Volume 617 Week 58 - Wednesday 26 May 2004 
Volume 617 Week 58 - Wednesday 26 May 2004 
[Volume:617;Page:13301] 
Wednesday 26 May 2004 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Business of Select Committees 
Reporting Dates 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Following what I understand was the unanimous agreement of the Health Committee this morning I seek leave for the time by which the Health Committee must finally report the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill to be extended to 30 July 2004. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection to that course being followed? 
John Carter 
: I just need to double check. Can we put it a little later? 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: We can come back to it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: We will putthe question of leave a little later. 
Questions to Ministers 
Orthopaedic Services—Access 
1. STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What is she doing to improve access to orthopaedic services? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 Today the Government announced a major initiative aimed at doubling the number of publicly funded hip and knee replacement operations performed in hospitals over the next 4 years. This increase in operations will bring huge relief to thousands of New Zealanders by ensuring access to the most effective treatment option for patients suffering high levels of immobility and crippling pain. The project aims to ensure that in the future over 9300 New Zealanders will each year regain their physical independence. 
Steve Chadwick 
: How many more operations will occur as a result of this initiative? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: In the first year this initiative will result in an extra 1890 major joint replacements. In the first year the cost will be $30 million. By the fourth year if not sooner we plan to have doubled the current number of major joint-replacement operations being performed. That is an extra 4665 operations at a cost of up to $70 million a year. This is not a one-off project. It is one that will go on year in year out. 
Heather Roy 
: Can the Minister explain how this secretly decided announcement which district health boards did not ask for is anything but blatant electioneering to counter horror election year waiting-list stories— 
Government Members 
: Oh! 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have made a ruling and that ruling will apply to everybody. There is to be no interjection while questions are being asked. I ask the member to please start again. 
Heather Roy 
: Can the Minister explain how this secretly decided announcement which district health boards did not ask for— 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This happened yesterday and I indicated that I would raise more points of order when questions themselves were being unnecessary in terms of epithets statements etc. What does the term “secretly” have to do with that? Any discussion in Cabinet is by its very nature taken internally. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Once upon a time discussions in Cabinet were secret but now they are leaked regularly. What we have here is one of those ones that were kept secret as opposed to those ones that the Prime Minister’s ninth floor spin doctors decide to deliver sometimes even before the discussion has been held. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think it would be a bit rough to rule out the word “secret”. The member can carry on. 
Heather Roy 
: Can the Minister explain how this secretly decided announcement which district health boards did not ask for is anything but blatant electioneering to counter horror election year waiting list stories when for 4 years she has devolved funding and priorities to the boards yet now they have been told: “Here comes the money but it’s only for hip and knee replacements.”? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I realise that the ACT party has been preoccupied but I am told that this is the worst-kept secret around—in fact the announcement is before the Budget. The district health boards have worked with the ministry on the project. The Orthopaedic Association has worked with the ministry and the district health boards on the project. I think everybody expected a project would be coming along except the ACT party. What I do know is that it is welcomed by thousands of New Zealanders and is a very good response to a need. 
Foreshore and Seabed—Private Ownership 
2.  
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
 to the  
Minister for Land Information 
: Why did he tell the House on 12 August 2003 that he stood by statements that “significant chunks of the foreshore … has private ownership title” and that we are talking about thousands and not hundreds of kilometres of private title to the foreshore and on 13 August 2003 say that his initial assessment was “based on Land Information New Zealand’s advice which was drawn from preliminary work in this area” when papers just released under the Official Information Act 1982 show that advice requested by him and received on 18 July and confirmed on 25 July said “officials’ preliminary view is that the quantum is very small”? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE (Minister for Land Information) 
: 
 As the member knows on 1 August 2003 I received advice from Land Information New Zealand. Approximately 6600 kilometres of coastline could be potentially bounded by privately owned land. If he took my comments as confirming his misapprehension as between foreshore bounded by privately owned land and privately owned foreshore I regret this. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: How can the Minister claim there was any confusion in this Parliament about the ownership of the foreshore when my question on notice—so he had it hours in advance—read: “Does the Minister stand by his statement to the  
New Zealand Herald 
 that significant chunks of the foreshore not the Queen’s Chain”—I explicitly used those words—“were in private title?”. Given that I was very explicit that it was excluding the Queen’s Chain why did he continue to tell this Parliament that there were large amounts of private ownership? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: The question was not placed on notice. It was a supplementary question asked of question No. 4 on that date. I might add that the member himself should take his own advice. When he was speaking to this House in September 1993 on the Queen’s Chain Protection Bill he noted that we should not “mislead the public about exactly what those legal provisions are in terms of this complex issue of access. I invite Opposition members to be a little bit more responsible about the way in which they present this issue.” 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Mr Tamihere stated that it was not a question on notice. I seek the leave of the House to table the  
Hansard 
 which shows that question No. 6 on 12 August specifically as quoted was a question on notice. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that  
Hansard 
. Is there any objection? There is. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. How can you have judged that Mr Tamihere addressed the question when he was asked a question by Mr Smith and he got up and did not answer it but in fact read out a 1993 quote that had dubious linkages to the issue? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I judged it because I was the Speaker and I ruled it in order. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: What is Land Information New Zealand’s final advice on the portion of the foreshore bounded by privately owned land and the number of parcels surveyed to below the mean high-water mark? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: In its final report to me which I released publicly on 13 January this year Land Information confirmed that of a total coastline of 19833 kilometres 6032 kilometres is bounded by land in private ownership. It also indicated that approximately 48 parcels exist that are surveyed to below the mean high-water mark. That figure does not count foreshore included in private title due to erosion. Regarding coastline and foreshore this represents the first inventory ever undertaken in the history of this country. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why is the Minister trying to confuse the House with statements regarding riparian rights or foreshore that is bounded by certain land when the issue was always about the foreshore and seabed—an issue he got demonstrably wrong—and why does he not just apologise and resign? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: The answer to the latter part of that question is no. In answer to the first part of the question I reply that the questions raised in this House were questioning work in evolution. That has now been completed and the answers are now known to everybody. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Does the Minister accept that it is important that he does not mislead this House or the country? If so given that he said on 2 August as reported in the  
New Zealand Herald 
: “The public has no right to stroll along more than a third of New Zealand’s beaches and large chunks of the foreshore are already held in private ownership. This is revealed in two reports prepared for the Government.” and given that we have now received the official information reports which state the officials actually said: “It is estimated that only a very small amount of privately owned land would extend below the mean high-water mark.” does he now accept that he misled this House and the country; if so what does he intend doing about it? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: No because it was not until 12 December 2003 that Land Information New Zealand had conducted a full interrogation of 6600 kilometres of coastline held in private ownership. The extent of that ownership—as to whether it actually went into the foreshore—had yet to be interrogated. It was important to put the information out as and when it arrived. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why on the  
Holmes  
show did the Minister tell hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders that a third of the foreshore was in private ownership when he had two reports—the first on 18 July and the second on 25 July—that showed quite explicitly in their terms their advice that the amount of land in private ownership in one report was very small and the other was insignificant? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: Contrary to what the member has just indicated the official information was that there was no interrogation of title whatsoever in this country and a full interrogation had to occur before one could advise what it was. I advised this House that 6600 kilometres of coastline were in private ownership. That was a third at the time my officials advised me—end of story. 
Dail Jones 
: Did the Minister make a statement about the foreshore without fully understanding the meaning of the word “foreshore” and could he explain to the House today what he actually understands the meaning of that word to be? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: To put the matter beyond doubt and as I have indicated the final interrogation occurred on 12 December and this was released on 13 January after Christmas with regard to final details on foreshore and ownership. Might I put the minds of members of the House to rest by referring them specifically to clause 4 of the Foreshore and Seabed Bill. The definition of foreshore and seabed is: “(a) … the marine area that is bounded—(i) on the landward side by the high water line at mean high water spring tides;”. That puts it beyond doubt. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: In respect of a question on foreshore and seabed private ownership on 13 August why did this Minister say that his initial assessment of the level of private ownership was based on advice from Land Information New Zealand when the advice that has today come to light shows exactly the opposite of what he said in this House? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: The member is welcome to take from a number of reports that which he desires. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Did the Minister make the statement on 2 August that the public has no right to stroll along more than a third of New Zealand’s beaches and that large chunks of the foreshore and seabed are already held in private ownership when he knew on 25 July and earlier on 18 July that the statement was demonstrably untrue; and given that he misled this House why does he not resign? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: In answer to the second part of that question no that will not be happening. In answer to the first part of the question it is a fact that one-third of the New Zealand coastline is in private hands. It is not a fact that one-third of the foreshore is. We now know that to be true because the interrogation has achieved it. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Does the Minister recall telling the House last year: “I have made information available as it comes to hand in a bid to inform the public of New Zealand at the earliest possible time.”; if so why did he withhold these two reports from his officials when I requested them on 17 September last year until Budget week this year? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: That is absolutely incorrect and misleading. The reality is that when a final report was made available on 12 December— 
John Carter 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Minister cannot say that. That actually is untrue anyway but the fact is that he cannot use inferences. He should just answer the question and not give an interpretation of what he thinks may or may not have happened. It is quite inaccurate for him to do that. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I heard him say that he thought it was incorrect and it was misleading. He is perfectly entitled to say that. If he said “deliberately incorrect” of course that would be wrong. But he said it was incorrect and misleading—I listened carefully. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: The member’s view is incorrect and misleading to the extent that the information was made available to me in conclusion by my officials on 12 December—just before Christmas. It would have been inappropriate to have dumped it prior to Christmas. It was released on 13 January and that concluded the matter in the minds of everybody. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In replying to the questions the Minister appears to be reading from a report. I invite him to table the report which was the basis of the statements he made to the House. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is the Minister quoting from an official document? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: I seek leave to table a whole range of documents I am presently referring to. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will do so at the end of the question. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
:I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.I will settle this matter. [ 
Interruption 
] He is going to table it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am getting sick and tired of this. I sought advice I got it and I said it is usual to table documents at the end of a question. The Minister said he is going to table the documents and he will do that. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I asked a specific question about a specific document and that has not been dealt with. He can table whatever he likes but you have not responded to the point of order I raised. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I ask the member did he quote from an official document? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: I responded from an official document that I have already released to the public but which I am willing to table today. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Right that answers the matter. If he wants to table it I will let him table it now since we have interrupted him. Is there any objection to it being tabled? 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: There is no leave required. He must table it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: He must table it and that is that. 
Document laid on the Table of the House. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With the greatest of respect I am interested in what Mr Tamihere has to say and do on this matter. He said that he would table everything he had in front of him and if there was an official document I assume it would include that. So the point of order was frivolous and wasted the House’s time. Now my supplementary question is this— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Just a moment I want to count up first. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: We are only on question No. 2. I cannot have used my quota yet. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It is about whether you can ask your question before another member. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: But nobody is on their feet. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is why the member is getting the call. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: When Mr Tamihere made the statements on 2 August in respect of one-third of the foreshore being in private ownership were we to take from them that (a) he did not know what he was talking about even though he is the Minister for Land Information or (b) that he deliberately misled this House; which of the two conclusions do we take and are either of the conclusions a result that he should resign on? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: I would take (c) which was not mentioned which is that I told the House the type of information that I had from my officials. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: The first document I wish to table is my specific request—under the Official Information Act—to the Minister for the reports of 18 and 25 July dated 17 September 2003. 
Document not tabled. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I also seek leave to table the Minister’s response this week. 
Document not tabled. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I also seek leave to table those two reports that we received this week—the report of 18 July which was advice specifically sought by the Minister on the amount of private ownership of the foreshore and seabed and a report on 25 July that confirmed the preliminary advice. 
Documents not tabled. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: I seek leave to table three documents. One is a copy of  
Hansard 
 of 6 August demonstrating that Dr Nick Smith asked the question that I responded to in light of his question for oral answer today. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: Secondly I seek leave to provide a document that was released to Dr Nick Smith in terms of his request under the Official Information Act in its entirety. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. What date is that? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: What date is that? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: It is dated 20 May on the top copy that I have. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It is dated 20 May this year. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It was on 24 May that you released it. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: Well there it is—the member got it on the 24thGod bless him. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The document is dated 20 May and the member got it on 24th.[ 
Interruption 
] It is dated the 20th and he released it on the 24th.Is there any objection to that being tabled? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: There is Mr Speaker because I have a copy dated the 24th. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There is objection. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: The next document—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: We are in the middle of a point of order and the member knows it. He will be leaving the Chamber if he does not behave himself. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: The final document that I seek leave to table is a guide to the foreshore and seabed and I commend all members to uplift it and read it. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Standing Order 361 relates to quoting from a document but if he did not so quote then I would invite him to seek leave. But the two documents that I would particularly like him to reveal are the ones that he claimed he had on 2 August 2003 which according to him revealed at that time that one-third of New Zealand beaches and large hunks of the foreshore and seabed are already in private ownership. I say to the Minister that if he has any such document would he please table it and if he does not perhaps he might like to withdraw that remark. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member cannot ask the Minister to table something. The Minister may do so if he wishes but members cannot ask for leave in that way. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: With the greatest of respect I first raised the matter under Standing Order 361. Under Standing Order 361 the Minister is required to table the document. I said that if any of his answers were backed up by the two official documents that he claimed he had on 2 August last year then I require him to table them. If he did not quote from those two documents then I asked him whether he would be kind enough to table them. Then I said that if those two documents do not actually exist—which is the view that most of us have formed—would it not be a good idea to apologise to us all for having claimed that a document exists that does not. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: In answer to the first part of the question I did not refer to the documentation of 2 August. However I seek leave again to table a document which was released under an Official Information Act request to Nick Smith which includes it. I seek leave of the House now to do that. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: What is the date on it? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: The date on it is 20 May 2004. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: That might be the date when he released something to Mr Smith. What I would like to know is whether the document—[ 
Interruption 
] But that is a cover note. Is it a document that is dated clearly before 2 August 2003? In fact there were supposed to be two such documents according to him. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: The answer is yes. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I seek leave of the House to table the Official Information Act request dated 24 May and signed by the Minister for Land Information. 
Document not tabled. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Given that Lianne Dalziel lost her job as Minister of Immigration for deceiving the public in the same way this Minister has misled Parliament the public and all New Zealanders on the most contentious issue of this Parliament how can the Minister possibly keep his job as Minister for Land Information when he has been found to be spreading deliberate misinformation? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The last part three or four words must be withdrawn. The rest of the question is in order. The word “deliberate” must be withdrawn. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I withdraw the word “deliberate” and say “spreading misinformation.” 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: The answer to the question is no. I invite the member not to be mean-spirited and naughty. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The last sentence was inappropriate. As far as that is concerned I would have preferred that the Minister just got up and gave the answer in one word as he is perfectly competent and capable of doing. I would like the Minister to withdraw that statement. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: I withdraw. 
Pharmac—Trans-Tasman Therapeutic Products Agency 
3.  
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Can she confirm that Pharmac has expressed its “severe reservations” about some aspects of the proposed joint trans-Tasman agency to regulate therapeutic products; if so what were its reservations? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 Yes. I expect officials to have free and frank discussions on important issues to ensure that the best decisions are made. The letter the member mentions is 2 years old and since then significant progress has been made. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Can the Minister confirm that Pharmac has repeatedly warned the Ministry of Health in recent years—and indeed even in the Health Committee this morning—that under the joint agency there could be significant cost increases in some medicines and a reduction in the number of generic medicines approved and available in New Zealand? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Pharmac has raised a number of issues with the ministry and I am very pleased to say that it has worked through most of those issues. I am aware that at the select committee this morning Pharmac said it was in total support of the establishment of a joint therapeutic regulatory agency. 
Nanaia Mahuta 
: Can the Minister confirm that officials are working on developing those joint therapeutic agency rules and that Pharmac will be involved as part of that process? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes the Ministry of Health and Pharmac are working together to consider crucial operational issues. As the focus moves to finalising the rules I expect that they will come to an agreement on them. 
Barbara Stewart 
: Has she seen the national interest analysis and the regulatory impact statement about the joint agency both of which predict significant increases in New Zealand in compliance costs for manufacturers of complementary medicines higher prices for consumers and some brands being taken off the market; if so why is she pushing ahead with that proposal? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Because the impact report also points out that the cost of New Zealand continuing to have a single sole regulatory agency will be hugely expensive as well. Going into a joint regulatory framework with Australia over time will be much better for New Zealand both in terms of cost and access to pharmaceuticals. 
Heather Roy 
: Why has she ignored Pharmac’s concerns including those in a consultation document and I quote: “The perceived benefits from a joint agency could in Pharmac’s opinion be achieved without combining the New Zealand and Australian regulatory authorities. By amending our current laws the advantages of a joint agency can be achieved without the need to compromise fundamental advantages of the current New Zealand system.”? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I certainly support the work of Pharmac unlike the National and ACT Opposition. As long as we are Government we certainly will ensure that Pharmac remains in place. Pharmac has had a good input into the regulations around the joint agency and its views are being considered as we make the rules that will apply. 
Judy Turner 
: Can the Minister advise when the legislation that will implement the trans-Tasman therapeutic goods treaty will be tabled in the House? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No I cannot at this stage. It has not yet gone through the Cabinet process. As soon as it does I will be happy to share that information with the House. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Has the Minister seen Pharmac’s submission to the Health Committee that states that the joint agency could result in a de facto extension of the patent term of drugs in New Zealand for up to 5 years which will affect our ability to have generic drugs and will cost the New Zealand taxpayer up to $135 million over 3 years? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes but I am also aware that the treaty will allow New Zealand the flexibility to develop its own rules on specific issues. The treaty will be flexible enough to accommodate the areas of difference on patents. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Has she seen the Australian Government’s regulatory impact statement that states it is likely that New Zealand pharmaceutical and dietary supplement companies will shift their operations to Australia if the joint agency goes ahead and how does she believe that will benefit New Zealand? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: There are very few pharmaceutical companies in New Zealand now. In fact most of them have shifted off shore. However that has not stopped the supply of drugs. Is it not interesting that I have been told off in this House for not having the same number of drugs available in New Zealand that there is in Australia? Today we have been criticised for going into a joint agency treaty that will allow us to speed up the approval of drugs. I do not think that members know what they are talking about. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Why is she proposing to delegate statutory regulation-making powers to an unelected and unaccountable managing director of the agency who will be able to give orders and make rules that will have a direct effect in New Zealand but without recourse to the New Zealand Parliament and who will have powers of search and seizure; and why is she agreeing to give up our sovereignty in that way? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: In no way have we given up our sovereignty nor will we give up our sovereignty under a joint regulator. The member knows that. She constantly repeats that claim but she is wrong. 
Growth and Innovation Framework—Budget 2004 
4.  
Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive) 
 to the  
Minister for Economic Development 
: In what ways will this year’s Budget support the ongoing development and implementation of the growth and innovation framework? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister for Economic Development) 
: 
 The growth and innovation framework is the Government’s comprehensive approach to economic development. I am pleased to confirm there will be a $500 million 4-year package of new initiatives in the Budget this year to support ongoing development through the growth and innovation framework that will focus on building up New Zealand’s ability to compete in the global marketplace—something that was never done in the 9 years under a National-led Government. 
Hon Matt Robson 
: Has the Minister seen any reports of risks to that $500 million economic transformation package? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: Yes surprisingly I have. I saw a report from the National Party deputy spokesperson on finance that indicated he and his party would demolish industry assistance altogether because it was as he described it “corporate welfare”. 
John Key 
: Does the Minister acknowledge that New Zealand business would much prefer a cut in the corporate tax rate and the abolishment of his “picking winners corporate welfare” as so wonderfully stated by Tom Lambie of Federated Farmers who said in response to the Budget initiatives that it is “time the Government got back to its core business and stopped trying to play around in areas that are the responsibility of business”; if not why not? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: It is a free country and the representative of Federated Farmers is entitled to his opinion. I looked at the business pages of the  
New Zealand Herald 
 this morning and read the comments of business leaders on what they wanted in this Budget. They wanted work to be done to support export market access; assistance with regulatory issues in export markets; the roading network in Auckland to be sorted out; and investment in infrastructure. They also requested more assistance to help businesses to grow. I am pleased to say that all those concerns will be addressed in this year’s Budget. 
Mark Peck 
: Does the Minister have any further evidence that business supports the regional development initiatives of the Labour-Progressive Government? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: I was at a function last night in the Manawatu which now has one of the fastest-growing economic development records in the country—only since this Government began operation in 1999 I might say—and everyone there representing his or her business business interests and sector of business praised the Government New Zealand Trade and Enterprise the Ministry of Economic Development the Prime Minister the Deputy Prime Minister and everyone up and down on this side of the House for the work they are doing to develop business opportunities in New Zealand. I have never heard the like of that in all the years I have been in this Parliament. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: In an endeavour to help the National Party’s associate finance spokesperson can the Minister advise how many mechanisms for example Australia has to help its exporters which I believe to be 75 and how many does New Zealand have in contrast—one being a sound economy and one being a consumptive economy? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: Every country in the advanced world has significantly more business opportunities in terms of Government involvement in economic development than this country and because advanced countries did that it never happened when the National-led Government was in place. 
Deborah Coddington 
: In what way does the Minister support his department’s spending $25000 of taxpayers’ money to send bar staff from Wellington’s Matterhorn restaurant to the Cannes film festival for a Film Commission booze-up and calling them “cocktail designers”; and is taking New Zealand bar staff to France what he calls competing in the global marketplace? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: Well they seem to be competing in the marketplace anyway. I do not have any specific information on that but I will answer the member if she gives me her concerns. Let me just say however that New Zealand is in a global marketplace in terms of competition. Practically every country in the world encourages its business and industrial community to compete in that global marketplace and gives considerable assistance to it to do so. We are one of the small players in that regard. We are a long way from those markets and our business people need all the help they can get and this Government is prepared to give it to them—unlike previous administrations. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Does the Minister accept that it would greatly help the ongoing development and implementation of growth and innovation if the Government instead of giving out taxpayers’ money to some favoured businesses in this week’s Budget was to put forward a prosperity-promoting flat tax of 20c which would cost $5 billion and be $2 billion less than Treasury’s estimate of the surplus; if that is the case why did he as Minister for Economic Development not go out there and put up the case for reducing taxes rather than go on pretending he is some sort of Father Christmas? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: With that kind of arithmetic I now know why the Labour Government that the member was a Minister in did not do too well in terms of economic performance. Let me just say to him that this Government does not throw money at businesses. It invests in activities that the business community individually and collectively in terms of industry sectors and clusters of business— 
Opposition Member 
: What about Sovereign Yachts! 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: Sovereign Yachts is doing very well. The member should go to see the yachts it is building and compare them with the ones that were built before it came here. Just let me say therefore that the Government is investing in activities. It is not throwing money at businesses. Businesses have to put up very robust business cases for this money. Let me also say to the member that the $5 billion that he suggests be thrown at businesses through tax cuts would be at the expense of all hospital needs school needs student needs and the needs of other services essential to New Zealanders—services that members on that side of the House are always complaining about but they never want to show us how they would spend the money so that all New Zealanders can benefit from them. 
Peter Brown 
: Noting the Minister’s earlier answers about other countries in the world giving support to their industries is the Minister aware that external trade is exceedingly important to this country and that every tonne in and out comes via a foreign ship and can I take it that he will advocate very firmly that this Budget addresses the New Zealand shipping situation? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: I have a notice in my room that states: “Impossible things we do daily; miracles take a bit longer.” But let me just say that this Government is aware of the concerns of the whole of the waterfront shipping industry in terms of issues before it and a group of Ministers is addressing those matters as I speak. 
Question No. 3 to Minister 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I seek leave to table two documents in relation to question No. 3 which I forgot to do at the time. The first is a document from Pharmac in which it expresses its severe reservations about the joint agency proposal. 
Documents by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 Secondly I seek leave to table a series of letters in which Pharmac outlines its concerns about the proposal for a joint agency. 
Documents by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Land Information Minister—Confidence 
5.  
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in the Minister for Land Information; if so why? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes because he is a hard-working and conscientious Minister. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Will thePrime Minister—given that in 1999 she said her Government would set new high standards for ministerial conduct and that the Minister for Land Information told the public and Parliament there were significant chunks of foreshore in private ownership which contradicted his own advice and the Prime Minister’s own statements—seek that Minister’s resignation? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: It would indeed be a saintly creature who never made a mistake as the member is well aware. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Is the Prime Minister now confirming what the Minister for Land Information would not do in his replies to 11 supplementary questions—and that is to admit he was wrong—and given that those errors occurred in August last year why has he not followed parliamentary convention and come down to this House to apologise for and explain the error? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: It is up to members whether they seek to correct an answer. For my part I think an honest mistake was made when referring to parts of the coastline where the land ran down to the high-water mark. That does not mean that the foreshore is in private title. I think it was an honest mistake and as I say Dr Smith and many others in the House regularly make them. 
Unemployment Benefit—Statistics 
6.  
HELEN DUNCAN (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: What reports has he received on the number of people receiving the unemployment benefit? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 As at last Friday the number of people receiving a statutory unemployment benefit dropped below 68000. This is the lowest level since July 1987 and it is less than half the number of people who were on an unemployment benefit in May 1999. That phenomenal drop in the numbers on the unemployment benefit demonstrates the dividend of sound economic management and job-rich growth. 
