guidelines in terms of how they support the current Government—or not as the case may be. Members should look at  
Absolute Power 
 and the detail that it gives— 
Tim Groser 
: What about Nicky Hager? 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: Well would members accept his book? How under the regulations in clause 10 will people define which books will be accepted and which will not? Who will be in charge of that? Actually it will be the Prime Minister. Funny that is it not? Would we then learn about “paintergate” the motorcade incident and what really happened and why there was such a delay between the time of the police being notified that there was a civil case and the pictures being burnt? All sorts of really relevant facts are out there available to the public and hopefully available in our libraries. 
The regulations which are outlined in clause 10 are just amazing. I reiterate the concerns already expressed by my most excellent colleague Christopher Finlayson. The bill has a regulation for just about everything. Clause 10(8) states: “Regulations may specify who may enter his or her name in the register”. Oh my gosh! They have another register for goodness’ sake! An author who has spent a lot of his or her time and effort writing a book will probably have to fill out a book’s worth of regulations just to get that book into the public library and even to access the money that will be provided through the Authors’ Fund. I am so glad that National has a sensible member like Christopher Finlayson as our spokesperson on the arts here in New Zealand. He will contribute so much. 
One of the hallmarks of this current Government is that it introduces absolutely abysmal legislation into the House. The Government does not do enough homework. It does not identify the problems and it cannot sort out solutions. One has only to look at the regulations in this bill to understand that. This is appalling but quite frankly I do not think we have learnt to expect very much else from either the Government or the current Government spokesperson on the arts. One has only to look at the regulations to see that. The bill is short but it could have been shorter. If Government members had done their homework we might have been able to expedite this bill. But I can see it taking quite some time to work through each of the nine or 10 regulations that will be formulated and the sorts of hoops that the Government will make authors jump through just to be approved for this funding. That is an indictment. 
This bill will reinforce the concerns that my most excellent colleague Christopher Finlayson expressed earlier about the fact that authors will go along to Society of Authors meetings and resign in disgust. They will not waste their time jumping through hoops and going through what this Government expects them to go through. Let us face it: this Government has done nothing but grow bureaucracy in its nearly 9 years in power. We have gone from having 26000 to 36000 bureaucrats and what have they achieved? The Minister cannot even do the basic homework necessary for a piece of legislation despite all the people she has in her ministry—and other ministries to boot—and that fact is coming through loud and clear. What a hopeless Minister she is in terms of presenting something to the House that is robust enough even to go through the process. 
I will make a few other comments as well. This legislation is quite unlike the hopeless artists’ royalties scheme that again was introduced by this Government recently. It was absolutely hopeless. Again not enough homework was done. This Government does not do the job properly so all we end up with is lots and lots of problems. As has been said already this legislation really is an attempt to curry favour with the Society of Authors and with authors throughout New Zealand—and we have fantastic authors. 
In my electorate of Coromandel we have a plethora of wonderfully creative people. We have had Michael King and the author of  
Jane and the Dragon. 
 If I had known that I would be speaking on this legislation today I would have put together a list and we would have been here a lot longer than the time allotted. I also take the opportunity to mention  
Out in the Cold 
 by David Grant which is an excellent book. He has put out a rather interesting anecdotal history about horse racing in New Zealand as well—another very good author in New Zealand. I also recognise the poets in New Zealand and the works they produce that we are lucky enough to have access to in our libraries. 
I am a huge fan of libraries. I think they are incredibly important particularly so for a rural area. It is a wonderful opportunity for parents to take their children along once a week as a form of entertainment and to go to the local library and just spend some time among real books. It gets children away from computers PlayStations and things like that. We cannot understate the importance of books in our children’s lives and one of the delights I had in my early years was being able to go to the library every Friday night with my parents my brothers and my sister. We spent a lot of time in the library. It was a wonderful wonderful opportunity. We would take home about six books at a time; we really enjoyed those books. They were very important in our formative years and I am sure they will continue to be important in the formative years of many many children to come. 
Perhaps Government members could take a leaf of what everybody has said about the importance of books do a little bit of reading themselves and maybe come up with something a little better than nine pieces of regulation as part of the proposal for this bill. How is the public lending right for New Zealand authors in any way streamlined and supportive of authors if they have to jump through hoops to get access to that fund? We will look with interest to see how hard the current Government continues to make it for people just to access simple funding arrangements and we will look forward to being able to contemplate that and bring some sense to the legislation at the select committee. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I will start my contribution by saying that the Green Party is absolutely delighted to be supporting this Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill. We had almost got to wondering whether this day and this legislation would ever arrive. It has arrived late in the year at something of the eleventh hour. Nevertheless it has arrived and we are hopeful that with the goodwill and support of this Parliament it will be passed through in this Parliament as swiftly as possible. 
We are aware that librarians and writers put together an excellent proposal for reform way back in November 2000. The Government has finally acted on that proposal and we have here a bill that will entrench the Authors’ Fund scheme in its own stand-alone legislation which authors have been calling for for decades and which the Green Party wholeheartedly supports. 
Debate interrupted. 
The House adjourned at 6 p.m.