Helen Duncan 
: What reports has the Minister seen about alternative ways of getting people into employment? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I have seen suggestions that unemployed people should queue outside post offices on a daily basis I have seen suggestions that superannuation cannot be relied upon for people under 50 so they will have to work forever and I have seen suggestions of time-limited benefits. In the meantime this Government believes in getting people into real jobs as proved by the 193000 more people who are in real jobs whereas the National Party continues to hide behind policies that simply did not work in the 1990s and will not work now. 
Katherine Rich 
: With regard to the numbers on the unemployment benefit does the Minister know of any cases where hikoi marchers accessed special-needs grants or benefits as a result of their taking part in the hikoi and does he think it OK that his associate refuses to ask the Ministry of Social Development to do the necessary collation of information so that reports that people on the hikoi were accessing additional benefits can be confirmed or denied? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I am aware there were suggestions that two or three people who found themselves in emergency situations because arrangements to return to the north fell through may have accessed benefits and I am making sure we track down that information exactly. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why does he not admit that the two significant factors relating to the current unemployment benefit figure are first a reduction in immigration and second the skyrocketing numbers of sickness beneficiaries in this country—a device to hide unemployment figures in New Zealand? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I cannot admit to that because both claims are wrong. 
Judy Turner 
: Has the Minister read a report in the Christchurch  
Press 
 that cites a general practitioner Dr Andrew Causer who claims that Work and Income clients visit his practice as casual patients on almost a daily basis expecting to be diagnosed with stress or depression so they can be put on a sickness benefit when 95 percent of them are fit to work and is he concerned that the number of unemployed transferring to the sickness benefit for these reasons has doubled since 1999? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I am aware of that report and I was so concerned by it I asked that Work and Income approach the doctor. I understand that the doctor has made it clear that his views were misrepresented in the media. 
Helen Duncan 
: Can the Minister tell the House what reports he has seen on employment prospects? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Job vacancies as measured by the  
ANZ Job Ads 
 series are running at a near record level nearly 10 percent higher than a year ago—evidence that the New Zealand labour market remains strong. Ten percent more people are now employed than when the Labour-led Government took office—that is 193000 more New Zealanders are in work—and with our sound policies of a regional development policy to stimulate job growth expansion of education and training opportunities and the quality employment focused through the Work and Income regional offices I am looking forward to even more New Zealanders enjoying having a real job. 
Katherine Rich 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. An interesting issue has come up that I feel requires your investigation. In answer to written parliamentary questions the Associate Minister Rick Barker said that he would not ask the Ministry of Social Development to collate the information required to find out whether some hikoi marchers accessed special benefits or grants. Today the Minister has said that he is willing to do that and that he will look into it. I am interested in your view Mr Speaker on the difficulty of reconciling those two answers. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I cannot look into that. My job is not to judge the quality of the answer. There is nothing for me to rule on because there is not really a point of order. 
Katherine Rich 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If we have an Associate Minister who says he will not answer but the Minister says that it is fine and he will go ahead and sort that out then we are getting mixed messages through the written questions process versus the oral questions process. Something is not reconciled on that side. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Yes but that is a complaint about inconsistency and the member has highlighted it. There is nothing for me to rule on. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: In response to an answer by the Minister I wish to table two sets of documents. One set proves that the latest immigration figures are significantly down. The second set proves that the number of sickness and disability beneficiaries is up dramatically. 
Documents not tabled. 
Judy Turner 
: I seek leave to table the article from the  
Press 
 entitled “Big rise in stress beneficiaries”. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Question No. 2 to Minister 
DAIL JONES (Junior Whip—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. A short while ago the Hon John Tamihere released a fine report dated 12 December 2003. He said that he would release the whole report. I see that there are attachments B C and D that are part of that report. I ask that at some convenient time the Minister make them available to the House. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister was asked to table what he was quoting from and he has done that. If he wishes to table anything else he has until the end of the sitting day to do so. 
DAIL JONES (Junior Whip—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is a simple matter. He said that he would table the final report. The final report includes attachments B C and D. It is a simple matter and I am not asking him to do it now. He can do it at his convenience. I appreciate that there may be a practical problem but perhaps he could just give us an undertaking. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE (Minister for Land Information) 
: 
 Yes Mr Speaker. I was not aware that they were not attached. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: And is the Minister going to table them? 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: Yes. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister has given an assurance that he will table them. 
Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology—Community Education 
7.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education) 
: Does he regard Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology spending at least $80000 on inducements as a breach of interim funding guide rules; if not why not? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education)) 
: 
 I am advised that the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology is not in breach of the interim funding guide but that this remains a point of discussion between the Tertiary Education Commission and the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology as part of the review of all of its 5.1 programmes currently undertaken by the commission. I also add that the funding guidelines that I first introduced in 2002—there were no guidelines under the National Government—are being reviewed so that the rules can be made even clearer that no inducements of any kind will be offered to students from any source of funding. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister recall telling the House that no one should make a profit out of education and in light of that comment what action will he take when he finds out that Brylton Software which is part-owned by senior staff of Christchurch Polytechnic received $5.44 million for the Cool IT programme? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: As I have said before in response to the implication behind the member’s question that there is some irregularity here if the member can table some evidence of that I will always take it seriously. In the meantime I have an investigation into the Tertiary Education Commission and that organisation going on as it should be. 
Lynne Pillay 
: What evidence has been provided of inappropriate practices on the part of institutions offering community education courses? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: There have been a lot of allegations and whenever there is evidence provided of possible inappropriate practices we investigate thoroughly and completely. If I get more evidence it will be treated in exactly the same way. In the meantime we have capped spending in community education and I will announce details of that tomorrow. In 2005 all funding for community education will also be subject to profile negotiations where the commission looks at the contribution of the institution to the tertiary education strategy. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister now telling us that he regards a scheme whereby Christchurch Polytechnic was paid almost $800 for a single person enrolling when that $800 covered the cost of one CD and $15 million was paid over for about 20000 of these CDs and a company that produced the CDs was part-owned by senior staff of the college who were involved in negotiations and that company received a payment of $5.4 million for producing the CDs as something that normally happens in the polytech sector? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: It does not normally happen in this particular situation. I am advised by the Tertiary Advisory Monitoring Unit that the people whom the member has accused of being involved in negotiations were not involved in negotiations because of the conflict of interest. I say to that member that I take this seriously unlike the previous Government of which he was a member because we have an investigation going on. That is the proper way to do it and I will not listen to his silly allegations. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There are interjections in the second person. They will cease immediately. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I invite the Minister to reconsider the information he has given to the House while he has the opportunity. In answer to a written question he advised me that the parties I have referred to—that is senior staff in Christchurch Polytechnic who are part-owners and directors of Brylton Software—withdrew from negotiations. Today he has said they took no part in them. This is a vital point in a discussion on conflict of interest. I suggest the Minister clarify his comments. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Speaking to the point of order I say that I am advised the meaning of the word “withdrew” is that they withdrew because the conflict of interest was apparent and therefore they did not take part in negotiations. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table a Companies Office search of the relevant company behind these accusations which proves that its ethnic ownership is not Maori—hence the reason it is not being investigated. 
Document not tabled. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister confirm that if this were a Maori organisation the Government by now would have mounted a full-scale independent investigation because the events amount to a $15 million scam but just because it is Christchurch Polytechnic he is waving it past? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Can I tell the member who is so excited as calmly as I possibly can that I take all these issues seriously. Whether it is a Maori organisation or a polytechnic we ensure that they are investigated fully by the appropriate authorities—that is the Tertiary Advisory Monitoring Unit or the Tertiary Education Commission. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I will do this relatively briefly. I think it is very important when interjections are being made about protecting people including their mates that they be rejected by you. There has been a history in this Parliament of people being caught looking after their mates. There is a member not currently sitting opposite but a member of this Parliament who was involved in that—a National Party member. 
Hon Bill English 
: What’s all this about? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Murray McCully was caught looking after his tourism mates. It is absolutely on the record. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Be seated! I say to Mr Mallard that that was not helpful at all. I ask him to stand withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My colleague might have been less than felicitous in his way of phrasing the point of order but he was making the point that an accusation was being cast on the other side about looking after mates to members on this side against the Minister. That should be withdrawn. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is absolutely correct if any member was doing that. I heard a comment but I did not see who made it. That member will be leaving the Chamber. If any member made that comment I ask him to stand and withdraw. I heard someone make it but I did not see who. I was looking over the other side. If nobody says who made it then we will proceed. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I made that allegation— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Then the member will withdraw and apologise. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: For the purposes of Parliament I withdraw— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No no. The member knows he cannot do that. He will withdraw and apologise or he leaves the Chamber too. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I withdraw. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: And apologise. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Why would I be apologising— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will now leave the Chamber. He is just trifling with the Chair and he knows it. 
Gerry Brownlee withdrew from the Chamber. 
Immigration—Regulation 
8.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Immigration 
: What steps is he contemplating to regulate the immigration industry? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Associate Minister of Immigration) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Immigration 
: Cabinet has agreed in principle to the statutory regulation of immigration agents. Officials are working on the detail but it is intended that the proposal would require agents to be licensed and would provide minimum standards for the industry. An independent governing body would be set up responsible for administering a code of conduct. The New Zealand Immigration Service would be able to refuse applications from unlicensed agents and agents could be penalised for operating illegally. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is it not a fact that in the last 3 weeks the Minister has already admitted firstly that there is an urgent need to review the Immigration Act in the light of fraud and corruption allegations and proof and secondly that the method used for calculating overstayers was a guesstimate at best and not at all to be relied upon and that now finally after 5 years we have an announcement that the Government plans to regulate the immigration industry; what state of affairs has changed recently to prompt this sudden acknowledgment of the mess within the immigration policy of this Government? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: I do agree that immigration was in a mess when Labour came in in 1999. We have embarked upon a major policy review and we are going through a number of key areas in immigration such as family policy work policy settlement and skills policy. This latest announcement to regulate agents is necessary because although the majority of agents are good agents there are some who are simply thieves and vagabonds and they need to be stamped out. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Has the Minister received any reports that outline the number of asylum seekers refugees and immigrants receiving emergency benefits—given that his colleague Rick Barker is refusing to answer written questions on this matter—to the extent that we have an emergency benefit taken up for 19 years by someone brought into this country who has never been off it in fact and that we have here people like Zaoui an acknowledged terrorist who now has cost the New Zealand taxpayer up to $1 million; when will we have those figures and could he provide them as soon as possible please? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: I do not have those figures but if the member would make the effort to put down a written question to me I am sure we will get back to him with accurate details on those issues. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This matter was partly covered in a point of order from Mrs Rich. I asked the identical question of Rick Barker and he refused to provide the information to me. So here we are with one Minister saying one thing and another saying something else and months later we are still no wiser. I can find the  
Hansard 
 for you and prove what I am saying. If that is the case why have this Government Parliament and the public been denied pretty significant information that would allow them to pass judgment as to whether the Government is behaving satisfactorily? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member has made his point twice. This is relitigating an issue I have ruled on. If inconsistency is exposed then of course that is something that is there in the House and it is a point that can be raised by the Opposition. I cannot rule on that particular matter; it is not a point of order. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There is a matter on which you can help the House though. If a Minister makes to the House what can often be a perfectly reasonable reply: “I do not have those figures.”—and I think this time he also said “If the member takes the trouble to put down a written question”—surely there is then an expectation the Minister having given that statement to the House that the Government at that point will answer the question and not put in an answer saying “We can’t be blowed working it out.” or whatever it is that Mr Barker says when he replies. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That issue has not been arrived at yet. I just heard the Minister say that if the member put down a question he would answer it. He has given that assurance to the House. I heard him say it and now I will expect that to be done. The Minister must stand by what he said. 
Electricity—Supply South Island 
9.  
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Energy 
: When was he first informed of the issue of capacity restraints on the national grid in the upper South Island? 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Energy) 
: 
Transpower’s 2001-02 system security forecast identified seven separate groups of constraints throughout the national grid including the upper South Island. Since then I have had many reports of upgrades or of upgrades planned. About 2 weeks ago Transpower raised with me the issue of the upper South Island specifically but its view at that stage was that the new rules might be the problem. Over the weekend an official rang me to say that the rules were not the problem and that the issue was somewhat more serious than that. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: Why did the Minister say on National Radio this morning that he first heard about this yesterday when in fact he heard about it clearly as a result of the 2001-02 system security forecast; and why has he not taken any action since then? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I said that the 2001-02 system security forecast identified seven separate groups of constraints. It actually adds up to dozens and dozens and Transpower regularly updates the Minister and its owners about what it is doing about those particular constraints. There is a good deal that goes on. In terms of the particular constraint that might have caused this problem a fix was put in place several months ago that as far as I am aware has not worked. 
David Parker 
: How has the Electricity Commission responded to the situation? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The commission is doing an excellent job of coordinating the industry response to minimise the risk of disruption. The chairman Roy Hemmingway has said: “We think there are management options that we can put together and get in place before this becomes a problem that will ensure we don’t have to resort to involuntary load shedding.” I have had much positive feedback from the industry on the commission’s handling of the issue. The only people who have not yet realised how valuable it is are the members of the National Party who just last week called for the commission’s abolition. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Does the Minister approve of State-owned enterprises using dramatic scare tactics to generate public support for their “think big” projects or will he ensure that there is a proper study of the most cost-effective way to overcome the constraint including the wider application of the highly successful load management practices of Orion Networks that have avoided millions of dollars of unnecessary investment on just that same line for some years? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: No I would not approve of any crisis creation nor am I accusing Transpower of it. I would say to the member that the way forward for transmission investment is the integrated resource management that she refers to. That is precisely what is in the rule book now. It is Part C of the rule book and it came into force on 1 March of this year. 
Gordon Copeland 
: What impact does the Minister think these kinds of capacity restraint problems will have on decisions by business people as to where they should invest their money or indeed where they might locate their businesses? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I think the reputational risk is a problem. My hope is we will get some clarity within a week or so as to whether we will be able to avoid any blackouts in the upper South Island. It is certainly my hope that that will be the case. For the future Transpower is investing heavily in the network after a decade of neglect during the 1990s. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: Does the Minister remember responding when the previous National Party energy spokesperson Mr Gerry Brownlee raised Transpower’s warning in October 2002 regarding problems in the upper South Island that National was scaremongering making blatantly untruthful claims making grossly misleading claims making demonstrably false claims and showing “an appalling readiness to mislead”; and will he now stop his hysterics and theatrics and do something about fixing the problem? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I can do no better than to quote Transpower’s response to that member at that time. Transpower said: “We have absolutely no concerns regarding the transmission system in the upper South Island.” It went on to say it would need to continue further investment. It has been continuing further investment—the most recent of which did not work. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: Will the Minister now be offering his resignation as Minister of Energy for failing to take on board Transpower’s warnings in 2002 that this constraint was likely to be a problem unless it was dealt with by the Government—a warning backed up by Dr Ralph Craven in a presentation that he gave to a national conference in Auckland in March of this year yet the Minister still claims as on National Radio this morning that he heard of the problem yesterday? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I heard of the problem over the weekend as I told the House earlier in the question. Indeed most of the industry heard of it on Friday afternoon. If the member wants to know what transmission constraints look like they are described in detail in this book. The member clearly has not read the book—he should do so. 
Drugs—Suicide Prevention 
10.  
Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Health 
: What recent funding announcements has the Labour-Progressive Government made to combat the problem of drug abuse and suicide prevention? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 A total of $59.15 million has been announced over the last few days to combat the problem of drug abuse and suicide prevention over the next 4 financial years. Last week I announced with my colleagues the Hon Phil Goff and the Hon George Hawkins $39 million over 4 years that is aimed at tackling the illegal and dangerous methamphetamine trade. Yesterday I announced a further $14.65 million for initiatives that are either aimed at reducing the demand for drugs or aimed at helping the victims of drugs and their communities as well as a further $5.5 million for suicide prevention measures. 
Judy Turner 
: Has the Minister been consulted over the draft drug education booklet prepared by the Ministry of Youth Development for use in schools that takes a harm minimisation approach which means that nowhere in the booklet does it state that taking drugs may be a bad idea; if not why not? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: Yes I have been consulted. The description of harm minimisation is a generic description that is used in drug information education and it recognises the reality that whatever we may wish some young people and others in the community do use drugs. Therefore the intention of the education is to minimise harm. Of course there are implied messages—and even some that I would suggest are reasonably direct—in that information to suggest that not starting on drugs is a pretty good idea as well. 
Dianne Yates 
: Could the Minister give us more details on what types of initiatives are being taken? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: Very briefly the $39 million announced over the last few days includes another police clandestine laboratory team more analysts and further funding for the Institute of Environmental Science and Research for forensic work. An additional $15 million will fund a further youth residential drug and alcohol treatment facility this time in the central North Island and a one-for-one needle exchange that will minimise the transmission of blood-borne viruses such as HIV and hepatitis C. It will also provide for the evaluation of community action programmes and support other initiatives aimed at reducing the demand for drugs. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: Is the Minister aware of the very successful What’s Up phone counselling service for 5 to 18-year-olds and of the temporary funding problem it faces; and will he consider providing it with some bridging finance while a new funding contract is negotiated? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: There are a large number of organisations at work in the area of drug and alcohol rehabilitation and services but I am happy to look at any detailed submission on the work of that organisation without any guarantee of course that the Government could or should support it. I am happy to entertain the submissions of the member. 
Families—Cost of Living 
11.  
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Following his reply to written questions Nos 6532 and 6535 does he believe it fair that a hard-working family earning $50000 a year is less than $7000 a year better off than a family earning $25000 a year and will his Budget widen or narrow this gap? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I do not accept the implication in the question that a family earning $50000 a year is hard-working but that a family earning $25000 a year is not. From the Government’s perspective both are hard-working families both are supporting two children and both will gain significantly from the Budget. Details will be released tomorrow. 
Heather Roy 
: When thinking of those two families—one on $25000; the other on $50000—what is fair about the 72 percent effective tax rate that the higher-earning family pays on its extra $25000; and when will the Minister act to address that unfairness? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The first principle the Government follows is to try to ensure that people have an adequate level of income and that there are also adequate incentives for being in employment. The high disincentives created by the bleeding out of assistance mechanisms is a consequence of the present scheme of family support which was designed by ACT’s founder Roger Douglas. 
Sue Bradford 
: Does the Minister believe it is fair to discriminate against children whose parents are on the same or a similar income just because one set of parents is on a benefit or on accident compensation and will he remove that discrimination in the Budget package tomorrow? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The member will have to wait until tomorrow to get the details of the Budget package. She will realise that the present child tax credit is $15 per child. There are some families with as many as 10 or 11 children. It would be very difficult to remove that measure entirely without making a lot of families very much worse off. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Will the Minister clarify his remarks regarding “hard-working” families because what incentive is there for families with two children to earn $50000 a year—that is a take-home pay of $38584 after tax—when if they halved their hours of work to bring their income down to $25000 a year those families would be topped up by the Government to a take-home pay of $31668 which is just $6916 different from that earned by working twice as many hours; and how will his Future Directions package address the unfairness of that situation? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Fairness is always in the eye of the beholder. I point out to the member that people who want to deliberately reduce their income by lowering their net income to only about $600 a week to support a family with two children probably have rather different standards of living from those that he has and I have. 
Sue Bradford 
: Does the Minister agree that providing family support family assistance and the accommodation supplement is a major form of Government subsidy to New Zealand business that is conveniently forgotten when submissions are made on things like employment relations law; and what is his Government’s approach to the old idea that there should be at least some employer responsibility to pay wages at a level sufficient to support a family? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I think that by and large it is really impossible to expect employers to pay people more because of their family responsibilities. It does have to be the responsibility of the State to address the levels of income adequacy in that respect. The family on $25000 a year—which is under $500 a week—ends up with a net income in excess of $600 a week in the situation described by the member because of the family assistance and accommodation supplement provisions. I make no apology for that fact or for the fact that such families will make significant gains out of the Budget package tomorrow. 
Child Youth and Family Services Department—Statutory Obligations 
12.  
JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
 to the  
Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF) 
: Does she agree that: “Child Youth and Family plays a pivotal role in our system but there’s no denying there have been deficiencies in all its statutory obligations” as stated recently by Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft; if not why not? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
 on behalf of the 
Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF) 
: I agree with Judge Becroft that the Department of Child Youth and Family Services plays a pivotal role and that there have been deficiencies in its carrying out of its statutory obligations on occasion. That is why the Government has been investing in rebuilding the department for the last 4 years and is committed to implementing the comprehensive recommendations of the baseline review undertaken last year. 
Judy Turner 
: Does the Minister agree that the Department of Child Youth and Family Services failed to meet its obligation to protect the 2-month-old Whangarei infant abused by her dad whilst already in traction from previous injuries and does he think it is acceptable to be considering only now the need for “much stronger protocols so that there is no buck passing” between the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and the health system when the department agreed to ensure those good communication systems 4 years ago after the James Whakaruru report; if not why not? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: My understanding is that in this particular case the child was in the care of the district health board and that guidelines need to be in place. The Department of Child Youth and Family Services has made it very clear that it will work closely with the hospital in the care of those children. 
Dave Hereora 
: What significant developments have there been in the Department of Child Youth and Family Services over the last 4 years? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Between 1999 and 2003 the Government increased the baseline funding of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services by more than 50 percent strengthened the social work profession by introducing formal registration and improved relationships with the community sector. As part of the implementation of the baseline review an additional $120 million is being invested in the department over the next 3 years. Ninety-three additional social workers have been employed and a further 56 are to be employed this year. The department’s systems and regional management are being strengthened and a new demand-management system is beginning to have a positive effect on the number of unallocated cases. Also a new chief executive Paula Tyler has been appointed. She is a very good appointee and we are looking forward to seeing her take up that position in August this year. 
Katherine Rich 
: What is the Minister’s view on District Court judge Ray Kean’s comments that mothers who let their violent partners bash their children should face jail if they stand by and fail to report attacks? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: People who stand by while their children are attacked and bashed are of course committing a crime and deserve what they get. 
Judy Turner 
: Can the Minister confirm that the new Canadian appointee as chief executive officer Paula Tyler has indicated that she intends to implement a two-stream system as advocated by United Future to ensure that community agencies are utilised to assist the department in meeting its statutory obligation in terms of preventive work; if not why not? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I have not spoken to Ms Tyler but I am sure she has studied closely the various policies of parties within this House and I am sure she has paid particular attention to the United Future proposals which are always constructive in their nature. She will be looking forward to working closely with members I am sure when she gets here. 
Judy Turner 
: Can the Minister confirm that the failure to consult the Office of the Commissioner for Children and other groups about the pilot family safety teams indicates that this is just a recent development; if so can she explain why it takes reports from Mick Brown the Whakaruru report the baseline review the report on the deaths of the Aplin girls and United Future’s restructuring proposal before this Government begins to think about effectively addressing its statutory obligations to ensure inter-agency collaboration? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Inter-agency collaboration of course is at the heart of what this Government is trying to do. We have been implementing that right across government over the last little while in what is called a “joined-up approach” and we have certainly enjoyed the endorsement of that approach by United Future. Once again that is a very constructive idea from that party. 
Business of Select Committees 
Reporting Dates 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Earlier I sought leave for the Health Committee report on the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill to be extended to 30 July 2004. I understand now that the member has been able to check that the Health Committee unanimously supported that move. So I seek that leave. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection to that course being followed? There appears to be none. 
General Debates 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. This Government has shown consistently its commitment to health since it came to office. The health sector desperately needed that commitment because throughout the 1990s it suffered neglect neglect of workforce planning and most of all underfunding. It needed stability long-term planning and policy. I ask members to compare that to the National Party and the ACT party approach. Their approach is knocking and nagging. They are the parties of knockers and naggers. That is all we hear from them day in and day out. In fact their policy is one of “it will be gone by midday”. That is their policy. It does not matter what it is it will be gone by lunchtime: nuclear ships—gone by lunchtime; primary health organisations—gone by lunchtime; Pharmac—gone by lunchtime. That is the policy of the knockers and the naggers. I ask members to compare that to this Government. 
This Government has turned round those problems of the 1990s and we are now spending over $9 billion on health. That is a 50 percent increase in funding since we became the Government and there will be another big boost in the next financial year that will take it to over $10 billion. This Government has shown it is committed to ensuring that the people of New Zealand have a good health service. Today I was proud to be able to announce the orthopaedic project which will see the number of knee and hip-replacement operations being done in New Zealand double over the next few years. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Why wasn’t it done years ago? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: That is a commitment that should have been made years ago. I agree with Dr Hutchison—one of those doctors who does not make one well but makes one sick. Dr Hutchison asked why it was not done years ago. Well this Government has worked with the Orthopaedic Association something the National Party was never able to do. We worked through a policy and an implementation of that policy so that today the association has come out in support of the Government and said that what we are doing is the right thing—not just for today but for the future. We are future-proofing it because we know that New Zealanders are living longer and longer and we welcome that. We compare that with Dr Brash who could not care less if some New Zealanders die earlier than others. He said that if we want to improve the health of the whole population it must be race-based policy. We say that all New Zealanders should have the right to good health and they should have the right to access to major hip and knee-replacement operations—and they will get them from this Government. 
We have committed a lot of money to primary health-care in order to ensure that it is affordable primary health-care. I know there are many members of this Parliament who would back up that policy. But what did the National Party say? It said primary health organisations would be gone by lunchtime—they would be all over. National is not committed to primary health-care. It will just give some money to doctors. Well if National Party members know anything about primary health-care they will know that it is not about just doctors. It is about doctors nurses pharmacists specialists podiatrists and many many other health professionals. This party has committed itself to reducing the cost of primary health-care and the barriers to accessing it. I know that that is welcomed by New Zealand First which in its own way made an attempt to reduce the cost for under-6-year-olds. That would not have happened had it not been for New Zealand First and we know that if we do not remain the Government it will not continue in the future. It will be scrapped by a National-led Government. If New Zealanders want affordable primary health-care then they know where they ought to look in terms of support. 
 There are parties in this Parliament whose commitment to health is so little that they do not even make it one of their priorities. If I read what Dr Brash has said I can see that health is not one of National’s big priorities. Its big priorities do not include health—tax cuts maybe but not the health of New Zealanders. National thinks so little of health that its spokesperson on health does not even sit on the front bench any more. The National spokesperson on health used to sit where Nick Smith sits but that spokesperson has been taken off the front bench and put on the second bench. Health is not important enough but it is to New Zealanders. They know that this Government is helping to improve the health of New Zealanders. This Government will look at those things that lead to poor health and it will put in the investment of money to ensure that improvement happens. I am very proud with what we have been able to achieve in a very short time. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 When New Zealand First fought an election campaign we said we would deal with three things if we were in Government. We are in the Opposition but we have carried on with that pledge to deal with those three things. The first was the treaty gravy train the second was immigration—and the Government has finally admitted that we are not xenophobes or racists but that we are right and it is moving to correct those gaps—and the third was law and order. However I have to say that it is very hard to deal with law and order in this country when we have a Government that continues to shoot itself in the foot and a Leader of the Opposition who is never here to debate the issues. Where is the great debater to help me on a day like this when I need him here? But I probably do not need his help because I am quite capable of dealing with this Government and that Minister. 
Members should look at the issue of law and order and what an absolute shambles it is. The Department of Corrections is now reputed as being a department of corruptions. Why do people say that? Well they look firstly at the Minister of Corrections—a Minister who began with so much promise but has delivered absolutely nothing; a Minister who was probably set up by his Prime Minister because he represents “Swainy and the boys” and we know we do not like that. I have provided that Minister with truckloads of evidence on what is going on in his department and he has done nothing. Let us look at his track record and at home detention for example. 
More than a year ago New Zealand First pointed out that home detention was in chaos but people would not listen. What do we see today on our front pages? We see Mr Les Williamson—a man who was stabbed in the head back arms and hands—sitting with his family totally aghast that the man who attempted to kill him is on home detention. That man received 4 years’ jail and he is out on home detention in about 4 months. How does that happen? That happens because we have a Government that is weak on law and order a Minister of Corrections who is weak on law and order and a bunch of people sitting on the Parole Board who—well I do not know what they do other than let dangerous criminals back into the community. Members should look at the issue of deferred sentencing where this Government has allowed people who have been convicted and sent to jail to go home on holiday and then run away. Then we do not know where they are and then we say: “Oh my gosh they committed another crime.” and we still cannot catch them. Those problems have still not been dealt with. 
Parole is another example and I shall mention a couple of names. First I mention Mr Jarden who was convicted of molesting and assaulting little girls. He was sent out on parole and within weeks he did the very same thing again. This is the Government that said it was going to clamp down. It was going to get hard on law and order. It passed what it thinks is the wonderful Sentencing Act and the wonderful Parole Act—and what do we see? Mr Jarden is out on the street. What of Mr Isherwood? He was convicted of abducting drugging and raping a girl and putting her into prostitution. He was let out on parole and in 12 days under the control of this Minister of Corrections Mr Isherwood drugged and raped another young girl. Is that what this Government means about being tough on law and order? It is certainly not what New Zealand First stands for and by hokey we mean to hold this Government accountable one way or the other. 
Let us look at the Auckland Central Remand Prison. This Government’s solution to its problems in the Department of Corrections is to close down the one shining light—the one prison that does not have inmates bonking prison officers or prison officers getting pregnant to inmates. This Government wants to shut down that prison and hand it over to the management that has turned a blind eye to that sordid problem for years. The Minister said there were three then he said there were five and then he admitted there were some 17 and now we know that there are 21 such relationships. I have received information from a prison officer that in that prison alone there are 19 such inappropriate prison inmate/officer relationships male and female. I have resisted saying this but people have asked me: “What are they running in there? Comfort women for the prisoners?”. Well that is a horrible thing to say when there are some damn fine prison officers out there doing a good job but let us not forget that it was this Government that proposed the idea of providing conjugal rights to inmates. Maybe that is how it has been done. 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 It has been said that some doctors make people well and others make people sick. As Associate Minister of Health I am proud to work alongside Annette King with her outstanding record. Our job is to point out to the country that the National Party is led by someone who would make this country sick. Dr Brash was proud to say that he has had private health insurance for a long time that he is OK and that he does not need to use the public health system. We have to look at what that man may possibly do to lead this country down a path of sickness. In the past National has not shown any ability to lead the public health system in this country to a point where it can deliver on the health needs of New Zealanders. 
I shall quote a philosophical statement from Mr Brash: “Prices in a competitive market are usually a more reliable indicator of where resources should be allocated than political or bureaucratic edict. The problem in the area of health care can be solved through the price mechanism.” He then goes on to be a little uncertain about his knowledge: “I’m certainly not going to step into a political maelstrom which is the health-care debate at least in part because I simply do not know what to suggest or recommend.” Dr Brash would lead this country into sickness. He does not have a clue about what is needed in the health system of this country. The National Party has a record of attempting to privatise some services in the health system. Dr Lynda Scott is on record as saying that she would get rid of the primary health organisations and Don Brash has also said that he would get rid of them. Those members would sell Pharmac and put all the profits into the hands of the international pharmaceutical companies. 
It is very very important that every New Zealander knows where the health system is heading. We have put more money into health than has ever been put into it in the history of this country. We have developed primary health organisations and bolstered the district health boards. We have increased the number of surgical services that are conducted in this country. Dr Brash would put it all back into the hands of the competitive market because he says price signals should determine where health services are needed. Dr Don Brash has not worked out that very few people in this country choose when or where they need to access the health services. Therefore the idea of the market as an indicator is an absolutely bunkum theory. People never know when or where they may need to access the health services. A competitive market situation would destroy this country. 
I shall just point out very briefly some of the good things we have done in rural health which supports the backbone of this country. That is something that we as a Government have appreciated from the time of coming into power in 1999. The rural sector turned its back on the National Party. The rural sector knows that the reintroduction of a competitive market system for health by National would see that party again turn its back on people in the rural areas of this country. We have done numerous things to help and support people in rural New Zealand. We have set up reasonable rostering systems with money being directly injected to help doctors and nurses in rural areas to decrease the pressure they are under. We know that those people have been leaving because the work pressure is intense so we have poured money into that. We put $535 million into the primary health-care strategy. That goes directly to people at the front line so that we can get to them before their problems become chronic and we have to spend thousands of dollars on them every day they are in hospital. We have put more doctors into training—20 more places. That number had not been increased for 20 years. During the 9 years of the previous National Government did it put more doctors into training? No it did not. It did not put one extra doctor into training to address the rising population in this country. We have done that. We have put money directly into the rural general practitioner network to recruit general practitioners for rural New Zealand. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 This afternoon I want to expose the deliberate dishonesty of this Government on the single most contentious issue of this parliamentary term. Everybody acknowledges that the issue of the foreshore and seabed is the issue this Parliament has been focused on. The Minister for Land Information does not have a huge portfolio. This is not a job that appears in the newspaper every single day. But on the single issue of relevance to the public of New Zealand he got it so awfully wrong. 
Let us go through the paper trail. On 18 July last year the Minister specifically sought a report from his officials on how much of the foreshore and seabed was privately owned. The officials came back with only a one-page report explicitly stating that the quantum was very small. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: When did they say that? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: They said that on 18 July. However they said that it was a preliminary view. One week later they came back with a further report confirming that view and went further by stating that the amount of privately owned seabed and foreshore was very small. That was on 25 July. We then had from the Minister a systematic spin job—orchestrated no doubt by the ninth floor of the Beehive—to deliberately confuse the public. We had a headline in the newspaper stating that one-third of the foreshore was off limits. Mr Tamihere the “Minister of Misinformation” said that one-third of the foreshore was privately owned. He said that in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 on the  
Holmes 
 show and up and down New Zealand. 
I talked to surveyors. They said that that could not possibly be true. I went to the Parliamentary Library and asked for information. The paper trail showed that the Parliamentary Library went to Land Information New Zealand sought advice from the Minister and decided not to provide it. The Minister then came to the House—not once not twice but three times—and asserted that he was correct. 
He went even further. I produced a 1993 report from the Department of Conservation stating that less than 1 percent of the foreshore and seabed was privately owned. The Minister said that was garbage yet we know now he had information in his hands at that very time and knew all those things were incorrect. 
He went even further. Today in the House he said that it was not a question on notice. It was! We can check the record. He had 3 hours to check and read the one-page report which he had specifically received from Land Information New Zealand to find out that he had been misleading this Parliament. 
There is a longstanding principle that if one misleads the House one comes to the House to apologise and correct the record. It is extremely serious that even today—9 months later—the only person who will admit that the Minister was wrong is the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said that he made a mistake. Why does the Minister for Land Information not have the courage to come— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I withdraw and apologise. Why does he not come to the House to correct the record? The Prime Minister said that it was an innocent mistake. Well well well! The record shows something very different. 
I want to know why the Government has two different standards for Lianne Dalziel and John Tamihere. We know! This is a weak Prime Minister who is so much at risk with her Maori constituency that she will allow any low standard of ministerial accountability. There is no standard any more; otherwise if John Tamihere were a man of honour he would resign his portfolio. It is absolutely clear— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I was standing outside listening to that speech. It is absolutely out of order to suggest that a member lacks honour. That member just did that and you did not stop him. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I have already pulled up the member for using the words “lack of courage”. I think that the Minister has a good point. Honour can actually refer to courage and often it does in different instances. I ask the member to withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I withdraw. Is it not interesting that Lianne Dalziel— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You required the member to withdraw and apologise. He did not. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I was under the impression that the member had withdrawn and apologised. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I am happy to withdraw and apologise. Trevor Mallard is so sensitive about covering up for mates like John Tamihere who gave three lots of conflicting answers. Lianne Dalziel did the honourable thing. Why is John Tamihere not following? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: He’s a Maori. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: My colleague Gerry Brownlee has put his finger on the button. There are two different standards in this Government. John Tamihere should go. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Members will recall that the first meeting of this Parliament in 1854 was recorded as being “all chaos”. Today we have another opportunity to distance ourselves from that dim dark beginning and we will have order. 
MITA RIRINUI (Labour—Waiariki) 
: 
 I promise not to bring chaos to this House. It appears that there is more than one doctor on the Opposition benches who has the potential to make this country sick and I have just listened to one. My colleague the Hon John Tamihere is an honourable person. The only paper trail that really matters in terms of the foreshore and seabed is the legislation currently on the table. The member who has just spoken should take up the challenge and identify the disadvantages and advantages for all New Zealanders. 
I want to congratulate my Government colleagues on the way they have spoken about health in this country in terms of this Government’s commitment to improving the health care of all New Zealanders. In particular I want to refer to primary health organisations. This Government is committed to making primary health-care more affordable and accessible. Early intervention in primary care means improved health outcomes for all New Zealanders. Primary health organisations are the key vehicles for delivering primary health-care and improving the health of all New Zealanders. The Government is making a difference. 
The Government is making health care more accessible and affordable. More than 3 million New Zealanders are now enrolled in 68 primary health organisations throughout the country and more than 1 million have access to low-cost primary care through their primary health organisations. Last October all 16 and 17-year-olds involved in primary health organisations were added to the low-cost scheme and from July of this year all those aged 65 and over who are enrolled in primary health organisations will have access to low-cost care. That is a major commitment from this Government and the results are showing. 
However there is a reality around primary health particularly in the area of Maori life expectancy. As we know Maori life expectancy for both males and females is lower than for non-Maori. There is a higher suicide rate. The number of probable asthmatics is higher than that for non-Maori. The occurrence of overweight and obesity in both males and females is higher than among non-Maori. Fewer Maori have medical insurance cover and they have a greater chance of developing diabetes. 
But progress is being made. Primary health organisations are already making health care more accessible and affordable for Maori and Pacific Island peoples. In this way health-care problems can be tackled early. The majority of Maori—over 333000 which is more than 50 percent—are enrolled in primary health organisations. This Government launched the He Korowai Oranga health strategy and developed a permanent annual Maori provider development fund of $10 million to expand services for Maori by Maori within the appropriate workforce. 
Of course Dr Brash would ask why we need Maori doctors. This Government began funding smoking cessation initiatives for Maori; before 1999 the Ministry of Health did not fund programmes to assist New Zealanders to stop smoking. The Maori health strategy He Korowai Oranga and the Maori health action plan Whakatataka provide long-term frameworks for improvements in the delivery of health services to Maori. The frameworks push for the involvement of Maori at all levels of the sector in decision making for the development of specifically focused Maori health provider programmes that can focus on health care in a culturally sensitive way. As members will be aware that is a big issue for many Maori throughout the country. 
The Government’s policies are working. Statistics show the first significant improvement in Maori life expectancy. They show that targeted health services are making a real difference confirming what we all knew: that programmes for Maori by Maori together with a commitment from the Government are working. According to statistics non-Maori now live 8.5 years longer than Maori which is a major improvement compared with the difference of 9.1 years recorded between 1995 and 1997. 
A number of well-known health spokespeople around the country have congratulated the Government on its initiatives. Mr Peter Glensor chair of the Hutt Valley District Health Board said that the Government’s policy vindicates policies that address Maori health inequalities. The Waipareira Trust said that the statistics are the result of strong targeting of Maori health needs often by Maori themselves. Finally the Public Health Association suggested that targeted health-care is beginning to turn the tide. 
All these acknowledgments fly in the face of what the leader of the National Party has said about race-based funding. Mr Brash believes that all the Government’s policies are race based. They are not. They are needs based. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 Tomorrow the Government has an opportunity to do something meaningful for the people of New Zealand. There are many aspects to the Budget that need attention but New Zealand First wants to focus on just one: the scandalous and insidious decline in law and order in this country. We have heard from my colleague Ron Mark this afternoon about the dreadful state of our prisons today under this minority Labour Government. New Zealand First makes this promise to the House and to the country: if this minority Government—and it is a minority Government which needs Opposition support from time to time and I am looking across at United Future—uses the Budget tomorrow to double the police force New Zealand First will support that part of the Budget. If the Government proposes real measures to address the war on drugs and gangs not just limp-wristed token gestures we will vote for them. When the Government is serious about real Parole Board reform it should come to talk to New Zealand First. We will do something about it. We said we would do something about it at the last election and I can assure the minority Labour Government that “Yes we can.” If the Government wants to ensure the Land Transport Safety Authority and the police redefine their roles to focus the work of the police on solving crime then New Zealand First’s door is always open. And they can laugh— 
Jill Pettis 
: He doesn’t get out much. 
DAIL JONES 
: What is that member trying to yell out across the House? I could not hear a word. Those members are making so much noise. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: She’s asking you for a date. 
DAIL JONES 
: She would be lucky! New Zealand First promised to fix the lawless state of our society at the last election. We were serious then and we are serious now. We have seen immigration numbers come down dramatically as we promised. We have attended to Treaty of Waitangi issues and we even have the National Party on board. I was hoping that the “great debater” would support us on this issue today but— 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Where is he? 
DAIL JONES 
: Exactly—where? Not one National Party person is willing to speak out about the state of lawlessness in our society today. We are determined to do something about it. The security and welfare of our citizens depend on it. 
Policing sadly has become little more than a revenue-raising exercise. What happens today? People who are driving down the road and getting up in speed to around 110 to 111 kilometres an hour are being stopped by the police and bang they get a fine of about $100. In the meantime their house could be getting burgled their grandmother could be being murdered and their brothers and sisters could be getting beaten up. There are all sorts of problems—children in hospital are getting assaulted—and what do the police do? They give out tickets on the State highway. That is policing today. 
That is not what the police and the courts themselves want. They want to be solving crime. They want the resources to address the P epidemic and the growing drug culture. They want to take the fight to the gangs. They want to tackle youth offending. Some police have been distracted by various allegations but most are committed. They are all committed to their reasons for joining the police. We know that the public wants tougher law and order in this country because over 90 percent of people said so in the 1999 referendum on tougher penalties for violent crime. What has this Government done? In the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) it made sexual misconduct even more available to young New Zealanders. What an appalling state of affairs! That is the sort of thing that this minority Labour Government is focusing on. 
The police and the public want action. What is stopping them from taking it? It is only this minority Labour Government that is stopping them because if it were willing to work in concert with New Zealand First on this issue we would be making sure that the nation’s citizens could feel safe in their homes and could walk the streets and the foreshore safely. Today walking the streets is a risky activity and more are likely to be fined for traffic offences than for other matters. 
The nation is very very concerned about law and order. Our newspapers and our television screens are raging with tales of doom because of the lawlessness in our society. [ 
Interruption 
] With rabble like that across the floor of the House in the person of the Labour member of Parliament for Whanganui it is hardly surprising that there are domestic violence cases and suchlike. That is no example to set for the young people of our society. Here in Parliament we should be setting an example of debating issues properly not screaming across the House like a fishwife or something like that. We in New Zealand First intend to fix the law and order issue. We will support a doubling of the police force tomorrow—and any time. 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I am delighted to speak in this debate today. At least New Zealand First has a policy. I say: “Bring it on New Zealand First. You’ve got a policy that says you will double the number of police.” That says a lot more than National is saying about its policy on health. National’s policy is all over the show. Today this Labour-led Government is putting its money where its mouth is. We are the best Government for health. We have had a signature announcement today that shows our commitment to health. We have shown a doubling of resources and funding going into orthopaedic surgery and no one in this House can carp at that—even that doctor sitting opposite. We are proud of our announcement. In fact “hip op” today for the Prime Minister of New Zealand and the Minister of Health! 
In my community of Rotorua we are to nearly double hip and knee surgery. That is a huge commitment. All over the country those surgical procedures will be increasing until 2009 and that is big news for the older people of our country. The district health boards with their community representatives will decide where those extra elective operations will be done. We are not even opposed to tenders coming in from private hospitals although the Opposition seems to state constantly that we are opposed to that philosophical approach. We have put capital funds into developing facilities for this surgery and we have even announced some positions for specialist nurses so that they can develop their skills in orthopaedic surgery. Today is a wonderful day for the older people around the country. It is wonderful also for us to have a close look at the policies we are seeing emerge from National—if it gets its way. 
I want to talk about one of our other keystone Crown entities that we think is a bit of a flagship. It is Pharmac. In our eyes it does a damn good job. It has actually saved millions of dollars in the health budget of this country—millions of dollars that we have invested into health services. Why on earth would Dr Hutchison go out there and say that a free-trade agreement with America is more important to National than Pharmac that Pharmac will be reviewed and that Pharmac will go? What an appalling expedient remark supported by the Leader of the Opposition—it will be gone; gone by lunchtime! That is quite clear. In fact that is about the only clear thing we are seeing other than that public health organisations will be scrapped and that is National’s health policy. It is tragic absolutely tragic. 
Will Dr Brash over there make political decisions for his mates as to who will get access to subsidised drugs? Pharmac will be gone. It will probably be those old mates in National who can pay their support to the party who will get their drugs. Brash will slash and he will be supported by his doctor mates—Dr Hutchison and Dr Scott. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Will the member please withdraw. 
STEVE CHADWICK 
: I withdraw. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. For saying exactly the same thing I was asked to leave the House this afternoon. I would suggest that in the interests of consistency the member on her feet should be asked to leave the House. It would also be a kind mercy; the rest of us will not have to listen to her. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No. The member will continue her speech. 
STEVE CHADWICK 
: We are also very aware that “Dr Slash” over there— 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Many times in this House during general debates you have pointed to the fact that members must be referred to by their correct titles and I would ask you to enforce that particular rule on this member. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: For once I am going to agree with the member. I think the “Slashing Dr Hutchison” would be a better approach. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No no that just compounds the situation and actually leads to disorder. The word is out of context. Can I ask the member to withdraw and apologise. 
STEVE CHADWICK 
: I withdraw and apologise but I must say that it makes one feel rather uncomfortable; the policy to slash Pharmac is something we all should be very afraid of. Pharmaceutical companies international companies are exerting huge pressure on other countries not to control their pharmaceutical costs. Do we want to be at their mercy especially for the cost of a free-trade agreement? No this is indeed a very mean and “brash” prescription. Pharmac has been supported in the past and I congratulate those luminaries in the Opposition who did understand about pharmaceutical subsidies and prioritisation. Wyatt Creech Bill English Jenny Shipley and Simon Upton all understood about Pharmac the need to have a system of prioritisation and the need to put that system in the hands of skilled clinicians and definitely not politicians and bureaucrats. I would not want to see Pharmac go. Dr Brash does admit to not knowing much about health. He does understand that patients are economic units of value and not people but this party over here certainly puts patients before profits. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 One knows that the Government is in severe trouble when its members come down to the debating chamber for the general debate make a blanket allegation that the National Party has no policy then spend their entire debate attacking National Party policy. That is when one knows they are in trouble. So desperate are they to make some impact on the public that the Minister of Education—known as the Labour Party bovver boy—is hardly able to recover from his jet lag after his extensive overseas junket before he is wheeled into the House to take point of order after point of order which of course are all totally pointless. 
Well over 12 months ago Bill English Nick Smith and I called a press conference outside the gates of the Islington substation in Christchurch. We did that for the purpose of highlighting the very serious issue of electricity supply constraints in the South Island particularly in the northern part of the South Island from Ashburton upward. When we were able to point out to the Government that this problem existed—and we were well supported by Transpower’s own information and by information from the Centre for Advanced Engineering and other independent observers of the electricity industry—all that Pete Hodgson could say was: “You’re wrong and you’re scaremongering.” Well here we are about 12 months later with a headline in the Christchurch  
Press 
 entitled “Peak-time cuts likely”. Well what the headline should state is “Pete’s blind cuts likely” because Mr Hodgson has failed in his duty to ensure there will be adequate electricity supplies to the top half of the South Island. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Cosgrove the member for Waimakariri might sit over there saying that there is no problem but let me tell members that when it comes to the ballot box Mr Cosgrove will have many many problems because his area is one of those that will go black later this winter if we have some particularly cold snaps. 
I cannot understand why the Government has sat on its hands for so very long. Today I went through the  
Hansard  
of about the same time last year and was interested to reacquaint myself with some of the pathetic reasons the Government came up with for abandoning the proposal to build a hydro scheme at Dobson on the West Coast. Had that scheme gone ahead the huge investment in heavy cabling that is now needed to ensure security of supply in the upper South Island would not be necessary. But the Government said no it thought that a patch of gorse a pile of mud and a few old rocks here and there were far more important than keeping New Zealanders warm in their homes and keeping New Zealanders’ industries afloat so there were jobs for them. 
What we have seen today with the announcements from Transpower is the total folly of that sort of policy. Even if Transpower were able to get the cable together it would take the company years to do it. The reason is that this Government has not been able to get a change to the Resource Management Act that would make it possible for Transpower to work with any degree of speed at all. I think it is important that Mr Hodgson comes down to the House apologises for having his head in the sand so very far recognises that his electricity commission is a joke and a failure and tells the people of New Zealand what he is going to do to guarantee supply of electricity. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: One would think that the concept of a blackout is something that would have been considered outrageous 40 years ago let alone now in the year 2004. But perhaps it is the hallmark of a Labour Government that it is determined to drag New Zealand back to a time when people suffered a heck of a lot more than simply the degradation of not being able to warm themselves by an electric heater. It is a Government truly focused backwards. Never could that be more evident than by the fact that it is proclaiming this week’s Budget to be a great effort yet not one of its members has spoken to it in today’s debate. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I call the honourable member Mike Ward. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I want to say right upfront that I think I have had an incredibly rough spin from the Chair today. You sat through a tirade of interjection during that speech and never once uttered the word “Order”. Presumably that is because there is a certain iconic Minister on the other side who seems unable to be affected by anything the Chair says. Further I noticed at the end of my speech while you were calling it to an end that no such intervention was made on Ms Chadwick or previous Labour speakers and we are getting very tired of this inequitable treatment. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the member very much for his remarks but the  
Hansard  
will show that I did actually call the members on my right to order during the course of the member’s speech. I appreciate the point the member has made. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. While you were ruling correcting the member on his misrepresentation to the House about your previous ruling he said: “No way.” It is gross defiance of the Chair to contradict you while you are on your feet. How long is this to be allowed to continue? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the Hon Trevor Mallard for that. If the member on my left did say that then that is trifling with the Chair and I ask him to withdraw and apologise. I have to take the member’s word for it. 
MIKE WARD (Green) 
: 
 This week another disaster movie hit local cinemas.  
The Day After Tomorrow 
 depicts an accelerated global warming scenario. The film is fiction; global warming is not. Global warming will not hit us all overnight but it will hit us. Global warming and its consequences are almost certainly the result of our profligate fossil-fuel consumption and it is already happening. For some on the planet those consequences are already irreversible and devastating. Increases in carbon dioxide levels from 280 parts per million prior to the industrial revolution to 375 parts per million today—just 95 parts or 30 percent—and less than 1 degree of warming have already resulted in large parts and up until recently productive parts of northern China and Inner Mongolia turning to desert. Extreme weather events are already devastating people’s lives all over the planet. 
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is reported in the February edition of the  
Ecologist 
 as predicting a carbon dioxide climb that were it to remain roughly where it is right now would be at a rate of something like 1 degree of warming. Even 1 degree of warming would wreak havoc. Glaciers and sea ice will in all probability vanish and the number of extreme climate events such as floods landslides heat waves and violent storms is bound to increase. Agriculture will be affected as a lack of rain during the growing seasons landslides and heat waves will devastate food supplies. However that scenario is unlikely. In the last month it was announced that carbon dioxide has increased by three or four parts per million each year for the past 3 or 4 years. That is something like 1 percent growth in carbon dioxide levels per year or a 100 percent increase over the next century. 
It gets worse. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has suggested that our growing demand for fossil fuels could lead to a fourfold increase in greenhouse gases—the highest in 40 million years. Forty million years ago sea levels were 12 metres higher than they are now. A 12-metre rise in sea level and the possibility of 8 degrees of warming mean conditions that are virtually unsurvivable. Unless we can be persuaded to dramatically change our ways the future for my grandchildren and in all probability my children is grim. It is not just our infatuation with motorcars—they are bad enough—but we are just so extraordinarily wasteful. The products we use require vast amounts of energy to produce and to transport and are likely to end up very very quickly in our landfills. But even if we managed to recycle all of them the consequences of the embodied energy and the resultant carbon dioxide emissions are irreversible. 
This might seem a little frivolous but encouraging parents to adopt reusable nappies is one attempt to reduce that waste. Using disposable nappies may not be the worst thing we do but it would be a relatively simple task to persuade and enable parents to move to products that use three and a half times less energy as well as eight times less non-renewable and 90 times less renewable resources to produce than each of the 570 million nappies New Zealand babies get through every year. Reusable nappies may seem a little inconvenient. That inconvenience pales into insignificance when compared with a 12-metre rise in the sea level and a planet that is 8 degrees hotter. 
Ron Mark 
: What sort does the member use? 
MIKE WARD 
: With my children and my children’s children it was always the cloth ones. Although reusable nappies may be inconvenient that is trifling in comparison with a 12-metre rise in sea level and a planet that is 8 degrees hotter. The same is true in relation to unheated towel rails walking or catching a bus to work choosing to live closer to the places that we need to be or spending our money in our own community and avoiding products and packages that we do not need. The task of good government is to make the good choices more attractive and to persuade us to avoid those choices that threaten our future. To those who say that it will not happen I say that wishful thinking is no substitute for hard evidence and the evidence is clear. It may not happen overnight but it is already happening and nothing less than a commitment to a major culture shift can avoid the unimaginable. If members cannot imagine it they just lack imagination. 
At the beginning of this week members stood up one after the other and talked proudly of the lead that New Zealand had given to the world in women’s suffrage and our particular brand of democracy. We may not be able to save the world on our own but we owe it to our children and to all of the planet’s other species communities and generations to demonstrate a new level of leadership and a singleness of purpose if our descendants are to have the same opportunity to thank us in 150 years’ time. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 This week we have celebrated the 150th anniversary of this House of Representatives. As part of the celebration later on this year in the month of August we will be gathering the youth of this country together for what is known as the Youth Parliament. Earlier this year I was asked to be on a panel of three judges to judge eight young finalists who were going to represent me. Two things that they spoke on stood out as I heard them make 5-minute speeches. First I was impressed with the qualities and the abilities of the youth of this nation. I believe that they are outstanding. They all spoke with passion they all had a heart for this nation and they had a desire to work alongside others to build a better New Zealand. 
Second these young people came from a variety of backgrounds. Some came from traditional homes some came from broken homes but there was a common thread that ran through all of their 5-minute speeches that I would like to take this opportunity to pick up and focus on today because I believe that it is important for this House to hear. It was: where are our boundaries and our guidelines? It was not about asking where were the rules and regulations; it was about boundaries and guidelines. Clear boundaries and guidelines are an essential part of freedom. 
Many would know that I am a petrolhead. Nothing gives me a greater kick than travelling in my rally car at speeds of up to 200 kilometres an hour on a loose gravel closed public road. It is exhilarating. On the other hand I have also experienced the pain of leaving that fine road at great speed entering a deep ravine and coming to a sudden stop. There is an incredible amount of freedom in a car as long as it stays on the road. Once it loses the road it has lost its freedom. Many members may not have experienced something as dramatic as that yet I know that many of them would have driven around a corner experienced sun strike found suddenly that the road ahead can no longer be seen and not really known where they were going. Or perhaps members may have experienced a dark night when it is raining and hard to see and driven around a corner to find they are facing a car’s headlights making it impossible to see. We know that pilots fly on flight paths and that as long as they maintain them everything is safe. 
These youth were consistently asking as they spoke on a wide variety of topics where the boundaries were where they should walk how far they should go what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. I really felt that they were saying to us: “If you really loved us you would let us know.” Many had had dreams that adults through their actions had shattered and they wondered whether it was safe to dream again. These ones had chosen to dream again because the alternative was not worth contemplating. I believe that as legislators we have an obligation to inspire the dreams of our young people and give them a clear pathway to follow. The current influx of liberal legislation will be rejected out of hand by the up and coming conservative younger generation who have woken up to the fact that much of what they were taught as being right has been proven by the experiences in their own life to be wrong. Many are now choosing chastity over promiscuity and are discovering that the rewards for a little discipline far outweigh any fleeting moment of pleasure. This should be encouraged as it is the right path to follow. This Government is beginning to feel the pressure of ignoring conservative New Zealanders for too long and it ignores the warnings that are there at its peril. 
 I conclude by saying that there is nothing wrong with our youth but as in Auckland it is time to pay far more attention to the roads we are building. Put the wrong road in front of our current youth and they will reject it out of hand. They have been told what to think for too long. But there is now a generation arising that has found out how to think so we should watch out because they know and appreciate the importance of a proper and correct foundation. They are looking for a good road a clear pathway to follow. I believe that for too long we as legislators have given them a wide range of alternatives. They have had to go down some wrong roads. They have known what it is to feel the pain of wrong decisions. I believe that we as legislators need to stand here in a place like this to give them clear directions to show them the right roadway the right pathway and I believe—just wait and see—that we will see a generation that will turn this nation round for good. 
NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Tainui) 
: 
 This week Parliament celebrated the 150th jubilee of its existence and this is a good time to reflect on the past and look forward to the future. A part of that future was touched on by the previous speaker who talked about the future face of this country—a future face that is forward-looking a future face that is a changing demographic and a future face that includes very young vibrant innovative and creative faces many of whom are Maori. My contribution to this debate today is to talk about some of the gains this Government has made in health care. The issue is about making health care affordable and accessible and that is what has been achieved in this term of Government. It is about making health gains and contributing to improving the health status of many of the people in our communities so that they can have a better quality of life. We are targeting need and are making a difference in health. This Government has initiated a primary health-care strategy to get the balance right. There are 68 primary health organisations currently in existence throughout New Zealand and that is significant. It shows that we are starting to really look at improving health in all our communities across all our populations. Why are we doing that? Because we want people to have a better quality of life and to contribute to society. More than 3 million New Zealanders many of whom are Maori are enrolled today in primary health organisations. They are enrolled in their communities where they can receive improved access to health care at a low cost. 
What have been some of the achievements in this term of Government? Last October 17-year-olds were added to the low-cost formula so the Government has improved their access to the health-care services. From 1 July this year all those aged over 65 years will receive low-cost health-care services and there will be a $3 prescription charge for our kaumatua. Those are significant gains because they are some of the bread and butter issues that people do not talk about very often but that really make a difference in everyday life. In rural health in the rural communities that a lot of our families live in and a lot of our families are returning to there have been some steady gains. Initiatives for new postgraduate diplomas for rural health nurses have allowed at least 40 rural nurses to study full-time over 2 years so they can go back into their communities serve those communities and help to improve health in those areas. We have extended the primary health-care nurse practitioner scholarship scheme. I think that is significant especially in a day and an age when it is hard to attract people into rural communities. Recruitment schemes for rural communities have made a significant difference because those of us who come from rural areas know how hard it is to attract people to come into a community long term and to be committed to the gains outcomes and benefits for that community. There has also been relief support to take the roster pressure off rural doctors and nurses and that too is significant. 
One of the things I want to talk about in my contribution to the debate is the mobile surgical services bus. I had the opportunity last week to visit that service while it was in Pukekohe. What is significant is that it is a public service that goes into rural communities like Gore Hawera Oamaru Pukekohe Taihape Te Puia Springs Wairoa and Warkworth—and that is to name just a few places. By going into those communities the service is able to relieve some of the pressure on the waiting lists of the district health boards in those areas. That is significant because the non-urgent cases that exist in those communities would not otherwise be seen if it were not for a service like that. A number of children from our families have been able to have a simple grommet operation which takes less than 10 minutes. Many kids Maori children who have had that operation immediately have an improved quality of life because they can hear better. Parents say that behavioural problems are immediately reduced and their children can participate in education and enjoy a full life. Those are some of the gains achieved by that service. It is significant that the number of operations has been vastly improved by that service. It should continue to grow. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 What we are seeing from this Government particularly as has been exemplified in this Chamber today is that it is losing its moral authority. There is now no doubt about that. It has happened at a speed that has surprised even me. But let us just go through the issues that have been dealt with today. Steve Maharey has spent 5 years on a tertiary education strategy. He has lost his credibility in the sector and now he is losing it in the House. That is because his strategy adds up to nothing. It consists of 14 reports over 5 years and a blowout of $18 million on the least strategic lowest-value courses the country has. We can imagine what the students will say to him about that when he turns up to meet them. He will not have moral authority. 
The Hon Phil Goff has spent years garnishing his credentials as a hard man on law and order only to be caught out in the worst possible situation: now being labelled in public as having a dangerously liberal attitude towards teenage sex. And then we found out today something that I am sure he told his colleagues and that they agreed with which is that it is now to become legal for foster parents to have sex with their foster children provided they do not use coercion—foster parents with State wards and the Government is going to sanction that! That is Phil Goff. He has lost his moral authority. 
Then there is the Prime Minister— 
Darren Hughes 
: Who’s obsessed about it? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
:I bet the ninth floor is. Speaking of the ninth floor how will the Prime Minister regain any moral authority on race issues? She will not. The only thing she could think of was to put Trevor Mallard in as Minister responsible for race relations. That tells us just how empty the bank account is. But how can she regain any moral authority on race relations? She has said nothing to New Zealand about those issues for 5 years. Which New Zealander would believe anything Helen Clark said about the most important issue our nation faces over the next 15 months? Not one—and she knows that which is why she is saying nothing. When a Government loses its moral authority it is worse than losing its policy credibility. 
One person stands above that and he is Dr Michael Cullen. On Dr Cullen’s broad shoulders rests the burden of rescuing this Government. But of course he has made a fundamental mistake: his Budget looks like the last Labour Budget not like one with four more Budgets to come after it. This is the pay-off. What happens after the pay-off? I can tell members that my voters in Southland have figured that out already. Labour saved up the money for this Budget. At least Labour did talk about having to earn it. Now that the Government has all the money it has saved it is going to give it away. What will happen next? Will Labour suddenly turn back into an enterprise Government? No. But Dr Cullen of course is not without his own ambition. 
 I am sure there are thoughts deep in his mind about why he has to work so hard to keep Helen Clark in office as Prime Minister of New Zealand because every problem the Government has he has to solve. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: That’s right. Mr Mallard too? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No he has become part of the problem with school closures the NCEA and various problems like that. The education portfolio is out of control. So Michael Cullen is sitting there on the Government benches wondering why he has to do all that. Why was it that Dr Cullen gave the speech yesterday that had to be given by the Government attacking judges and judicial activism—which I agreed with? Why did Helen Clark not make that speech? Because no one would take any notice of her and she did not actually think of doing it in the first place. 
I thought that the speeches on Monday exemplified the growing gap at the top of this Government. Helen Clark has spun herself into a corner she cannot get out of. She has got on the wrong side of an issue that she cannot get on the right side of and no one is waiting around to see what she can say. It is now up to Dr Cullen to buy Labour’s way out. Unfortunately he has had Phil Goff make this the worst lead-up to a Budget a Government could ever want to have. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed. 
Corrections Bill 
Third Reading 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts) on behalf of the Minister of Corrections 
: 
 I move  
That the Corrections Bill be now read a third time 
. The law governing the operation of the corrections system the Penal Institutions Act and some sections of the Criminal Justice Act is overdue for reform. This bill will replace that outdated and complex legislation with an Act that will firstly reflect modern conditions and approaches to the management of offenders; secondly set out principles that will guide the future development of the corrections system and the application of corrections law; thirdly be compatible with the Government’s criminal justice reforms—the Sentencing Act Parole Act and the Victims’ Rights Act—particularly in emphasising the central importance of public safety; and lastly be clear and easy to implement. This bill will come into force by Order in Council. A substantial new set of regulations to replace the Penal Institutions Regulations 2000 will need to be made before the bill can come into force. 
During the select committee process a number of sensible changes were proposed to the bill. Most of those were minor technical amendments but there were some substantial proposals as well. One was to enhance public protection by making provision for information sharing between the Department of Corrections and the New Zealand Police. It was also proposed that the bill authorise an information-matching agreement between the Department of Corrections and the New Zealand Immigration Service. Members of the Law and Order Committee also considered that justices of the peace and not just lawyers should be eligible for appointment as visiting justices. However the committee reported the bill back without amendments not because there was anything particularly controversial about the proposed changes but because it was unable to reach agreement on whether the bill should proceed. That was because of the Government’s decision to transfer the management of the Auckland Central Remand Prison to public management. 
Some matters were added to Supplementary Order Paper 213 in the name of the Hon Paul Swain following helpful discussions with Nandor Tanczos and the Hon Matt Robson. In particular the bill has been improved in the following ways. There is now a reference to the United Nations standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners there are provisions for the chief executive and prison managers to obtain advice from communities significantly affected by corrections policies and practices and the annual report of the Department of Corrections will include reports on those consultation processes and on the activities of inspectors of corrections. Overall the amendments have improved transparency and clarified the matters for which the chief executive and prison managers should be accountable. Decisions to segregate a prisoner for security reasons or to protect the safety of others will be reviewed at least monthly rather than every 3 months. Any extension beyond 3 months will have to be approved by a visiting justice. That will act as a safeguard with regard to the use of the powers of the State. 
Throughout the legislative process the most contentious matter in the bill has been the ending of the private prison contract. I reiterate that the Government’s decision on that matter is based on an important principle. The management of prisons involves the exercise of some of the State’s most highly coercive powers against individuals 24 hours a day 7 days a week. There needs to be direct accountability for the exercise of such powers and that can be best achieved through a Government department that is directly accountable to a responsible Minister. I would like to thank the Department of Corrections officials and the members of the Law and Order Committee for their work on the bill. I also thank all members who have contributed to the debates on this legislation. 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 Within 18 months this Corrections Bill will be repealed. This bill will be gone by this time next year because it is a shameful backward step in corrections policy in this country. That is for a number of reasons not the least of which is that it makes it illegal for the Government to contract private companies to manage the New Zealand prison service. 
Since 1999 Australasian Correctional Management has run our only private prison the Auckland Central Remand Prison. Throughout this entire debate we heard Government Ministers say that prisons by their nature involve the use of highly coercive powers against individuals and that only the State should be able to wield such powers. Every Opposition party—even United Future which supports the Government on matters of confidence and supply—was opposed to that because as we pointed out clearly in the quote from Professor Charles Logan: “Keepers do not take away anyone’s freedom; catchers and convicters and sentencers do so”. There is an important difference between the power to deny liberty and the job of carrying out those orders. It is a remarkable ideological leap that sees this Government at the same time that it is opposing private prisons inviting the private sector to provide prisoner custody services between prisons and courthouses. So it is apparently OK for the private sector to use coercive powers between courts and prisons but not OK for it to use them actually in prisons. 
The overriding international evidence is that private prisons are highly successful. The Australians the British the South Africans the Canadians and the Americans are all expanding their use of private prisons. As incarceration rates increase around the world Governments have looked to the private sector to build new facilities and to provide for future prisoner numbers. In fact it is reported that the Labour Prime Minister in Britain wants all new prisons there to be built and operated by the private sector. 
Internationally the private sector operates at considerable cost efficiency compared with the public sector. Numerous reputable studies have concluded that the private sector operates prisons at least 5 to 15 percent more cheaply than the public sector does. In Britain a study undertaken in 1996 by Coopers and Lybrand for Her Majesty’s Prison Service concluded that the private sector there provided operational savings of between 13 and 22 percent over the public sector. Here in New Zealand the private prison in Auckland operates at a cost of $43000 per prisoner per year with a mix of low and high-security prisoners in a high-security environment whereas the public prison service costs $54000 per minimum-security prisoner per year and $72000 per high-security prisoner per year. For members opposite that is information they can rely on. 
What is clear is that although private prisons are cheaper that efficiency does not come at the cost of quality. The head of Britain’s National Audit Office advised the Government there after a major review of prisons in Britain that competition has helped drive up standards and improve efficiency across the prison system as a whole. It compared Britain’s private and public prisons across a checklist of quality criteria such as prisoner safety assaults and purposeful work. It concluded with one exception that private prisons provided a service of a superior quality compared with that of public prisons. 
 Here in New Zealand the private prison received strong support from the Maori community and it must be an embarrassment for the Government when the Iwi Whanui o Tamaki-makau-rau talks about the premier service provided to their people by that prison in a firm environment. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: We want Maori out of there. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: I presume Mr Horomia is talking about Maori getting out of the prisons but I do not see anything that this Minister is doing to try to stop the levels of Maori reoffending and reoffending by the general public as a whole. This Minister instead of throwing away taxpayers’ money like confetti on capacity-building programmes would be much better off doing something about reducing the reoffending rate amongst his people. If he put as much effort into trying to stop Maori reoffending or reoffending throughout the community as he has into greasing his popularity with the Prime Minister and ensuring his position in Cabinet this country would be a much better place. 
What is wrong with this bill is it gives sweeping new rights and privileges to prisoners with an uncompleted cheque from the New Zealand taxpayers. It is an open cheque because the Government has no idea what the cost of these new rights and privileges will be. We have warned the Government time and time again that it does not know what it is doing. Surely we have seen with the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) that the Government should not rely on what its Ministers tell them is in a bill. 
I will tell the House about some of the risks imposed by this bill. This bill will require the Department of Corrections to take into account the cultural background ethnic identity and language of inmates in managing sentences. What will the impact on the system be of having the chief executive charged with catering for the “various religious and spiritual needs of prisoners”? What is the boundary of that duty? That clause may try to clarify it but again this bill allows for uncertainty and that can be costly. The Government should be mindful that prisoners can be litigious and the statutory rights proposed by this bill coupled with its foolish principles could be further defined and expanded by the courts. Parliament should be crystal-clear on what it intends to have available in terms of the statutory entitlements. 
Here is another example: the bill enshrines in legislation rights for prisoners that were previously detailed in regulations. There is a sweeping new right for prisoners to access information and education. Prisoners will be entitled—not permitted but entitled—to access further education that will help their rehabilitation. Although the Government has included a few words to try to limit the cost the point is there is considerable risk and uncertainty in this area that invites prisoners into the courts to gain an expensive education at taxpayers’ expense. 
Some of the earliest provisions in this bill to be repealed will be this Government’s foolish decision to legislate the current integrated offender management system into the law. It is a system that this Government uses for managing prisoners’ individual needs within the prison environment but as we said time and time again in this debate there are other ways of operating prisons. Penal policies come and go and the strategies and philosophies that this liberal social-engineering Government has foisted on the corrections system may not be what a Government of the future proposes to follow. 
The National Party strongly opposes this bill. It could have been a great opportunity for Parliament to bring the corrections legislation into the 21st century. It could have been a wonderful opportunity to put public safety and the rights of victims to the fore. But we heard in the Committee stage from Judith Collins MP that this bill with over 8500 lines had only two sentences and one word devoted to the rights of victims and that is why this bill must go. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE (Minister of Youth Affairs) 
: 
 If that is as good as it gets from the Opposition spokesperson on justice and corrections then that is about as good as it gets I guess. I understand that the member is a specialist in porridge—particularly after having watched what he gets up to in Bellamy’s! I understand also that he is one of those MPs who has visited corrections facilities—more often than any other MP in this House. It has nothing to do with strip-searches they tell me! 
There are two issues here and we want to make our position very clear as to what defines this Government from that mob on the opposite side of the House. The first issue is whether to grant any institution the power of the State to take away one of the greatest rights of any democracy—that is the ability to imprison to take away freedom. We say that power must be vested solely in the right of Parliament and the Government. Privatisation is what the Opposition wants. We do not stand for privatisation. Privatisation is the true agenda of the National Party which would even sell the prisons. It would even sell the right to lock up Kiwis which is one of the greatest constitutional rights of any Parliament to the private sector. That is the litmus test that clearly separates us from them. 
The other issue that the honourable member raised was the treatment of prisoners. Either we have a prison system that allows us to conduct ourselves with some humanity dignity humility and ability to allow the rehabilitation of prisoners back into our communities or we continue to build more prisons more prisons and more prisons. There is a range of issues in this bill to cut down on recidivism. This bill looks at providing some form of restorative opportunity for people as they come back into our communities. I commend it to the House. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise in the third reading which is our final opportunity to voice our opposition to this bill to urge in the closing stages those members of the Government who are sane and able logically to work their way through the issues to reconsider their vote on this bill. The decision that this Government is about to make is a wrong decision a bad decision an illogical decision and a decision that the Government is making on its own admission through adherence to blind ideology. I could be unkind enough to say that one would have to be an idiot to vote for certain parts of this bill. 
I will now re-emphasise a few points from the New Zealand First section in the report back. New Zealand First opposed this bill for a number of reasons. In terms of Crown versus private management of prisons we stated: “New Zealand First having seen the evidence submitted”—and having visited a number of prisons throughout New Zealand including the Auckland Central Remand Prison—“does not accept that there is any justification for the prison to be taken out of the ACM management and put back in Crown control.” All the evidence that was presented to us—everything that we saw everything that we heard from the inmates and the prison officers—told us that in comparison with State-run prisons Australasian Correctional Management had exceeded the State-run prisons’ performance. That is fact. 
With regard to the information and education needs of prisoners Australasian Correctional Management “was found to be a leader particularly in areas of its rehabilitation programmes (that is reading literacy computer training fork lift and heavy truck licences) that will assist prisoners’ self-esteem on their release.”—and their ability to gain meaningful employment. I will say that again: Australasian Correctional Management’s programmes will help prisoners and do help former inmates to gain meaningful employment. 
 I have visited Paparua Prison and one of the most disheartening things was to go into that prison and see a massive carpentry shop—fully equipped and fully tooled—empty. No one was learning anything. I think there were two men in that carpentry shop and when I asked why the prison was not teaching carpentry skills I was immediately taken through to the other side and shown where 25 inmates were doing carving. I asked them how many expected to get jobs carving and how many actually thought they had an opportunity to get a job as a cabinetmaker a joiner or a chippy’s labourer. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: It’s PC gone mad. 
RON MARK 
: The interesting thing is that a PC-driven Lf thabour administration was quite happy to keep these chaps busy carving bones wood and stones but it did not want them— 
Jill Pettis 
: The private sector doesn’t like any competition. 
RON MARK 
: That is a nonsense because on the other side I can go to the same prison and find two ventures running there that are in direct competition with local business. Jim Anderton refused to shut one of them down despite the fact that local businesses wanted to employ inmates. 
The inconsistencies are a nonsense. I quote our report: “New Zealand First believes that the decision to return ACM to State control is ideology driven without regard to its performance. It is our view that ACM should be left to continue to run externally to the department as a private provider for a further four years reviewable at the end of that period against good business practice and its compliance with the 1995 Act. The intent to return ACM to state control without regard to its commendable performance is not we believe based on logic.”—nor is it in the best interests of the people who are contained there. 
Regarding notifying victims about the transfer of prisoners New Zealand First noted that the Government does not intend to make the Department of Corrections responsible for notifying victims of its intent to transfer prisoners to home detention. We believe that is wrong. We believe that it is wrong that a man who is in jail for stabbing a taxi-driver in the head with a carving fork be put on home detention in the community without the next-door neighbours being told that he will be there. We believe that it is wrong to put that man back out into the community without his victim Les Williamson being told that that is going to happen. This bill does that. 
Regarding the mental health of prisoners we stated: “It is New Zealand First’s view that mentally unwell prisoners should not be detained in a prison. They should be in a secure environment in the care of staff trained in the management of such patients.” Of all the prisons I have ever visited which prison has the best processes for identifying inmates with mental health and psychological issues? The Australasian Correctional Management - run Auckland Central Remand Prison. That is the only prison I have been into where there is thorough screening of inmates on day one when they walk in where mental health issues are identified and where their programmes and the management of them are immediately adjusted. I hear speech after speech from members of the Government about how appalling it is that mental health patients should be held in prison but it is taking the one prison that handles such prisoners correctly out of the control of its very good managers who are doing that. There is a word for that; I will not use that word which is banned in Parliament. I will just use “stupidity” instead because that word is not banned. 
Regarding considerations for temporary release from custody or temporary removal from prison we stated: “New Zealand First disagrees with releases made without first notifying victims. Victims should have the right to object.” Victims have a right to know. 
We concluded by stating that New Zealand First will be opposing a number of other aspects of the bill. I want to touch on one of those aspects and that is the integrated offender management scheme. That is the great con job of the decade. I put it on record that the integrated offender management scheme is Labour’s new INCIS. This computerised programme which will generate nothing of any worth is a “touchy-feely” feel-good fluffy nonsensical approach to managing prisoners that firstly is not being complied with now and secondly cannot be complied with given the problems that the Department of Corrections faces with musters and with not knowing what its musters in any one prison are from one time to the next. 
All the prison officers—the good staff whom Mr Robson will stand up and compliment—know that but their wonderful management here in Wellington has provided Ministers both former and current with inaccurate information. For example the Minister was asked about the number of inappropriate relationships between prison officers and inmates. He said there were three. Members asked again: “How many was that Minister?”. He said there were five. “How many was that Minister?”. He said there were 17. “How many now?”. He said there were 21. This department’s heads give the Minister such inaccurate information but he relies on it he stakes his reputation on it and he will not go and talk to the prison officers who would tell him to his face that the integrated offender management system is an absolute crock. It sets the department up for failure. 
Worst of all it imposes a fiscal risk on the Crown and future Governments. The fiscal risk comes when inmate Bloggs having asked to do a BA in Maori Studies at Victoria University a special advanced anger management course and a course in business management and having been denied all of those opportunities—contrary to what the bill states he should be entitled to—is released into the community and offends again. He will be able to put up as his defence that he was unable to get work and be reintegrated into the community because when he asked to do those courses which he was entitled to do he was denied them—he was denied them because there was a lack of resources and a lack of opportunity and that was why he offended and now he holds the State accountable for his reoffending. 
I have a Chapman Tripp legal opinion that states that is so and this Government will not believe it. Well be it on its head. Know this: New Zealand First will come back to this Act when we are in Government. We will not have private prisons from one end of the country to the other but we see value in the current private prison. We cannot ignore success and that prison is entirely useful as a benchmark for checking and assessing the State-run prisons for their deficiencies and weaknesses. On that basis New Zealand First believes that it is stupidity to let that prison go. 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 I do not want to go over in great detail the significant amendments to the bill that have resulted from the Greens’ negotiations with the Minister. I have done that already in the second reading and during the Committee stage. Some of them were mentioned briefly by the Hon Rick Barker; in particular the new clauses about community consultation and tangata whenua participation in decisions—we can compare that to what is done so well at the remand prison; some strengthening around protection for whistle blowers in the prison system and also some added safeguards around the use of non-voluntary segregation to try to ensure that abuses of the behavioural modification regime are less likely to occur in the future. Those are things that the Green Party is proud of. Members who want to check that out in more detail can do so on the Green website www.greens.org.nz. 
I would like to confine my speech to the central issue at the heart of the opposition to this bill—the ending of the privately run prison. I will begin by once again pointing out the curious fact that those people who are most supportive of the remand prison are the same people who are fundamentally opposed to the very things that are said by the general manager to be at the heart of its success—in particular the focus on rehabilitation its relationship with tangata whenua and its humanistic approach to the way it deals with inmates. 
It is interesting because this internal contradiction was inherent in the speeches of Mr Ryall and Mr Mark. They spent the first half of their speeches telling us how fantastic the privately run prison is then in the second half talked about how bad this bill is because it will implement some of those same kinds of ideas. Mr Ryall talked about rights for inmates and how terrible that was and how terrible it was that the prison service will recognise some cultural values in its processes and practices—what a terrible thing that is! Those are the very things that Dom Karauria said are at the heart of what is done at the remand prison. 
That was the Government that chose the site for the Ngawha Prison. When that Government did an evaluation of the site it came out at 35th out of 70—but then 1999 was an election year John Banks was stepping down and Phil Heatley was standing for the first time in the Whangarei electorate. The National Government decided that it could not annoy Whangarei farmers too much so it put the prison at Ngawha because who cared what the people of Kaikohe thought? So that is how that party made decisions when it was in Government. 
Even so let us be clear that many of the claims made on behalf of the private prison are simply not true. One of those claims is around the costs. Members tell us in the House all the time how much cheaper it is to run the private prison. Of course they are not taking into account the fixed costs that are born by the ministry. They are not comparing comparable costs with costs. The members who say how much less we are spending on the private prison are factually incorrect. 
There are many other ways that the prisons are not comparable in any case. The remand prison is a remand prison. The factors that one has to take into account are quite different. The other thing is that it has a managed roster. I had people from te Iwi Whanui talking to me just a week or two ago about how the Government had tried to increase their roster and they had refused. That is fine. Good on them because it allows them to manage their services properly. But the reality is that the public service just cannot do that. It has to take what it is given. So let us be fair when we start to compare what is going on in those two different institutions. 
More importantly we need to take account of what the future will hold if the privatisation of prisons continues which is clearly what the members on the right of the House would have us do. Australasian Correctional Management has no regard for tangata whenua or for the rehabilitation of inmates or for Aotearoa at all. It is interested in the maximisation of its shareholders’ profits. 
So what is the remand prison? It is a glossy sales brochure for Australasian Correctional Management in order to maintain a presence for private prisons in that company so it can stick its foot in the door because if it gets that foot in the door we can be very clear that under a National Government the door would be jammed open and it would be all on. 
Let us look at the history of Australasian Correctional Management. [ 
Interruption 
] Well good. It has been subject to a history of complaints of abuse. First of all the Royal Australasian College of Physicians has called for a sweeping and comprehensive inquiry into all its detention centres following allegations of poor management at the Woomera detention centre. [ 
Interruption 
] It is Australasian Correctional Management. The member should have a quick look on a website. There have been huge numbers of allegations of all kinds of abuses. 
It does not apply just to the detention centres. The prisons that that company runs have also been subject to allegations. They are the first prisons subject to suit in Australia by an employee where a court found the company guilty of unsafe work practices. The problems are not unique. Australasian Correctional Management is one subsidiary of a much bigger global conglomeration of security services whose aim is to gobble security and prison services all around the world. For the majority of the time it has been running the remand prison it has been a subsidiary of the Wackenhut Corporation. A quick look on the web shows that prison staff at Wackenhut are suspected of having sex with inmates—so that is not confined to the public sector. 
One website states: “Published news accounts report that authorities have subpoenaed jail records in search of evidence that may reveal assaults retaliation contraband attempts to silence witnesses and the response of jail management to any problems in the past two years’.” I have been told by people who have been employed by Australasian Correctional Management of lack of appropriate medical services. Doctors who have been employed by Australasian Correctional Management have had to sign dubious contracts prohibiting them from commenting on what is going on. In fact I have seen the clauses in contracts that Australasian Correctional Management prison staff have been required to sign stating that they will agree to withhold information even where a court has directed that information to be made available. That stuff is all publicly available. There are overall concerns about lack of responsibility lack of transparency and lack of accountability. There have been huge numbers of resignations. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This bill is not about Waikeria it is not about Paparua it is not about Paremoremo. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: That is not a point of order. It would be better if the member did not disrupt the speaker. 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists has said that encouraging people to work in the centres in Australia would be similar to telling them to go and apply for jobs in Nazi concentration camps. That is how Louise Newman the chair of the New South Wales branch of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists has described the practices in Australasian Correctional Management. 
Let us be clear. There is a perverse incentive in privately run prisons. We could say that Chubb would run the police more efficiently but that is not an argument. Most of us would not say that we should privatise the police and turn them over to Chubb. Perhaps ACT would disagree. I am not sure. Mr Prebble is nodding his head—fair enough—but it is certainly not something that the Green Party would support. 
There is also evidence from the United States of big campaign donations to political candidates by prison companies which shows the potential for very real corruption. The Government made it clear when it introduced this bill that it will stop Australasian Correctional Management running the prison regardless of whether the bill passes. The Green Party said that we support that. Our responsibility is not to save the remand prison for the benefit of Australasian Correctional Management shareholders. Our responsibility is to change the practice in all prisons by addressing the problems in the public sector. We have tried to do that in this bill. We are not expecting miracles. We are not saying that there will be changes overnight but it is a start—not just for a few remand prisons but for all 6393 inmates in the New Zealand public prison sector. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the third reading of the Corrections Bill. I will take up the points made by the Green MP but I first want to make a few comments about the bill. In this respect I can agree with the Labour Minister Mr Tamihere who said that one of the serious things Parliament can do is authorise by law a person to be deprived of his or her liberty and that we as parliamentarians should look at the matter of setting out what those conditions should be. Having said that this bill as a matter of lawmaking is fundamentally misconceived. What we have is basically the regulations put into statute. So there are provisions that set out in minute detail how the prison is to be run. I was not on the select committee. During the Committee stage I heard Mr Power raising a point about clause 71 which deals with bedding. He said that bedding had to be laundered in between prisoners which made me wonder what the definition of bedding is. So I looked it up in the dictionary and discovered that “bedding” includes mattresses. I draw that to the attention of the House because here I am after 27 years finally getting to amend a Government bill. I see that there is a new subclause now— 
Simon Power 
: The “Prebble section”. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Yes. Subclause (4) states: “In this section—bed includes a mattress bedding does not include a mattress.” The absurdity of that matter has been taken up by some of the media but I have no doubt that if we were to go through this bill clause by clause we would find many other clauses that are just as ridiculous. I looked at the clauses dealing with mail and it appears to me that within prisons now it will be virtually impossible to prevent a prisoner who has nothing else to do but who has a good supply of paper—which I think the prisons will supply—basically harassing every citizen up and down New Zealand. 
 It is true that under that section the citizen being harassed can then write to the prison to prevent the prisoner writing to that person but do all 4 million of us have to do that? I can go through other sections and make similar criticisms. However the fundamental point I am making to the Government is that this legislation is misconceived. We should be setting out the basic principles for running prisons and corrections services and then leaving those matters for regulation. Mr Ryall pointed out that because prisoners have nothing else to do they are known to be litigious; they are known to raise matters. Because this legislation is now in statute it will be a matter for bush lawyers. They will take matters to court. Indeed the legislation we are passing basically states that according to those sections prisoners can take prison authorities to court because we cannot put any restrictions upon a prisoner getting in touch with his or her legal advisers or any other person in authority. 
The legislation is misconceived and it will cost us a lot of money. Having said that I do not say that our prisons should not—as Mr Tamihere said—obey certain humanitarian principles; they should. He said that the greatest principle is a person’s liberty. In fact it is not. The greatest principle a person has is his or her right to life. I point out to the House that the legislation will cost some people their life. We all know that. Most of us would have received submissions—as I have—from senior people in our prison service who pointed out that the effect of having a private prison is not as described to us by the Green MP and we can tell that it is not. He said that the Auckland prison is a shining example. He did say “glossy” and then tried to state reasons why private prisons somehow are worse. We know that private prisons have a record that is exemplary far better than expected by someone like myself who supported putting in private prisons. However I never said that there would not be a suicide in a private prison because that would be a ridiculous claim to make. 
We know that suicides happen within our prisons. We know that people mutilate themselves. We also know that many mentally unstable people are in our prisons. In fact many people in prison today would not have been in prison a few years ago except juries now will not accept insanity pleas because they have a great concern about our mental hospitals letting people out with a bottle of pills. Even though a jury may think that a person is a complete nutter that he or she is dangerous it will put that person in prison. So our prisons today have to manage some of the most dangerously mentally ill patients. 
We all know there were Public Service Association members opposed to privatisation. I am sure the Green MP knows that the prison authorities referred to the private prison—which is not just for prisoners on remand; there are lifers there; some of the most dangerous mentally ill patients in our prison system are there—and then were absolutely astonished that none of them committed suicide. We also know that by voting for this bill we will see some of those prisoners die. Then we had the Labour MP say that the reason he was opposed to privatisation was because of humanity. Where is the humanity in that? 
Then the Green MP said that various organisations made complaints against private prisons. I say this to the House. There are so many private prisons around the world and I have no doubt there have been incidents of prisoner abuse and the like. The difference is that when that happens in a State prison—and we have had that repeatedly; Mr Ron Mark reads out a list every day of various people having sex people being beaten; I will not go through the list because it is too disgusting but the list is read out—because a prison is State run by State servants the State prison is never closed. We all know that it is extremely difficult to get rid of a civil servant. We have State prisonsand I am not talking about all State wardens. However there are people who should not be wardens. Some prisons have been so badly run that they should have been closed down. The Minister of Corrections at the time would have liked to do that but he could not. 
Of course when a prison is privately run when there is a contract that is the difference. Under the principle of a contract the Government can state: “Here are the things you were told to do Mr Private Prison. You haven’t done it. We are terminating the contract. You’re all fired.” That is why on average private prisons worldwide have been run better. Because when they are not run better they are got rid of. But the Government has taken that away with the bogus statement that it is perfectly OK to take away a person’s liberty providing the warden works for the Public Service Association. That is nonsense. It is only OK to take away a person’s liberty providing it is done according to the rule of law. That is what we should be doing. This legislation is defective in setting out the rule of law. Because the ability to fire bad men and women who should not be wardens in prisons has been removed we all know that as a result of this legislation there will be a triumph of Green ideology over humanity and practical common sense and some fellow New Zealanders will die. 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 I would like to make a few points before I get to the substance of what I really want to say about the bill. Firstly this is a very sad day when the Government puts to an end the only part of the corrections system that was accountable through a tendering process. It will be taken out and shot and all because of ideology. That is sad for the people of New Zealand and certainly sad for the victims of offenders in prison who are in there as a form of punishment. A point was made earlier that a core function of the State with regard to prisons did not conform to the Government’s ideology. I would have thought the core function of the State would have greater precedence than the restraining of an individual’s liberty. The State should be acting on behalf of victims. It should be protecting victims but it has failed to do that. The interests of victims should be placed ahead of the interests of offenders. 
It seems that this bill does not denounce the violence and crime that is being inflicted upon the lawful citizens of this country. That is a pity. One of the things missing from our corrections system is a set of principles that asserts that a regime is in place on behalf of lawful citizens to protect them from those who would offend against them. That set of principles should have been included. 
My second point relates to the integrated offender management system. In my opinion it is nothing more than a $120 million grab for budget. This country has a strange culture whereby Government departments and ministries puff out their chests depending on how much public funds they spend. It is not really about accountability. I would like to see that culture changed. I would like to see Ministers ranked according to their efficiency not on how much of the Government purse they use up and burn. 
Although the select committee amended the purpose clause to make clear that the fundamental purpose of the corrections system is to improve public safety and contribute to the maintenance of a just society one thing stands out. It actually does the reverse. How can the corrections system maintain and contribute to a just society when it hits the pockets of law-abiding people twice? Firstly by its inability to police adequately the offenders in our community and secondly when they are apprehended and spend 1½ years waiting for a trial they finally go into a prison system that costs more than it should. So law-abiding people are hit twice. 
In relation to a comment made earlier by the Minister John Tamihere about the core functions of the State and taking away the freedoms of the individual I want to make one point. Offenders voluntarily give up their right to freedom in the commission of the very acts they stand accused of and are found guilty of. The State does not deprive them of their freedom. These offenders are deserving of their restriction of freedom. 
What system is Labour trying to defend—or at least Labour the Greens and the unholy alliance with the Progressives? They are defending a system that presided over the “goon squad”. Those things did not happen in the privately managed prison; they happened under the watch of a State-managed prison. In an inquiry it appears the only people who really suffered were two investigators who tried to advance accountability over the “goon squad”. They felt they were forced to take the only option that would keep their integrity intact—and that was to leave. They had to leave. Honesty was not rewarded; it was penalised by this Department of Corrections. In fact if we look at the leaders of the “goon squad” we see they have been promoted. The man who gave blanket approval for the “goon squad” Paul Rushton is now a member of the committee that ironically is looking at professional ethics in State prisons. He will be working alongside the new sexual harassment officer—the same man who produced his penis for another man to hit. These are the kinds of people who are promoted by the Department of Corrections while the honest ones had to walk away. 
Then of course there are the multiple rapes. Not that long ago there was the rape of an inmate at Hawke’s Bay prison and the pitchfork killing of an inmate at Rimutaka Prison. The point is this bill protects a system that is bankrupt and needing the benchmark of helpful advice and standard that the privately managed prison can provide yet the Government wants to pull the rug from under it. I think the Government is ashamed of the comparison. 
Nandor Tanczos was given a letter by Toi Maehu who acted on behalf of Maori begging him to reconsider his support for this bill and basically saying: “Turn your back on our calls and you turn your back on Maori.” They have done so. Eru Thompson begged the Greens to stand up for Maori. Again the Greens have turned a deaf ear. They have turned their back on Maori. Members should have a look at the six northern Maori iwi who are working with the remand prison and trying to do their very best. That is an example of a community taking ownership of its own correctional system. But this Government wants to turn a blind eye to them. 
I share with the House this comment made by Te Werina Tawa who is the chair of the six northern Maori iwi: “To hand it”—the State-managed corrections system—“an exclusive monopoly to manage every prison in New Zealand regardless of its performance or whether other agencies can deliver better results is wrong. Now is not the time to reward the department with a monopoly on prison management or to take away the competition which is forcing the department to finally start lifting its game.” How true that is. 
Not so long ago I had the privilege of attending a youth facility outside Western Australia along with the chair of the Law and Order Committee Martin Gallagher. It is a very well-run facility. It was pointed out that it is run by the public system and that the only reason it was brought up to scratch was that a privately managed prison in Western Australia had been completed. This Government is talking about putting together a review. On Tuesday 18 May in question time I asked the Minister what the point was of conducting a review of the management of the Auckland Central Remand Prison when the Government has already made the decision to close it. In other words the Government will not be reviewing its decision based on the resulting outcomes but it is lining itself up purely on the basis of ideology. 
The thing that really saddens me is that this Minister has not once stood and said with hand on heart that he honestly believes that terminating the privately managed prison is the right thing to do. He descends to talking about the ideology of the Government’s policy that it put in place two elections ago—but there is no ability to contrast that principle with the privately managed prison because that prison was not in operation then. Rather than being sensible and prepared to re-examine whether that policy should remain the Government has adhered to an outdated policy. 
This bill is an affront to the New Zealand taxpayer it is an affront to the victims of crime and it is an affront to the six northern Maori iwi whom the Government has turned its back on. It is a disgrace to the corrections system. 
When there is a change of Government whether or not at the next election the new Government will want a change to allow for privately managed prisons; and it will have my vote. 
Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 I rise to speak in the third reading debate on the Corrections Bill which will replace the 50-year-old Penal Institutions Act and bring the legislation governing prisons into the 21st century. As the former Minister of Corrections during the 46th Parliament I continued the process begun by National Ministers Nick Smith and the Hon Clem Simich that led to this bill being introduced to the House soon after the 2002 election. The bill deals with how we take offenders and rehabilitate them if we can. However the Department of Corrections is but one part of the offending cycle. If we can intervene much earlier in a person’s life we have a greater chance that that person will never re-enter the corrections system. The Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters is one example of early intervention. It operates in 18 places throughout New Zealand. It is the brainchild of Lesley Max and the Pacific Foundation and is a home-based programme that helps parents to help their children with learning and success in education. I speak about it here because the methods of rehabilitation and of targeted intervention at an early age are the same principles that should be applied in the corrections system. That is what this bill takes up. 
Tutors in the Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters work with both children and their parents to give those parents confidence with their children. At a low cost the programme turns potential criminals into confident children. Parents who have been in crime start to transform their lives. That supports the assertion that I made in the introduction to the 2001  
About Time 
 report: “We know the earliest possible intervention works best and costs the least. Working with a 5-year-old to change aggressive and defiant behaviour is estimated to cost $5000 and has a success rate of 70 percent. The same behaviour at age 20 costs $20000 and has a success rate of only 20 percent.” It is that 20 percent success rate that the corrections system is stuck with really. Those are the people who have not been able to be turned around at an early stage. The corrections system deals with the most difficult and most entrenched behaviours. 
The assertion made in the  
About Time 
 report is also borne out in one of the stories of a formerly criminal father who was turned into a supportive and responsible father for his own 5-year-old through the early intervention of the Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters. I would urge member to read the book  
We Talk in our Family Now 
 and in particular to read the story of Gordon that father’s real name. Gordon’s life story ending in serious criminal offending epitomises the men who come into the corrections system. It outlines the individual dysfunctionalism that this bill with its rehabilitation and re-integration emphasis is designed to cope with. Hopefully the bill will enable the staff and service providers to change behaviour and to equip the individuals concerned with the skills to build successful lives once they are released from prison. Building successful lives means the prevention of victims. It means a chance for the children and families of inmates and it means safer communities. To understand the typical male inmate—the features are similar for the small number of women inmates but they also have separate deep-seated issues and traumatic backgrounds usually including domestic violence—Gordon’s story is worth reflecting upon especially by members who wish to deny that dealing with the environmental factors affecting inmates is any business of the Department of Corrections. 
Gordon stated: “I grew up in Otara. My own family was not a nice place for me. I don’t like talking about it. All I can say to you about it is I survived. By the time I was 14 I was hanging around with much older boys part of a gang. They used to beat me up. When I was 14 I got a letter saying I had a special exemption and I could leave school. I celebrated by drinking. I never went home after that and I never saw any of my family again until last year. At 14 I used to drink at the Star Hotel with the gang. Heaps of us were under age but nobody did anything about it. From there I guess you could say I spent 30 years as a delinquent—heaps of drugs heaps of crime. I think I started drinking at 14 and never really stopped until I was over 40. I had my first child when I was 14. His mum was 14 too. Her father came looking for me with all his Tongan friends. They wanted to get me and he reported me to the police. They wanted to charge me. I had seven children but Kupa was the only one I am bringing up. Kupa’s mum’s family was just like me—violent. Through HIPPY I learnt to appreciate him and take an interest in him. In a way I grew up with him. We did a lot of things through HIPPY that to him were natural. It was all new to me—like before HIPPY if I ever took him to the park I would just sit there and ignore him. Once we started HIPPY I would play with him in the park. At first when Kupa started to speak out more I thought HIPPY was bad for him. I thought: ‘What are they telling him?’ Before HIPPY I thought that kids should be seen and not heard and someone else should look after them. My parents never read to me or talked to me or played with me. All I ever got from them was a hiding. My mum only ever came to school if I was in trouble. Now I am a teacher of kohanga reo. I am part-way through a 4-year course. I know my whole whakapapa now on the Maori side and way back to a Scottish ancestor as well. The biggest difference HIPPY has made to us is that I am here at all. I am here for Kupa. My dream for Kupa: I don’t want him to lose his smile.” 
And to the sceptical Opposition members of Parliament who are still opposed to the rehabilitation and re-integration policies spelt out in this bill and being practised by the Department of Corrections I say they could do worse than to reflect on Leslie’s story in that book and on what changed her from a life of offending and therefore from passing on to her children the culture of offending. She stated: “I was a drug addict for 15 years. I was addicted to heroin and I used speed every day and I used to be on the methadone programme as well. All my three kids were born addicted to drugs. They screamed and screamed. The doctors had to give them opium to calm them down and wean them off. It was horrible. I had a baby every 3 years. I was in a series of violent relationships. Our life was chaotic. Everywhere it was arguing. I was always stressed and disorganised. It was HIPPY that changed things. I really loved it and I had to keep it together because someone was coming to my house once a week and then I had to go to meetings. The HIPPY tutor saved my life and my children’s life. HIPPY gave me tools. It empowered me. They showed me how to be grown up and how to put my children first.” 
We give the Department of Corrections the difficult task of dealing with people like Gordon and Leslie after they have offended. The point about this bill is that it is designed to be part of a whole system of saying we should work on people in the corrections system but we should also work on their minds at the earliest opportunities and transfer them to re-integration. A focus on punishment is the focus of the Opposition. But going to prison is the punishment. How do we punish someone like Gordon or Leslie more than that? Was it punishment that changed their lives? If we listen to the professionals whose work is reflected through this bill then we hear them say we must implement targeted intervention which the integrated offender managementpolicy practices and we must deal with the underlying causes. 
That is why it is important to actually understand the principles in clause 6 of this bill—and I do not think that Opposition members have actually read them. Clause 6(1) states: “(a) the maintenance of public safety is the paramount consideration in decisions about the management of persons under control or supervision: (b) victims’ interests must be considered in decisions related to the management of persons under control or supervision: (c) in order to reduce the risk of reoffending the cultural background ethnic identity and language of offenders must where appropriate and to the extent practicable within the resources available be taken into account … (ca) offenders must where appropriate and so far as is reasonable and practicable in the circumstances be provided with access to any process designed to promote restorative justice …”. Those are the principles and that is the pattern behind this bill which incorporates the best practices as observed over many years and practised by those who actually understand what they are talking about. 
As to the question of the Auckland Central Remand Prison that prison was the result of ideology all right. It was the result of the National Party washing its hands of responsibility for the social and environmental issues that cause offending. It got rid of the prison so it could turn it over to a private provider. The plan was to turn the whole prison system over to private providers. That ideology which sprang from the Richard Prebble – Roger Douglas period and the period of the National Government of the 1990s was one of actually ridding ourselves of all State-owned assets—something that New Zealand First at one stage said it was against. When most assets were gone the privateers looked elsewhere. One of the places it looked at was the prison system. That was nothing to do with having a better system or with rehabilitation and was all to do with profit. And the remand prison is a remand prison. It does not deal with long-term serious offenders. The whole gambit of offending has to be dealt with in the public system. 
The parts of the Auckland Central Remand Prison that are good can and will be transferred into the public system. I would like to ask those members who say that they have the confidence of Maori and that they have listened to Maori to actually go to the Maori focus units and talk to people like Mita Mohi who is a legend inside the prison system. I ask them to listen to the inmates who have gone through the Maori programmes and the Pacific programmes and then to say that nothing is being done. They should talk to all the iwi and runanga that have relationships with the prison. All that commendable work has been done by the present Government. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 One cannot help but reflect on the last comment made by the Government senior whip who praised Mr Robson’s speech. It is quite extraordinary that she should have done that because for the last minute—and only in the last minute—Mr Robson felt it necessary to condemn the management of the Auckland Central Remand Prison. Of course in doing so he was completely oblivious to the facts and that is why National has said that this bill is a monument to ideology. We say that for the reason that the Government is persisting in closing down a private prison even though all the evidence says the Government should keep it in private management. I suspect that one of the reasons Mr Robson waited until the very last minute to discuss that prison—and only on being prompted by an interjection—is that he knows that is true. He knows it is an embarrassment to have to get up in Parliament today and pass a bill that represents a vote against practical experience. It is surely the refuge of the desperate to prefer ideology over common sense. I would like to remind Mr Robson—because I am sure he knows this saying—of the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s saying that it does not matter whether the cat is black or white if it catches mice. In other words should we not prefer real-life experience over ideology? 
Let us look at the facts. The cost of remanding a prisoner at the Auckland Central Remand Prison is $43000 per annum. In a public remand prison publicly managed the cost is $54000. If that is not enough one has only to visit that prison to get a real sense of the difference between the two systems. I know that Mr Robson has in fact visited the Auckland Central Remand Prison and that is why he knows why it works. I guess that is why he spent so much time on referring in his speech to the Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters. As Mr Robson knows that is also an example of the private sector providing more effective programmes than the State. He spent I suppose something like 5 minutes of his speech on praising the Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters—and it is well that he should because it is a successful programme that was implemented by National. The programme works because it is detached from the public sector and is not besotted with a huge bureaucracy but has people who work effectively on the ground. 
I have visited quite a number of the prisons of New Zealand. I must admit that I was initially sceptical about the issue of private prisons because I had thought that that was a core area of State activity. I was convinced by what I saw. I saw the most effective prison in New Zealand’s history being run really well not just in a sense of keeping the public safe but also in terms of getting a new attitude both within the staff and on the part of remand prisoners themselves. And it is not just a question of remand prisoners because approximately one-third of the prisoners are actually sentenced prisoners or in other words people who have been convicted by the courts and are serving their sentence. So in fact the Auckland Central Remand Prison is not only a remand prison. Members will be interested to know as I am sure Government members do know if they have thought about this issue or taken their ideological blinkers off that there is actually a demand by sentenced prisoners to get into the remand prison. They want to go there because it is such a good prison. There are work opportunities greater educational opportunities than in the public prisons and basically a better environment for rehabilitation because the bond of trust that is built up between the staff and prisoners sets up the climate for effective rehabilitation. 
We have heard in the House today about many of the deep-seated problems of the public prison service. Some people referred to the “goon squad” and others referred to the problem of sexual relations between staff and prisoners. All those things tell us that the culture of the public prisons is wrong and that it has led to a poorly performing prison service. I find it extraordinary that the Government has a $500 million programme to build new prisons at approximately $250 million per prison—one up in the far north and one in the mid-Waikato area. In contrast the remand prison built along the most modern lines drawn from the United States and clearly effective cost $40 million—one-quarter of that price. I know Government members will say that is because it is only a remand prison. Well I ask the Government why there is a big demand from sentenced prisoners to go and serve their sentences in that prison? Why can we not repeat that prison around the country? Frankly in the words of Deng Xiaoping if the cat catches mice it works so we should keep it. That is the message. That is the lesson from the People’s Republic of China and its Government had to do the most revolutionary change: a change from pure communist ideology to the free market. It did that because it works and that surely is the lesson from Australasian Correctional Management’s running of the remand prison. 
I found it absolutely extraordinary today to listen to the Green member. It was probably his most animated speech in my several years here in the House. One has to ask why the Greens find a private prison so fearful a prospect that they have put their deepest energies and ideological commitment into opposing it. What is wrong with that party? Then I reflected on the fact that the senior Government whip exhorted members on the Opposition side of the House to listen carefully to the Green member because we would learn something. I guess that tells us something does it not? It tells us that the Government’s preferred coalition partner is the Green Party. That is what the Government will be offering the country just 12 months from now—an unholy alliance between Labour and the Greens! I can tell the country and the Government that the public will not buy it. That is why Mr Marc Alexander will have an opportunity to vote for common sense because he will be voting for a National-led Government in a little over 1 year’s time. 
I just want to close on this ironical point. Mr Marc Alexander gave a very good speech today—thoughtful and considered. He and the United Future party will vote against this bill. The irony is this: tomorrow the United Future members will vote for the money to fund this bill. Is that not extraordinary? This is a time for the United Future party to recognise that the Government has failed. Every day during question time we see the look of despondency and despair on the faces of Government members. Nowhere was that more evident than with Mr Tamihere today. I know for a fact that he did not believe one word of his earlier speech. When it gets to the stage whereby a senior Government Minister has to basically argue against his own beliefs one knows that the Government has failed. There will be a judgment day in just a few months’ time. 
Hon TAITO PHILLIP FIELD (Minister of State) 
: 
 I am very pleased to contribute to this debate because I think our corrections policy in this country is very important particularly when we consider the disproportionate number of Maori and Pacific inmates in our jails. 
Earlier I heard some comments about a lack of initiatives for Pacific and Maori inmates. I am concerned that the wrong perception is being created in this debate because there has been the development of a Pacific strategy and I was recently involved in launching it in Hastings. I want to acknowledge one specific gentleman Luki Purcell who has worked very hard on that strategy. He served in the Department of Corrections for a very long time and has recently retired. 
The strategy provides a direction from July 2002 to June 2005 for reducing reoffending by Pacific offenders. It is a pilot scheme and I believe it is a very positive initiative. It illustrates what this Government is trying to do in terms of preventive and rehabilitation work to ensure that inmates do not reoffend when they come out of prison. It looks at how they integrate with the community at how they go back into society and at some of the positive things that the link with the community can do for the rehabilitation of inmates. 
This bill enhances a lot of good work and the focus in relation to private prisons is not accurate when we look at the figures. Although there have perhaps been some good initiatives—particularly in relation to some of the advisory groups within the community that have been established with the private prison—I see no reason why that cannot also be the case for the public prisons. Certainly it is clear that it is cheaper economically to run public prisons compared with private prisons. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Nonsense! 
Hon TAITO PHILLIP FIELD 
: The facts before me show that it costs $36000 per inmate at a public prison compared with $42000 at the Auckland Central Remand Prison. So it is certainly a lot cheaper according to the figures that I have been given. 
 There is no question in my mind that the public prison system is just as effective and efficient as private prisons overseas. I believe that the responsibility of locking people up and monitoring them—and of ensuring that the job is done properly—is the responsibility of the Government not of some private company. 
Hon John Tamihere 
: They would sell the prisons. 
Hon TAITO PHILLIP FIELD 
: That is right. I am concerned that a disproportionate number of certain sections of our community is represented in the jail population. I am pleased it is this Government’s policy to ensure that those who are prison guards reflect our communities. 
There is also a concern about the location of prisons. I know that for a long time it has been a very big problem that inmates have become dislocated from their families and homes particularly as a large number of Maori and Pacific people in prisons are shifted to the South Island or to prisons further south from their families. That has resulted in a lot of requests—and I am sure that my colleague John Tamihere appreciates this because he gets a lot of representations in his electorate office as I do—from families who are trying to have inmates shifted closer so they can visit them. I have had many representations in relation to inmates who are in prisons in Wanganui Wellington and the South Island. The representations have also been in relation to residential custody facilities for youth where some young inmates have been dislocated from their families. It is very important to take that into account when it comes to legislation and in terms of our future planning. 
I believe that this bill is due and is warranted because of some of the changes to legislation made by this Government which is really getting tough on offending. The Government is tough on crime and as a result our corrections system has to change to meet the tougher measures that this Government has put in place. Labour is committed to reducing recidivism and to utilising where appropriate restorative and reintegrative justice policies to ensure that the rate of reoffending is reduced. 
Early intervention will be emphasised in the Budget announcements tomorrow. I think that in the justice and corrections area we will see some real direction in funding to ensure that those rehabilitative and early intervention programmes are put in place and are properly funded. 
On this side of the House we believe that prevention is better than cure. It is better to look at preventing people from going to jail at preventing people from offending and committing crime rather than ending up in jail. That is the philosophy behind this bill. We are very supportive of the bill and of the programmes that have been put in place to involve the community in the rehabilitation of inmates. 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I wish to make a short contribution on the Corrections Bill that if I time it correctly should end just prior to 6 o’clock. The matters relating to the ideological nature of this bill have been well canvassed by those who spoke before me in particular the Hon Tony Ryall Dr Wayne Mapp and my colleague from New Zealand First Ron Mark. Many of those issues have been well canvassed. 
I want to concentrate on two issues. The first relates to the bizarre and ongoing oddity that is United Future’s support for bits of legislation—when its members stand in this House and tell the New Zealand public that they detest the direction the Government is taking in respect of for example the canning of a private remand prison contract and when tomorrow they will march in here and at 2.40 p.m. to 2.50 p.m. provide the Labour and Progressive parties with the necessary numbers for confidence and supply to continue to run this Government. 
I want to give the United Future members a very clear message in very simple terms—a message I am sure they will understand. I know that Marc Alexander who will be listening carefully to what I have to say on this issue will share this view given his contributions on this bill. I say to United Future members that the public will not distinguish bill by bill when they are standing on the platforms at the next election—[ 
Interruption 
] Jill Pettis is having a little chuckle over there. That is because she knows I am right that the public will not make that distinction. The only conclusion the public will come to is that United Future provided the votes and the support for legislation like this to pass through the House. In the public’s mind the Government’s ideology is United Future’s ideology. It is as simple as that. 
I know there are United Future members who feel extremely uncomfortable about that course of action. Let me offer those members an option—an option that will solve the problem of the Government’s ideology being completely indistinguishable from United Future’s ideology. The option is this: do not vote for the Budget tomorrow. It is very straightforward. If the United Future members who come down to this House and preach to this Parliament about virtue honesty and choosing the right road which we heard in the general debate today stuck to their guns and voted the Budget down tomorrow then they could hold their heads high in this Parliament and say that they are different from the minority Labour-Progressive Government. They could then go on the platforms around this country during the election campaign next year and say that they held the Government to account. But they will not do that and that is a sad indictment on a party that says it believes in honesty principle virtue and more important common sense. I have a message for those members: watch the worm turn the other way. At the next election their ideology will be indistinguishable from that of members sitting on the Government benches. 
I conclude my short contribution to this debate by saying that when legislation reaches the Committee of the whole House—and in respect of this bill I to refer to what is commonly known in prison lingo as the “Prebble section” which is clause 71 relating to bedding—and members of this Parliament have to amend a substantive section of it at that stage then that says to me that it is sloppy law. It is sloppy ideological law that needs to be amended on the way through after the select committee process. The public will remember that at election time. They will remember that United Future passed this legislation because its members supported the Budget that will be delivered tomorrow. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Corrections Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 62 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Noes 53 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 4; United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Bill read a third time. 
Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister of Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Social Services Committee consider the bill that the committee present its final report on the bill by 9 August 2004 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 191 and 194(1)(b) and (c). 
Paid parental leave is one component of our Government’s policy to promote high-quality working lives. Since this Government introduced paid parental leave in 2002 thousands of working parents have benefited from paid leave from work on the birth or adoption of a child. Last year the Government conducted a review of paid parental leave which shows that the scheme has been very successful and both employees and employers have adjusted well to the entitlement. Benefits identified by employers include happier and more satisfied staff and a greater likelihood of being able to retain experienced staff. Benefits identified by employees include being able to afford to stay home longer with a new baby and reduced financial stress through the provision of some income replacement during that period of paid leave. 
However the review also showed that the scheme could be improved to extend coverage to employees who are not eligible for paid parental leave because they have not worked for the same employer for at least 12 months. It could also be improved by providing a longer period of paid leave. This bill will extend the period of paid parental leave from 12 weeks to 14 weeks for eligible parents. Eligible parents will be entitled to 13 weeks’ paid parental leave from 1 December 2004 rising to 14 weeks from 1 December next year. This extension will improve New Zealand’s compliance with human rights standards relating to the length of paid maternity leave under ILO Convention 183 Concerning the Revision of the Maternity Protection Convention. 
The bill will provide a new set of entitlements for employees who have worked for the same employer for between 6 and 12 months and who are not currently eligible for paid parental leave. Eligible employees in this group will be entitled to 13 weeks from 1 December of this year and again rising to 14 weeks on 1 December next year. In addition 1 week’s paid paternity leave will be available to eligible fathers or partners who have worked for the same employer for between 6 and 12 months. 
This bill provides practical enhancements to the paid parental leave scheme that further a number of objectives supporting the birth or adoption of a child. These amendments will ensure that the scheme is accessible to a wider number of employees provide a longer period of paid leave encourage female workplace attachment and support the health and well-being of mothers and newborn babies. I commend this bill to the House. 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 I think that when discussing this bill we will quite clearly see a marked difference between Labour and National. One party thinks the future direction of this country comes from making the middle classes dependent on welfare. The other party thinks it is better to create a situation whereby people can be independent and make their own spending decisions. We are not going to pretend that life’s complex problems can be fixed by legislation or by the Government. We will leave it to the other side of the House to think that that can be achieved. 
It takes 9 months to produce a baby and that is 9 months in which to prepare for and think about the time that the parents will have away from work to care for their child. Certainly during the first few months of any child’s life it is absolutely vital that a parent is there to look after and care for the baby and bond with it. But I think what we have here is just a method of making mothers dependent on another form of welfare. It is a very small amount of funding and for many people it is quite unnecessary. A lot of quite wealthy women who have taken advantage of paid parental leave have not needed the cash handout from the Government because they have made their own arrangements with their employers. 
We do not think the welfare State needs to be expanded into this area. Extending the welfare State to middle-income New Zealanders really is no vision for New Zealand at all. Over the next couple of days what we will see from Labour’s big spend-up is at best income tuning or at worst a cruel hoax. Most of these women—and the recipients will mainly be women—will be receiving back what they paid in tax in the first place. The Government wants these women to be incredibly grateful for this handout but it is money they earned in the first place. If they had retained that income they would have been able to provide for themselves and continue to lead an independent life. 
I am not trying to play down the huge impact that having a child has on anybody’s life but I think we are not naive enough to suggest that some Government programme will make a lot of difference. The first few months with a new baby are incredibly stressful for any new parent and money is not really the major obstacle faced by a lot of parents. One of the questions I have is what happens to those women who are left out of this programme. The Minister talks about wanting to encourage women to bond with their babies and wanting women to stay at home and those are worthy ideals but she has made no comment about what happens with self-employed women such as the contract hairdresser the taxi-driver the real estate agent the sharemilker. Surely if the Minister is true to her word her worthy intentions would apply to other New Zealand parents as well. This bill is discriminatory and that is why the National Party has not supported it in any of its forms. When a Government tries to provide these sorts of benefits providing them to just a certain number of women really is not fair. There has been huge feedback on this bill and the programme but some of the feedback I have had is from the mothers who have been left out of the programme. They cannot quite understand why they are not able to take advantage of it. That is why this programme has ended up being a cruel hoax. Most mothers-to-be thought they would be able to take advantage of this programme but so many thousands of women found that they were not eligible. The Minister has said that thousands have enjoyed the scheme but equally thousands have not. 
One of the things that concerns me is that if the Government creeps into various parts of people’s lives thinking that it can solve a lot of complex problems faced by families the long-term scenario is that the Government starts to crowd out things that New Zealanders do for themselves every day. I do not think that the Government can minimise the stress or the enjoyment that a new baby can bring to any family’s life. For that to happen we need a lot of community change and for a lot of families to get alongside some of these new babies when they are born. This bill in my view continues to make a larger number of New Zealand women welfare beneficiaries. It continues to put some women in the position of not having to think about preparing for what their life will be like when their baby arrives. 
 Our party believes that the real way to solve societal problems is to encourage people to be independent—to plan for things to take personal responsibility and to put in place things in their lives that allow them to look after themselves. No one feels good about receiving Government handouts but most people feel good about providing for themselves which they can do if they are able to keep a larger proportion of their own pay. One of the things that make this bill a cruel hoax is that the Government is really just giving back what many of those parents had earned and paid in tax in the first place. Over the next couple of days we will see greater examples of income churning where the Government expects the country to be wildly enthusiastic and thankful for its handing back of what was really New Zealanders’ money in the first place. Rather than put people in a position where they are independent and providing for themselves the Government will continue the creeping of the welfare State into areas of their lives where the Government was not present before. 
A lot of people think the Government introduced paid parental leave. In fact that was not the case. For many women it was something they were already negotiating and providing for themselves. There were already a lot of enlightened employers who were ensuring that in order to keep female employees they provided terms and conditions that made it easier for mothers to stay in the workplace. But once again this Government here thinks it has to get in and intervene and basically start to change some of those employment relationships between staff and employers. I feel sorry for some employers who are now going to have to provide parental leave for some staff who have been working for them for only 6 months or so. I think of the small dairy owner who has someone working 10 hours a week. Somebody might relieve on a Sunday so that the dairy owner can have that day off. That worker will now be eligible for both paid parental leave and parental leave and that was not the case before. That employer has to keep that job open for someone who was just a casual staff member in the first place. What concerns me is a growing problem of the cost of keeping positions open of compliance costs and of a lot of other things that small-business owners try to deal with all the time. 
I believe that all new parents should be able to spend the first wee while with their new babies as they bond with them but that is not something in which the State needs to continue to intervene. In terms of future directions for this country if people want to see a difference between National and Labour they can see in this legislation the stark contrast between the two. National is a party that believes that people should take personal responsibility and plan. Jeepers! Parents-to-be have 9 months to do that. Nobody has ever said that a baby was a total surprise when it arrived 9 months after the event so people cannot argue that it is something that creeps up on them that they cannot prepare for. 
I think that what we have here is some goodwill legislation designed to buy a few more votes—as we will see within the next couple of days with this massive spend-up. If we are talking about future directions I believe that this bill leads New Zealand down a future direction where there is a creeping welfare State and where the Government continues to get more and more involved in New Zealanders’ lives. I think we need to start to establish what the things are that we want to provide for one another as a community and what the things are that we want the Government to be able to do. In terms of what this bill tries to achieve I think that while it does not provide a service for everybody it will continue to be discriminatory particularly for the self-employed. 
Hon TAITO PHILLIP FIELD (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 That was a very disappointing speech from a young mother. I would have expected her to support something that is very pro-mother and pro - new baby and very important in supporting families. We know by the sound of that speech that this policy would go—probably by lunchtime—if National were in power. This is a very good bill. It brings us into line with ILO Convention 183. It is good news in terms of the extension of coverage which will give 3400 more parents the opportunity to have paid time with their new babies which is so critical in those first few weeks of a baby’s life. I support the bill. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Let me make New Zealand First’s position clear from the start. We will be supporting this bill because we think the Labour Government did not get the initial legislation quite correct and a number of people were left out. We welcome— 
Simon Power 
: What about the self-employed? 
PETER BROWN 
: I am coming to the self-employed I can assure the member. We welcome the opportunity to correct any anomalies and to consider everybody’s case. We believe that it is unfair to leave the self-employed out as Katherine Rich referred to. I think she spoke of people under contract and she listed a few. We think it is unfair they should be left out and we hope this bill gives the opportunity for consideration of those cases. I say to Mrs Rich that I was a little disappointed in her contribution because as far as I am aware when her children were born she did not lose a cent of her income here. 
Katherine Rich 
: I didn’t claim paid parental leave. 
PETER BROWN 
: No but the taxpayer paid. I just make the point that the taxpayer paid even if she did not claim paid parental leave. 
Simon Power 
: That’s very personal. 
PETER BROWN 
: It is personal but we must have some compassion in these things and some consideration for people. But that is not to say that New Zealand First does not have some worries about this bill. I want to quote a little bit from the second paragraph of the explanatory note: “These amendments to the Act further a number of objectives supporting the birth or adoption of a child.” That is all very good. “This includes ensuring that the scheme is accessible to a wider number of employees encouraging female workplace attachment supporting families with leave …” etc. etc. It all sounds very good but the three words that worry New Zealand First are “female workplace attachment”. Will this bill for example provide paid parental leave to a female prison officer who has a baby as a result of a dalliance with a criminal? [ 
Interruption 
] The member over there laughs. I tell Mr Peck that that is a serious question. I hope he will take a call and tell me— 
Sue Bradford 
: Why not? 
PETER BROWN 
: Sue Bradford asks “Why not?”. Why should a female prison officer who gets fired from her job and has a baby not get paid parental leave? [ 
Interruption 
] From the sounds of the outbursts I am getting here from the Greens and from some other members they think that is only fair. I ask members over there on the Government benches how they can justify that payment yet leave out the self-employed. How can they justify a payment to someone who has lost her job yet leave out the self-employed? My call will not be very long but I do point out to this House that the number of incidents of female prison officers getting involved with prisoners is in the ascendant. The Minister of Corrections answered a question from my colleague Ron Mark and said there were three incidents. Subsequently he corrected that and said there were five. Then he said there were 17. Then he said there were 21. Ron Mark tells me that in one prison alone there were 19 occurrences. If they carry on like that we are likely to get an epidemic of female prison officers having liaisons with criminals and as a result some will give birth to babies. 
Sue Bradford 
: No. 
PETER BROWN 
: Does Ms Bradford not accept that? And the taxpayer will give them paid parental leave. This is a legitimate question— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: But it also leads to disorder. 
PETER BROWN 
: —and I am pushing it home so that those people will give me an answer. But worse still the other day we heard the Hon Phil Goff do a U-turn about 12-year-olds having sex together. Does that mean that if they have a paper run and one of them gives birth to a baby they will get paid parental leave from the taxpayer? Under this bill which I have read inside out if two 12-year-olds or a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old have a baby and are doing a paper run—my children used to do paper runs when they were young—they will get paid parental leave. Sue Bradford is saying “No”. She is drawing the line there. These are honest questions that I am looking forward to the Government answering. New Zealand First wants this bill to go to the select committee too because everybody is in a state of laughter here. This is actually a serious question. My honourable colleague here realises it. If two schoolchildren have sex and one gives birth to a baby would they get paid parental leave for not being able to do their paper run or their work at Foodtown at night? There are a number of issues that have to be addressed here. 
If we pay parental leave to some people we should consider paying it to all. I am talking seriously now about the self-employed—contracted people. They give birth to New Zealanders and have just as much hardship as some people in the workforce. Some people in the workforce who will be paid under this bill are relatively very wealthy. So the measure should be extended to the self-employed; consideration should be given to them. 
This amendment has come to pass a relatively short time after the principal Act was enacted and we do not want another amendment and another amendment to get it right. The Government gets so many things wrong the first time round that it should practice what New Zealand First says: do it once and do it right. This is the Government’s second attempt— 
Darren Hughes 
: Ha ha! 
PETER BROWN 
: Those members are laughing. We say do it once or do it for a second time but get it right and address the key issues—particularly for the self-employed. I will sit and listen to the people who take a call and I hope they will respond to the prison officers’ situation and that of young people doing a paper run because I want answers to those questions. I am so keen to get those answers that if this bill gets to a select committee I will get myself on the select committee to ask the questions. I look forward to Mark Peck taking a call and addressing those issues. I know that Sue Bradford will give me the answers as she sees them from the Greens’ point of view. We will support this bill going to the select committee and we look forward to posing a few difficult questions. 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 I never dreamt I would hear such a humorous speech in the first reading of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill and I thank Mr Brown. The Green Party welcomes the introduction of the bill to the House tonight and intends to support it through all its stages. There is no question that we have a serious long-term commitment to do everything we can to support the rights and welfare of all working mothers and fathers and of their children—no matter who their parents are. This bill marks another small step on the long journey towards the full recognition of the essential role that adults who are selfless enough to have children play in our society. Unlike the National Party the Green Party does not see paid parental leave as a pitiful welfare crumb that is either not needed by the very rich or insulting to the poor. Rather we support it as a long overdue first step towards enabling at least some working mothers to have some time at home with their baby or babies after they give birth or adopt. I say “babies” because I had twins the first time around. 
When the first paid parental leave legislation went through Parliament in 2002 we thought it was a good start but felt very much that there was still a long way to go before New Zealand could truly pride itself as being on a par with other developed countries in its treatment of working parents and their children. One of the key reasons for our misgivings was the fact that the first bill gave workers an entitlement to 12 weeks’ paid leave rather than the minimum of 14 weeks’ called for under ILO Convention 183 Concerning the Revision of the Maternity Protection Convention. Even though New Zealand has not ratified that convention we felt that a Labour Government with the support at that time of the Alliance and the Green parties should have been able to see its way clear to legislate for at least the bare minimum required. We therefore put forward at that time an amendment during the Committee stage of the bill seeking to extend the amount of paid parental leave from 12 to 14 weeks. Of course it failed to go through but at least it is some vindication now to see that the Government has reached the point where it does feel able following its own evaluation of the scheme to give employees an entitlement of 13 weeks’ leave from December this year and 14 weeks from December 2005. While it is a pity that this extension will be staggered and is taking years to occur at least it will happen. 
As for those critics among Opposition parties and business who say it is unthinkable to have any paid parental leave at all much less this shockingly huge amount of 14 weeks I say that some of us who were on the recent Speaker’s tour to certain European countries were amazed—and in my case delighted—to find that paid parental leave of up to 1 year or more is becoming the norm in a number of countries as Governments realise that they have to do a lot more to encourage their citizens to have children and also the ability to nurture them well in their infancy. In New Zealand we are still a very long way behind the times and it is entirely possible that with the high student loan burden a low-wage economy ever-lowering birth rates and decreased inward migration we may before long find ourselves in a position similar to that of some of the other developed countries that are positively panicking about how older generations will survive without a younger working-age population to support them. 
Adequate paid parental leave is just one strand of what needs to be done to support and respect those who choose to have children but it is a critical one in a society where the adults in many one-parent and two-parent families find themselves forced into the workforce through economic necessity and societal pressure. As a side note I hope that the Budget tomorrow afternoon will provide enough financial relief so that at least some primary caregivers of young children will have a chance to stay home while their babies are young rather than heading out on that weary forced march back to work after a mere 12 or 14 weeks. I speak of this with some passion as a mother of five who with my last two babies went back to full-time work when they were only 2-weeks-old in one case and 1-week-old in the other. As all the many mothers who have been or who are in this situation will know it is quite a heart-wrenching business to leave a newborn baby behind and set out with a smile for another day at work. I do not think any truly humane society should allow this to continue as the norm. 
This brings me to the second major improvement brought forward by the bill before us today whereby some employees currently not eligible for paid parental leave will become so from 1 December this year. This new bill will provide that a woman worker who has been with the same employer for at least an average of 10 hours a week for between 6 and 12 months before her baby is due will now be eligible for both maternity and paid leave for the period of paid parental leave only. Partners who have worked for the same employer for 6 to 12 months will also be offered leave for the first time. Both these new entitlements will be at lower rates—the mother will not be eligible for extended leave and the male partner will get only 1 week’s leave rather than 2—but at least this is a big improvement on the current situation in which people who have worked for the same employer for less than a year are entitled to nothing unless it is negotiated completely separately from legislation. 
Again this was an issue that we raised during the course of the paid parental leave legislation in 2001 and 2002. I am glad the Government is gradually extending coverage to those many workers who have not completed a full year with one employer even though they may have been accumulating student loan debt for years or may have been gainfully employed over an extended period but with a whole lot of different employers. 
Although the Green Party is more than happy to give its support to the advances contained in this bill we remain concerned about the failure of either the original bill or this one to address the question of self-employed parents. I acknowledge that other parties here tonight have raised this as well. Many people from both the farming and urban small-business sectors made submissions to us during the select committee process on the original bill about the problems faced by self-employed people when they come to have their children. Indeed in some ways they are in an even more difficult position than those in regular employment. I know this is a difficult issue and I believe that the Government has been doing work on it over time but I certainly hope that by next year we will see some progress in this area. If we can provide accident compensation cover for people who are self-employed and assess them for tax benefit and student allowance purposes I cannot understand why a fair system cannot be devised that would in the end bring equity between employed and self-employed parents. 
In conclusion I commend the Government and officials for taking the evaluation of the original paid parental leave scheme seriously enough not only to carry out a substantive consultation but also to extend the scheme as much as they feel fiscally able. Although it is a pity the improvements could not have gone further particularly in relation to self-employed people at least we will finally meet the ILO minimum of 14 weeks’ paid parental leave and coverage will be widened to include the pool of around 7000 employees who fit the 6 to 12 month tenure requirement. This bill is a small but significant stepping stone on the journey towards ending structural discrimination against women in the paid workforce and I look forward to its being enacted in time for its December 2004 provisions to take effect. 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 It gives me pleasure to rise to speak to the first reading of this bill. ACT New Zealand did not support the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Bill when it was introduced and it certainly will not support this amendment to that legislation for the many reasons I will come to in a minute. It is interesting to look around the House and to listen to what people have been saying. Only the two young mothers in the House—those closest to the people this bill is supposed to advantage—have stood up and said that they oppose this measure. That was for very good reasons—[ 
Interruption 
] I am sorry. Ms Bradford is also a young mother but she is not quite as close to being one as the other two young mothers in the House. 
This bill is discriminatory as the National Party member pointed out. It means that people will be more dependent on welfare than they need to be. Also the Government has completely failed to point out that there are people who are not covered by this bill: the self-employed and those who participate in work on contracts. The Government is yet again picking winners and showing its anti-business bias—in this case against the self-employed and contract workers. 
Steve Chadwick 
: Mothers are winners. 
HEATHER ROY 
: Mothers are definitely winners and nobody would suggest for a moment that they should be denied this time at home with their newborn babies. I was certainly fortunate enough to have this time although like the previous speaker when I had my fourth baby I went back to work after 2 weeks—as did Steve Chadwick—and I went back to work 1 week after my fifth baby was born. I was in the fortunate position of being able to work part time and of occasionally being able to take my babies to work with me. That does not mean I think I should have been paid to do that. I am surprised that Government members have not thrown up their hands in horror already and said that some mothers cannot afford that precious time at home with their babies. That is the philosophy behind this bill and many others that the Government has promoted. 
Families today are not in the fortunate position they were in during the past. I think back to the 1950s and 1960s in particular when we can say that women did have the luxury of staying at home and looking after their newborn babies. In most cases they stayed at home until their children were well into their school years. The very simple reason for that—and a reason why we should not pay people to take parental leave—is that in the 1950s and 1960s families paid approximately 25 percent of their income in taxation. Today when we calculate everything including GST that figure is much closer to 40 percent. That is the crux of the matter. Many mothers—or fathers in some cases—now cannot afford to stay at home full time with their children and that is a great shame. But the situation is easily rectifiable. ACT advocates taxation cuts and we would certainly like to see a low flat tax rate of 20 percent. If that were the case more families would have the option of one parent—either the mother or the father—staying at home. It would be a much more viable option for those families to have one parent stay home to look after the children for as long as they felt it appropriate. 
There have been several high profile examples very recently. I think of the article on the front page of the  
Sunday Star-Times 
’ 
a couple of weeks ago about Marilynn McLachlan a mother of four children and her husband who is a schoolteacher earning $55000. Not only can they not put anything aside but they feel they are moving backwards. Middle-income earning families are moving backwards and the main reason is that taxation in this country is too high. They cannot make ends meet on that sort of money.  
The taxed earnings that the National Party member also spoke about are a very important consideration. Each time tax is taken from somebody and moved through the Government departments—firstly through the Inland Revenue Department then on to the Ministry of Social Development and then back to parents in the form of parental leave—there are inefficiencies and money is lost along the way. It would make a great deal more sense to allow people to have that money in their back pocket. They are the ones who can spend it the most wisely on their own behalf.  
Employers need to be considered too because they are often left out of the equation. They are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex when employing people but many—as we know when we talk to small-business people as I do—will not even think about employing a young woman with childbearing potential. If a women applicant for a job does not have a child or has only one or two and expresses an interest in having more children then she is often overlooked because of the burden she would be to her employer should she decide to have children. That is a great shame and often employers will miss out on very good employees. However if they have a small business one can see their point of view. It is often very difficult for them to have to do without an employee for any length of time or to get somebody else in when they are perfectly happy with the employee they have.  
This leads on to the distrust that this Government has of employers—in particular of private employers and small-business people. In many cases we see small businesses remaining as family businesses because the owners do not want to take on the obligations that employing people would place them under. It is easier for them to keep their businesses small. Even if their business is a thriving business and may go on to do particularly well it is easier to operate as a mother and father business.  
So parental leave throws a whole lot of balls into the air. It creates an awful lot of difficulties for employers and it sends the wrong message to society. It says that it is all right to have children and that we do not have to plan for them and that we not need to think ahead and work out what we will do with those children. What sort of society do we have when we have to pay people to take time off to look after their newborn babies? I think that is a sad indictment on us. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Mothers should be paid for their work. 
HEATHER ROY 
: The issue of whether mothers should be paid for their work is a very different one. Somebody who has a baby or who plans for a baby has an obligation to think very carefully about how that baby will be brought up. As the National Party member said people have 9 months to think about these things. It is not a surprise when the baby finally arrives. Adoptive parents are in a slightly different position but for most people those 9 months give adequate time to plan and the decision making comes a long time before that as well. In my own case I am pleased to say that I have not been dependent on parental or maternity leave. I planned well ahead. I am very proud to say that I have five children and that I was lucky enough to be in the position of not requiring that money. 
But I come back to the point: if money is the question then tax cuts are the answer. The best situation is more money in people’s back pockets so that they can make the best decisions for their own families and their own lives. We in this country have had enough of a bossyboots Government that interferes in people’s lives. This Government’s days are numbered. It will have to push through its pet legislation—like parental leave—as quickly as it can because its days are numbered. ACT New Zealand will not support this bill. It is a discriminatory bill and it means that people will yet again be dependent on welfare. It sends very wrong messages to society and ACT will not support it. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise on behalf of United Future which will support this bill at its first reading. I feel that we are a true centrist party in relation to this bill because I can sense what the left would support and likewise I can support what the right would support. 
 Just for the benefit of Simon Power even if United Future does not choose to support this bill all the way through—although I trust we may be able to—it will support the Government in supply and confidence because United Future is a party that takes agreements seriously. United Future is a party that honours the agreements it has made. Unlike the National Party we are concerned about what we have said and spoken to. Just so Mr Simon Power can be very clear on that United Future is a party that will stand by its agreements. 
The extension of parental leave is worthy of further consideration in light of the largely positive reaction it has received since it was introduced in 2002—in spite of the controversy it attracted beforehand. An initial evaluation of the scheme by the Department of Labour found that parents consider it highly beneficial. I do not believe that any of us could argue against that. As well as having more money to cover bills new mothers have been able to stay home longer with their babies. It is also thought to have had a positive impact on the number of mothers who have breastfed. Paid parental leave also acknowledges that being a mother—or a father for that matter—is important. We are a family-based party so we support that. Whereas previous generations of women fought for the right to have a career it is getting to the stage—which greatly concerns United Future—where this generation is fighting for the option of being a parent. That is something we in power need to consider greatly. 
According to a recent study by Waikato demographer Janet Sceats parents are increasingly choosing to send their kids to day-care facilities at much younger ages because they cannot afford the luxury of raising them at home. I agree with the point which has already been spoken about that it is time that we as a Government recognise mothers who choose to work at home. We had four children under 5 so I will never be convinced that mothers do not work at home. They work very hard and get no recognition for it. United Future’s income-splitting policy would go a very long way towards addressing issues such as that. 
I am glad that all ears are listening to the great common sense that comes from United Future. I see all parties nodding in agreement that income splitting should be brought into predominance. The Government does not recognise the worth of a mother but only the worth of a paid worker. I think that is a very good point. Do I get a cheer for it? The concern for our population growth is that women faced with juggling work and family commitments will opt to not have children. That is supported by falling fertility rates particularly in urban areas such as central Auckland and Wellington. Paid parental leave seems to play an important role in easing some of those issues. 
I would like to see income splitting because that would then give women a greater right to choose. All the legislation of this type that has come in has sadly taken away the free choice women had to be full-time mothers. Legislation that has been passed under the pretence of welfare or of doing them good has actually destroyed the very thing many women really want to do—be a mum stay at home bring up their families and educate them and put them on that road. To our detriment we have seen that become increasingly harder. I for one want to fight the fight to restore families. If mothers want to make the choice to stay at home and look after their kids we need to put systems in place to make that possible. 
It is almost impossible to be a one-income family today. People are forced to have two-income families. They do not necessarily choose that. First any woman who does part-time work for her employer while she is on paid parental leave is considered to be back at work and is turfed off the scheme. I am thankful that I am a member of the Social Services Committee and will be able to look at that matter because it is one that concerns me. Some bosses have managed to get around the issue by delaying payment until the woman returns to work full time but they would rather the legislation be changed. 
Perhaps a more serious issue is that employers say that some women who intend to be full-time mums after their babies are born falsely tell their bosses that they plan to return to work. They do this in order to get the benefit. Also I know that in many places overseas where the scheme operates women may take parental leave then pay other young people to look after their families so they can get a secondary job. People will always find a way to bend the system for a lot of things that are theoretically good. The fact that the bill extends the provision for parental leave with a particular focus on those who have worked for only 6 months has the potential to multiply such problems for employers. 
I also have a difficulty with the situation whereby one partner has the right to choose which one will take the paid parental leave. I would like to work that through in the select committee. Unfortunately I have continually found that the Government tends to look only at workers who are on a PAYE system. Anyone else is a multinational corporation. But a self-employed businessman with only one staff member will lose 50 percent of his workforce on that basis. Not only that the businessman will not know whether the staff member can be replaced for 12 months because the job must be kept open for that period. In a small business that is a huge length of time and we need to look seriously at that matter. 
Also if an employer employs males—and I know that one is not allowed to do that today but we should get real here—because he or she does not want the inconvenience of someone leaving the workforce to have a child all of a sudden that employer can be advised that that person’s spouse or partner is having a baby and he is going to take parental leave. I think that is very harsh on employers. One west Auckland service company closed its doors late last year citing the cost of leave compliance. The managing director said: “By the time I’d paid for sick leave holiday leave bereavement leave and maternity and paternity leave the company had to leave.” Really the pressures coming on those small businesses are serious concerns. 
I would like the select committee to undertake a really thorough assessment of what the compliance costs to small businesses of extending the parental leave scheme will be. I know that the Department of Labour has already surveyed businesses on parental leave and come back with very favourable responses but I would particularly like to know what the impact on small enterprises will be because they make up over 90 percent of all businesses in New Zealand. It is also relevant for the select committee to find out what the Government intends to do about extending the scheme to the self-employed which is an issue that has been well covered tonight. Federated Farmers has already raised it in relation to young couples working on farms who are not covered by the current scheme or by the amendments proposed in this bill. Apparently Cabinet has discussed the matter but is not happy with the proposals put forward by the Minister. 
I am not sure why this bill could not have waited until a solution could be found for self-employed parents. [ 
Interruption 
] We are supporting it at the first reading. I know that the survey showed that some self-employed people would rather not take the time off as the money received in paid parental leave would not compensate them for their business loss. United Future will be supporting this bill to the select committee. 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I am delighted that 2 years after the Government introduced the first paid parental leave scheme we are already back in the House extending it. I thank our colleagues in the Greens for their wholehearted support. 
I do not think that any one party could say it is the party for families. Every party cares about families. However the affirmation of this bill to extend the provisions of paid parental leave is a great thing. It will cost the Government $68 million more to extend the scheme. Ultimately we will get there for the self-employed but we cannot roll this out all at once. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 Having listened to the speaker from United Future I wonder how he managed to have four children aged under 5 when obviously he spent so much time sitting on the fence. I would have thought that that would do him a lot of damage. I think the member from United Future was calling for home detention for mothers rather than for the freedom of choice that most mothers expect to have in their lives. 
I rise for the National Party to speak against this legislation for several reasons. When people decide to become parents—or do not decide but do become parents—they do so in the full knowledge that they will be responsible for their actions and for their children. People do not decide on the basis that they expect to be paid for the role they undertake as mothers and fathers. Being a mother or father is the payment itself. 
Speaking from my personal experience when my husband and I decided to become parents I became self-employed so that I would never have to ask anyone else’s permission—and of course I never did—to take my child to Plunket. I did take my child to Plunket and he was a good Plunket baby. In addition as a self-employed lawyer at that time I employed other women and men—but mostly other women. I found that as a self-employed person it would have been really nice to have the benefit of parental leave and employment protection. 
Of course under this legislation I would not have been able to get that benefit. However while I might be heavily pregnant and have to struggle through work I would have to keep open the jobs for my employees and watch them being paid while I had to pay for someone else to do my job. One of the problems for self-employed people is that when they become mothers they have to find someone else to replace them at work plus they do not get the income they would have been earning. 
So in many ways this legislation is a double whammy for the self-employed. This is just another example of preference being given to employees and of no acknowledgment being given to the fact that employers are not some sort of group out there who have nothing to do with reality. They are mums and dads too and they see their taxes being taken off them to support other people in their life choices. 
National values motherhood and fatherhood. We value responsibility. People should not become mothers or fathers unless they are responsible for their children and themselves. If they cannot be responsible for themselves and their children they should not be parents. That does not mean we do not like to see any help being given to parents whenever it can be given and whenever necessary. But the Government takes from one parent—solely on the basis that that parent has mortgaged his or her house put in capital put his or her life on the line and got into a position where he or she could go bankrupt if it all did not go well—to give to another who has security of employment and who knows that his or her job will be remain open whether or not the employer can necessarily afford that. That is not right. It is not fair and it is another example of this Government using taxpayers’ money to try to win some votes—and it will have to win a lot more yet! 
As I have said employers are parents just like everyone else and this is just another slap in the face. Today I have been in Christchurch where I was around a lot of self-employed people. I can tell members that I do not think there was one person there who was not a National Party supporter. Those people told me they were sick of the legislation this Government is bringing in sick of people telling them what they can and cannot do and sick of being told that they would have to pay for people who cannot take responsibility for themselves. 
I was very interested to hear the United Future member talk about income splitting. I took it from what he said that United Future is promising that income splitting will be in tomorrow’s Budget because it would not be supporting the Budget otherwise. United Future members told us tonight that that was the deal. Certainly they implied that that was the deal and that it was absolutely central to their thinking about parents and about being a mother or father. They felt that that was only right. 
In many ways one can see their logic. After all with many farmers both husband and wife are working in the same business. Often they are in partnership and one of the reasons—apart from the fact that they both milk the cows and shear the sheep—is that they can income split. Certainly it is good to hear that United Future will prevail tomorrow and allow income splitting to come in. I can see Mr Alexander has gone to sleep. 
In essence National believes that this legislation is unfair. We will not support it to a select committee. We believe that it is biased against the self-employed; that it is another example of the Government telling people not to bother taking responsibility for their actions and not to bother planning ahead because it will get the taxpayers—the other employed and self-employed people—to pay more taxes than they need to so that people do not have to think and plan ahead. The Government is saying that it will not help people to plan ahead and think for themselves; it will help them not to. The one thing this country does not need is more parents who do not think ahead and do not take responsibility. If there is one thing that we have a lot of at the moment it is people who are not prepared to be the parents that their own parents necessarily were. 
MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 I do not intend to speak very long on this bill except to make two points that have been lost in the debate today. A lot has been said about the role of mothers and I congratulate my colleagues Ruth Dyson and Stevie Chadwick in particular on the addresses they made in the debate. Stevie Chadwick as we know now has her second grandchild and good on her. 
Two things need to be said. Firstly a Department of Labour survey on the way in which the employment protection legislation has been working in the last little while found very good support for it amongst employers. This particular legislation will provide for an extension of the scheme to a greater number of workers. One of the reasons we want to do that is to retain skills. 
One thing that has been missing in this debate is any understanding at all on the economics of the provisions. It is quite simple. There has been some sort of suggestion that the money will go out of employers’ pockets and into the pockets of the person taking parental leave—the mother taking parental leave as it will be by and large—and that that is where it will sit. Anybody who has done even a rudimentary level of economics will know that money is made to go around. Essentially there are two markets. There are the markets for goods and services which is where the workers are and there are the markets for the factors of labour which is where the employers are and employers will get the return. That money will go back into the pockets of employers and businesses. The community as a whole will benefit from this particular change to the parental leave legislation. The bill is good and I support it. 
Opposition Member 
: How’s your varsity studies going? 
MARK PECK 
: My varsity studies are going very well. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I rise to endorse the position of the National Party which opposes this legislation. We did so when the provisions were introduced some years ago and we do so now for a number of reasons. Although those reasons have largely been traversed by colleagues in the House I would like to make my thinking on this known as well. I will take three or four points that the Minister made in her speech and see whether they hold up in light of what National sees as the shortcomings of the bill. 
 The Minister said that the underlying philosophy—I am not quoting her words exactly but this is as I heard them—is to provide high-quality working lives for parents. I do not think any member in this House would dispute that. This Parliament should always be trying to see whether it could put the right supports in to provide just that sort of thing for parents whoever they are—in fact for all hard-working New Zealanders. 
The problem with this bill—and therefore the problem I have with the philosophy as espoused by the Minister—is that unfortunately these provisions do not apply to all parents. Why not? If the underlying philosophy were a good one then surely this Government in putting aside $68 million to extend the paid parental leave provisions ought to have seen whether it could extend them across the board. It did not. That is typical of this Government. It picks those people who it thinks are its sure-fire voters and therefore we get people left out. I do not think that philosophy holds when we look at the actual provisions of the bill. 
The Minister also said that the review of the paid parental leave provisions has shown that employers are happy because they have happy staff. That presumably means they have a more settled working environment. But the Minister made no mention at all of the fact that this is a cost on employers. Employers know that and that is why many of them—particularly those with small businesses—are reluctant to employ women. We on this side of the House have gathered a lot of anecdotal evidence that basically states that although employers are not meant to discriminate against female workers it is going on. If they can possibly get away with not employing a young woman they will do so. Who can blame them? Why should anybody expect them to keep a position open while someone goes off on leave or to bear the cost of taking on someone temporarily so that the work spot is open when the parent returns? 
But that is only part of the cost that employers bear. Under this Government we have seen more and more costs put on business. Business realised quite some ago now that this Government is not its friend; employers are realising that. So when the Minister said that employers are happy I do not know what employers she was talking about. She said that employees are happy as the legislation reduces the financial stress on families during the period of paid leave. Yes we can certainly see how that might be a benefit. 
However the Minister made no comment at all about ongoing costs to families and those are massive. There is ongoing health-care and childcare. I was talking to a woman today who is part of a two-parent working family with three children. In effect she pays $12000 to put 1.8 children in childcare for 1 year. There are costs all the way through this scenario of having children and rearing them. This Government has not proved to the House that the best spend of hard-working taxpayers’ money is in this area. 
I heard one of the members on the other side of the House say that mothers are winners. Of course they are and so are fathers especially good fathers. Fathers are winners too. Parents are winners. It goes back to what I said at the beginning. If that is a truism—and of course it is—then we should be looking to see whether we are treating all parents all mothers and all fathers equally. Clearly this bill does not do that. 
The cost to extend these leave provisions is $68 million. It would have been better if this Government had tried to be more equal across the board. It has not done that. Quite frankly who does that $68 million belong to? It belongs to every single taxpayer in the country and a lot of those taxpayers are self-employed. They run both small and big businesses—but in particular small business. Why should this Government use the taxes of hard-working New Zealanders across the board to benefit only those people it thinks ought to benefit? 
Those are the people whose votes the Government will be buying through this legislation and whose votes it intends to buy tomorrow when it showers around the country more of our hard-earned taxes—more of the hard-earned taxes contributed by ordinary middle and low-income New Zealanders. Michael Cullen has hoarded that money so that in the year before the election he can shower it all over the place but unfortunately he will not do it in a way that is equitable. It is impossible to do that anyway. 
But there is an answer. The answer is to leave that hard-earned money in the pockets of the people who worked for it. That is what National would do. Quite frankly those people are better placed to decide how they should spend their taxes and their own money. This $68 million worth of taxes that is being allocated to extend these paid parental leave provisions are the taxes of workers across the board but only some in the community will benefit from them. That is not fair. It is patently unfair. What the Government will do tomorrow will be unfair—it will take taxes from every worker and dish the money out to those people it thinks ought to get it. That is totally unfair. 
John Key 
: The privileged few. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: Well the Government will give the money to those whose votes it feels most confident of getting. That is patently unfair. 
The polls show that no matter how much money the Government dishes out tomorrow—and that in itself is scandalous—it will not work. Nothing this Government can do now will turn those polls around. It should leave New Zealanders’ money where it should be—in their own pockets. That is what a National Government would do. These kinds of provisions encourage reliance on the largesse of others. The Government wants to exercise that largesse. It has no right to collect those taxes and then to spread the money around the community as it sees fit. We oppose this legislation. It is a scandal and the Government should know better. It does not and it will pay for that. 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 At the end of this first reading debate I just want to rise and signal the strong support I have for this bill. I do so on behalf of all the hard-working families in the Otaki electorate who will note with interest that only ACT and the National Party are opposing it. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 83 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 32 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 4; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Bill read a first time. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister of Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill be referred to the Social Services Committee for consideration that the committee present its final report on the bill by 9 August 2004 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 191 and 194 (1)(b) and (c). 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 70 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 45 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 4; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Motion agreed to. 
Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill 
First Reading 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for Disability Issues) 
: 
 I move  
That the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Social Services Committee. The Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill repeals the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Act and is consistent with the 
 New Zealand Disability Strategy 
 and with the findings of the 2001 vocational services review as outlined in  
Pathways to Inclusion: Improving Vocational Services for People with Disabilities 
. By repealing the Act the bill ensures that people with disabilities have the same employment conditions rights and entitlements as other New Zealanders including minimum-wage provisions and access to statutory holidays. The bill also amends the Minimum Wage Act of 1983 to make the system for considering minimum wage exemption permits—formerly known as under-rate workers permits—more clearly focused and transparent. 
The  
New Zealand Disability Strategy 
 aims to achieve a fully inclusive society where people with disabilities have the same opportunities as other New Zealanders to participate in training and employment and to receive fair remuneration. The current Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Act provides different employment conditions rights and entitlements for people with disabilities who work in sheltered workshops regardless of their individual circumstances. The Act is not compliant with domestic and international human rights legislation. It confuses employment and other relationships that exist between the provider employer and the service-user employee and it embodies outdated concepts about the ability potential and rights of disabled people. 
Employment opportunities in segregated or partially segregated settings will continue under the new legislation. The bill will however result in wages being paid according to the work people do rather than according to the place where they work. It provides for the phasing out of exemptions for current legally approved providers over a transition period that began in 2001 and will expire on 1 July 2007. This transition period allows the sector sufficient time to sustainably move to the new employment relationships. Providers are already receiving direct assistance from the Government to move on to the new employment arrangements. They will continue to receive direct and ongoing assistance to develop their businesses to support employment with specialist advisers and resources providing information and other professional support. 
Our Government recognises the diverse needs and aspirations of disabled people and the need to encourage a range of employment options to meet those needs and aspirations. This bill is part of a new approach to employment opportunity with organisations currently operating under the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Act. The new policy approach is being implemented through both operational mechanisms through contracting and by legislative change through this bill. 
It includes the following elements: providers may offer support for community participation for training or a mix of all three with employment but must meet employment standards for any employment relationship that exists. It has a revised minimum wage exemption permit system and it ensures that other employment legislation is complied with. The bill affects providers who have an employment relationship with individuals who are employed in sheltered workshops. Providers who offer only training or support community participation are not affected by this legislation. 
Whether individual relationships and segregated employment exist will continue to be identified over the transition period. The bill also retains the existing eligibility criteria for invalids benefit for people who are working in sheltered workshops. This provision is needed to ensure the financial security of many of the employees who receive part of their income from wages and part from the benefit. 
The benefits of repealing the Act are as follows. People with disabilities employed in sheltered workshops will be entitled to the same employment conditions rights and entitlements as all other New Zealanders including minimum wages and entitlement to statutory holiday provisions. We will have legislation that is compliant with the Human Rights Act of 1993 and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. The repeal of existing legislation is consistent with international conventions particularly ILO Convention 111 Concerning Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation of 1958 which was ratified by New Zealand in 1983 and there will be significant action towards achieving objective 4 of the  
New Zealand Disability Strategy 
. Most important there will be transparency consistency and fairness in the application of wage and holiday legislation for all New Zealand workers. 
This bill has been the subject of many reviews over the last decade and I am personally delighted that we have finally reached this stage of being able to introduce legislation which I now commend to the House. 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 The National Party will be opposing the progress of this bill and I intend to spend some time explaining to the House why. Whilst the Minister has laudable intentions in respect of an inclusive society and the like the question this House must ask itself is whether this is the instrument to provide that inclusiveness whether this is the instrument that will maintain those opportunities and whether this is the instrument that will allow disabled persons opportunities they would otherwise not have. Having had the first reading of this bill I and the National Party are of the view that that is not the case; that in fact we are dealing here with a bill that lacks conviction. It lacks conviction because in the same way that this Government introduced 4 weeks’ annual leave to this House with a long-drawn-out period before its coming into full force so indeed does this bill create a transition period until 2007. I say to the Minister opposite that if she has the courage of her convictions in respect of implementing such an inclusive society she should crack on and get this legislation with a commencement date that reflects the courage of that conviction. 
What we have here is legislation that is a half-hearted effort to try to appear concerned and inclusive when in actual fact all it does is create a whole lot of unanswered questions with a lengthy transition period thrown into the middle of it. 
 So with this legislation we see a raft of new compliance requirements for those organisations providers and Government agencies that are currently providing those with disabilities the opportunity to work. I have to say that if the Minister had the courage of her convictions this legislation would be coming into force immediately. This is another example of this Government trying to put in place a simple stepping stone for the upcoming election—to say that it cannot do this now because it does not have the courage of its convictions; that it does not believe that Government agencies and providers will be able to cope with what it will put on them; so accordingly the Government will signal its intention to move in that direction but will refuse to back that intention up with legislation to make it concrete. 
So what we have here under the heading “Affected providers” in the commentary is a mixed message going out to those people who would be looking at this as firm and clear legislation to give them direction to move in the same manner as those in our society who do not suffer from those types of disabilities at which this bill is aimed. Halfway through the “Affected providers” section it states: “The change affects only those providers who have employment relationships with individuals who are employed in sheltered workshops.” Well actually the Minister is either serious about this or she is not. Because the commentary goes on to say: “Providers who deliver services other than employment services … will not be affected by the enactment of this Bill.” Interestingly the Minister says that this legislation will bring into line this particular area of the workforce that has avoided some of the employment legislation to date. But actually providers should already have written employment agreements with those members whom they employ. The Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Act does not provide exemptions from the Employment Relations Act because in fact as we all know from those long hours in the year 2000 people cannot contract out of the Employment Relations Act and this is no exception to that. 
I must say I am most concerned with the statements contained in the “Statement of net benefit” including regulatory costs and business compliance cost statements contained in the summary at the beginning of this bill. All this means one simple thing and that is that those people who look to seek work who have disabilities and wish an occupational opportunity will not get it if this legislation is put in place because the compliance costs contained in the legislation have not been measured. They are unquantified. I tell the officials who worked on this legislation that that is not good enough. It is not good enough to have a compliance cost statement that says those costs are unquantifiable. 
The one thing that is clear from the statements in the bill is that those costs will fall directly on the Government agencies and providers concerned. If that lessens the opportunity for those people with disabilities to start down the career path they wish to choose that cannot be good news for the so-called inclusive society that this Minister wishes us to see. There will immediately be direct costs to those Government agencies and providers because they will have to comply with the Minimum Wage Act they will have to comply with the Holidays Act and they will as is noted in the statement of regulatory costs face substantial compliance costs. 
But when we go to the compliance cost statement in this bill it is clear that this Minister and the department concerned with this legislation have not done their homework. Instead of simply allowing the legislation to take effect the business compliance costs are “difficult to quantify” because of the transition period which has reflected the Government’s lack of conviction. The Government calls this transition period a mitigation strategy. All it shows is that this Government knows that the people who will miss out are those very people to whom this legislation looks to afford opportunities. 
But worse still the business compliance cost statement concludes with this sentence: “As part of this Labour Inspectors and Ministry of Social Development officials will assist providers to minimise compliance costs.” How will that occur and on what basis? Whilst the Minister’s intentions are pure and whilst the Minister’s intentions are good—everybody in this House I am sure would like to see a more inclusive society—this bill is not the instrument the statutory guide or the mechanism for that to occur. What is worse the Government does not even have the courage of its convictions to bring this bill in immediately. We have a substantial transition period extending out to 2007. The National Party is opposed to this instrument—this mechanism—and will not support the first reading of the bill towards the select committee. 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I am proud to support this bill and I would like to congratulate the Minister Ruth Dyson today on the introduction of a very significant piece of legislation that hasactually been 44 years in the waiting. It is a delight to see the dreadful Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Act being repealed. I would like to mention the transitional provisions very quickly. It is critical that we manage the transition of 3000 people with disability currently working in sheltered workshops out into the employment sector. We have been advised to do it once do it right and take our time to move these people into the sector so that they can robustly remain there and contribute to productivity in this country. This is a wonderful bill. It is the right instrument. I am proud to support it. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I am actually delighted by that member’s contribution. She acknowledged that she had taken New Zealand First’s advice—do it once do it right. I only said that about half an hour ago and she is actually taking it on board. That has made my night! 
Let me say from the onset that New Zealand First will be supporting this bill. I like the way the Hon Ruth Dyson outlined it: we believe that it is better to pay people according to the work they do rather than their place of employment. I like that phrase and I thought it summarised the situation exceedingly well. 
The other day we had a debate in this House—Monday in fact—where we were all very nice to one another and people tuned into their television sets and their radios expecting to hear all fire hell and brimstone. They heard for the first time ever the best part of 120 MPs sitting in the House and all saying nice kind things and the few who spoke gave a history lesson that did not shake any sort of politics at all. But during the course of that debate I reminded the House that New Zealand First are the champions. We are the champions of the vulnerable and people mistook me afterwards for Freddy Mercury. I do not quite know why. It must be the size of my moustache— 
Hon Murray McCully 
: Because you look like you are alive. 
PETER BROWN 
: I thank the member for that. I remind the House of something that President John F Kennedy once said. I will read it again because I think it is appropriate in terms of this bill: “All of us do not have equal talent but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talent.” I am hoping that this bill will do that and more for disabled people. I cannot emphasise enough that New Zealand First is on the side of vulnerable people and disabled people in particular. I think that Kennedy quote sums up our philosophy on this bill. 
We support this bill going to a select committee but I also say that Simon Power raised a very good point. With due respect I do not think that Steve Chadwick addressed it very well. We are worried that it will take too long before this all falls into place. The expiry of the transitional period on 30 June 2007 seems a long long way away. 
I hope that this bill is not referred to the select committee under the same conditions as the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill because that would put the select committee under considerable stress and strain and there is a good chance that it will not get that right. If the same pressure is put on the select committee in relation to this bill—assuming it will go to the same committee—it will have an awful job sorting out both those bills. 
I close by reminding the House what Winston Churchill once said. I used this quotation the other day and again I think it is very apt. Winston Churchill said: “What is the use of living if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone.” I suggest that helping disabled people is a worthwhile cause and New Zealand First is only too pleased to be associated with this bill to the degree that we will support its referral to a select committee. 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party welcomes the first reading of this short but extremely significant bill tonight. We will be supporting it to the select committee and beyond with the usual proviso that the possibility of improvements will be looked at along the way. There is no question that the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill marks a critical turning point in the history of how we treat people with impairments in Aotearoa New Zealand and it is long overdue. 
Sheltered employment in various forms has been a part of the fabric of New Zealand life since the 1920s. While this history is not one of unmitigated disaster at the same time it is a record characterised by paternalistic attitudes and an underpinning charity model of upstanding citizens doing good for these poor deserving unfortunates in the sense that those labouring in the workshops had better be jolly grateful for the wonderful opportunity that has been given to them. This wonderful opportunity is such that even in 2004—according to the explanatory note to the bill itself—most people in sheltered workshops still receive an average pay packet of $17 a week. The bill also estimates that nearly 4000 people are in these workshops at present. While that might not seem like a great crowd in the overall scheme of things it is still a large group of adults each and every one of whom deserves the same consideration and rights as the rest of us. 
It is fortunate that since the end of 1999 we have had a Government—and in particular a Minister Ruth Dyson—that has had a commitment to begin seriously to deal with some of the more difficult and substantive issues that continue to face people with impairments even in a so-called modern society like ours. The disability strategy released in April 2001 was a major first step with its commitment by Government amongst other things to ensure rights provide opportunities in employment and economic development and to support quality living in the community for disabled people. 
Under the employment objective the Government’s further specific goal is to “enable disabled people to work in the open labour market in accordance with human rights principles and maintain an adequate income.” This goal did not fit at all well alongside the systemic oppression of the old sheltered workshop system and I use the word “oppression” advisedly knowing equally that for many of those who work or worked in the workshops that this is or was their main opportunity to participate in the life of the community. 
However despite the good intentions of those involved in setting up and running workshops and despite the gratitude felt by many who worked and work in them as the decades have gone by this whole system has very much reflected the negative and discriminatory attitudes of employers and wider society to people with impairments. While the rest of working New Zealand has opened up in the last 35 years to new expectations—like the right of women to enter and stay in the paid workforce and to at least be paid the same rate of pay for the same job if not yet the same pay for work of equal value—the dark corner of the working world that this bill deals with has been left in the shade with few voices strong or loud enough to be heard in the wider community. 
Overall it has been an era characterised by low expectations by a sense that this is the best that could be expected by and for those working in the sheltered environment by an acceptance that a certain percentage of people were never going to make it on the open labour market that disabled workers were not capable of organising—nor should they organise—themselves into trade unions or advocacy organisations that they were not full adults and needed other people to speak and act for them and that really these workers should be grateful for the miniscule wage that tops up their condemnation to life in the benefit system. 
Thankfully in 2001 the Labour Government began the process of unwinding the old sheltered workshop system despite the opposition of a number of providers. Finally someone was listening to the increasingly desperate voices of advocacy groups like the Combined Beneficiaries Union in Auckland and the Disabled Persons Assembly nationally who were calling for an end to a system that did not pay real wages even though the work being done was real enough. It did not even attempt to meet statutory minimum employment conditions like holiday entitlements. It did not recognise or include its so-called clients in the management and governance structures of the organisations and it did not offer meaningful work or a wide enough range of work for people with a wide range of impairments. 
As an aside and as just a small example of what the system means in reality Iwonder how many people here in this House tonight with a reasonable intelligence—university degrees in some cases and other qualifications and experience—would like to spend week in week out performing the simplest routine tasks over and over again for a few dollars a day. This has been the fate of plenty of well-educated intelligent people inside the sheltered workshop system in the past and maybe the present and their psychological survival is nothing short of a miracle to me. I feel that as a society we owe enormous reparation to those who have sweated and suffered within the sheltered workshops. Even if the worst years are over now we cannot afford to even think of continuing such a system or of ever going back to it in the future. 
This bill thank goodness finally repeals the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Act of 1960. That 1960 Act has a lot to answer for giving as it did a free hand to the people running sheltered workshops to do pretty much whatever they wanted with regard to how much they paid people if anything what employment conditions were like and the extent to which their workforces could be commercially exploited. Workshops were seen as completely outside the normal industrial relations framework and in recent times the punitive abatement regime between benefits and paid work has created an even stronger incentive for workers and operators to keep so-called wages incredibly low. The need for reform is immediate and intense. The new bill will mean that all people with disabilities who are employed by sheltered workshop providers will be covered by the provisions of the Minimum Wage Act the new Holidays Act and other legislation like the Employment Relations Act and the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Act. 
At the same time the bill does acknowledge the particular situation of people with really severe impairments and allows for organisational exemptions to continue but only until June 2007. It also allows labour inspectors to issue what is called a minimum wage exemption permit but only under tight conditions and with minimum wages nominated and agreed to. One concern I do have with this new bill is the extent to which unions will or will not be consulted in terms of exemptions and I will be looking at that closely during our consideration of the legislation in the select committee. 
One further minor concern I also have at this stage is around the relationship between this bill and section 66A of the Social Security Act which deals with benefits for people with what is called a severe disability. Again I will be listening with interest to any submitters on this subject and looking to see how best we can shore up the rights of invalid beneficiaries at the interface between protected employment and the intricacies of benefit administration. 
In conclusion I reiterate my congratulations to Labour and to all of those who have been involved in the long development of this bill on finally reaching this point. I look forward to its passage into law in the very near future. 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 It gives me pleasure to rise and speak to the first reading of the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill. ACT New Zealand will not be supporting this bill for a number of reasons. 
But I would first like to touch on some things that the previous speaker Sue Bradford said. The workshops that she has visited or perhaps has not visited are very different from the numerous workshops that I visited in my previous profession as a physiotherapist. As a physiotherapist I was often responsible for visiting these workshops to treat people and was able to see them first hand at their jobs at their work which they were very happy and proud to show me. For many years these workshops have presented disabled workers with a sense of purpose. These people get up in the morning and go off to work like many other people in New Zealand. Fortunately unlike some people they are happy while they are at work and they often get some educative benefit too from the workshops. But the thing that struck me most when I visited these workshops was the pride that these people expressed in their daily lives and in the fact that they had a job. 
Dianne Yates 
: Like they have got a disease. 
HEATHER ROY 
: I ask Ms Yates whether she would like to stand and take a call instead of shouting across the House. 
We know that in the past some of these workers have been exploited but certainly my experience in the more recent past has been that they are not exploited. We know that some workers earn well above the minimum hourly wage but most are paid $50 on top of their invalids benefit for 33 to 35 hours of work a week. They are allowed to earn up to that sum without being taxed or up to $80 before their benefit is reduced. That is part of the problem. The fact is if they earn over $80 they are penalised for working and that of course provides no incentive for any sheltered workshop employer or any other employer to pay them more. 
Disabled workers who work in sheltered workshops have been setting many New Zealanders an excellent example. They often undertake 33 to 35 hours of work a week which is a lot more than can be said of the many New Zealanders who are on the unemployment benefit. ACT New Zealand would like to see a good deal of welfare reform and part of that would be to ensure that anybody who is on the unemployment benefit contributes to New Zealand society in a productive way. Such people would do that by having to undertake training before they received their unemployment benefit or to undertake on-the-job training—employment of sorts. Certainly nobody should be left to sit at home and be dished out money by the Government for doing nothing at all. In this respect disabled workers many of whom are intellectually disabled have been showing many many New Zealanders a very fine example for a long period of time. So ACT New Zealand is very much opposed to the introduction of this bill. 
It is interesting to note and I think the National Party member said this how many bills are being put forward at the moment that do not come into effect for quite some time. This one does not come into effect until 2007. I refer to the Holidays Act which provides for 4 weeks’ annual leave and other bills that have been introduced recently. This Government’s intention it seems is to put all these matters on the agenda but not undertake the cost of them because of course it will not be in Government after the next election. The Government is introducing these bills so that it can try to win a few extra votes—votes that it badly needs at the moment. If we look at the polls we see that Labour was down to 37 percent in the TV1 poll at the weekend. Labour is having to put these bills in place now. This bill has been rushed on to the Order Paper ahead of many other bills that should have come before it. The reason for that is very clear. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Labour’s lost its nerve. 
HEATHER ROY 
: That is right—Labour has lost its nerve. This bill which repeals the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Act shows a certain amount of arrogance. I refer again to the comments made by the Green Party member immediately before I spoke. She spoke of people doing repetitive and demeaning work. That has certainly not been my experience of sheltered workshops. The work may be repetitive but it is certainly not demeaning. Work is not demeaning. Sitting at home doing nothing and being paid by the Government to do so is demeaning. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: That’s the Green Party. 
HEATHER ROY 
: That is right—and the Labour Party. The sheer arrogance of the comment that work might be demeaning is itself demeaning. Disabled workshops have contributed very productively to New Zealand society over the years. They have given those people who may not have been able to undertake any other type of work a real sense of purpose. 
It is interesting to look back at what has happened since 1999 when the Labour Government came to power. In 1993 there were 52700 people on invalids benefits and 32800 on sickness benefits. Today the number of people receiving those benefits has hugely increased. Today there are 41947 people receiving the sickness benefit and 7904 of those people have partners and are receiving the sickness benefit at the married rate—so that is a total of about 50000 people. The numbers of people receiving the invalids benefit have increased hugely from 52000 to 71390. If we include the partners of those on the married rate there is another 11990 people which makes a total of 83000 adults. If we add up the number of sickness beneficiaries and invalids beneficiaries plus their partners who are also dependent on Government money the total is 133000 adults who are supported by sickness and invalids benefits. 
My main fear with this bill is that many of the people who work in sheltered workshops will find it very difficult to get any sort of work in the current work market. They are being assessed for redundancies as we speak because we know that this bill will progress— 
Darren Hughes 
: Give one example of that. 
HEATHER ROY 
: I say to Mr Hughes that there are examples in Auckland which I will come to in a minute. Redundancies will be provided and the workers are being told that they must improve their productivity to keep their jobs. As one worker at a disabled workshop in Auckland said—Workforce Industries I say to Mr Hughes; it is only one of a number of workshops that are experiencing this problem—“It is pretty hard to increase productivity if you only have one arm or can’t see past the end of your nose or maybe don’t even know what day it is.” As much as the Labour Government might want to include these people in everyday society we have to acknowledge the fact that not everybody is the same. There are some people who are capable of being lawyers; there are some people—not many on the Government side—who are capable of being good parliamentarians; there are some people who are capable of doing all sorts of things; and there are other people less fortunate than ourselves in this world who have every right to undertake work. If those people are best suited to working in a sheltered workshop then so be it—they should have that opportunity. 
But this bill should not be called the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill. It should be called the “Let’s Close Down All Sheltered Workshops Bill” because that is what this bill will do. For those reasons and very good reasons they are too ACT New Zealand will not be supporting this bill. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future which will be supporting this bill in its first reading. When dealing with the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill we are dealing with a bill concerning probably the least-understood group in this nation. I for one am thankful every day when I wake up for the abilities I have. I went through a season just a few weeks ago when I lost the hearing in one ear. It is amazing what a difference it makes. 
When we deal with the disabled we are dealing with a wide-ranging group of people. They are often in a situation not through any choice of their own. Yet they are still human beings just like you and me and they deserve the respect of society. They deserve to be cared for by society and a person who has worked alongside them finds that it makes him or her a bigger person on the inside. That is so much so that each year my children have been sent to assist at disabled camps. If we are honest those of us who have all of our abilities sometimes are uncomfortable or even awkward alongside those who are seriously disabled. Every disabled person is normally also part of a family. 
So I agree that when we are dealing with sheltered workshops we cannot come to just a blanket set of rules that says “one size fits all”. As the bill goes through the select committee process I will also be watching to ensure that those who do not have an ability to produce even a mediocre amount of goods—their productivity may even be zero—can still go to a sheltered workshop each day to a place where they are welcomed and where they feel the support of others who also have disabilities Even if they do not accept one cent their going there is worthwhile not only for their own self-esteem but also for the self-preservation of those who care for them. I would be greatly concerned if we came to a blanket “one wage for all” because the sheltered workshops also need to compete for the work they attract. If there is a system by which people are paid equally on production I would not have a problem with that although one person might produce 5000 articles per day and another person might produce one article per week. 
So I see challenges in this legislation. One thing I would not like to see concerns the very institutions that have been set up and that labour long and hard with these people. If regulations are passed that require them to pay unrealistic wages and if that means they are not able to obtain work then the bill would become a very negative bill and would achieve exactly the contrary result to what we are wanting to achieve. 
United Future is very supportive of this legislation but we want to look at it in a clear practical common-sense manner understanding the differences in disabilities and understanding how important it is for each person on this planet to recognise that somebody cares for loves and is interested in him or her rather than in what he or she can earn—as important as that is if people are to be on a fair level ground. We will support the bill. We have also been to the sheltered workshops and heard their concerns and can see there are challenges to face. 
I also hope that many other organisations such as many voluntary community organisations may be able to take on some of the disabled to do work on their premises. Those people may not necessarily achieve a large payment of money but it would do their self-esteem an incredible amount of good. 
We are pleased to support this bill in its first reading and to support its going to the select committee. Yes we see some of the concerns that have been raised by those parties that are in opposition to this bill but we have a heart for the disabled. I know that many of them who have been trained and would like to go into the workforce have tremendous difficulty in their transition into the workforce. I believe that is another area separate from this bill but it also needs to be looked at. We support this bill in its first reading. 
DIANNE YATES (Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I rise in support of the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill and remind the House that this bill was lobbied for by people with disabilities and that they are looking forward to the promotion of this bill. It does prevent exploitation of people with disabilities. Some of the patronising claptrap I have heard from the Opposition tonight shows that if one is a list MP and does not keep in touch with people in the electorate one loses touch with what the people in the electorate are actually saying they want. 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 If we are talking about claptrap then what we have just heard was absolute claptrap because many people in this House in preparation for the debate on this bill have visited a number of workshops up and down the country to see firsthand the sorts of places these facilities are. If we look at what is really driving this bill at the motivation behind it then we find that ideology and political correctness are driving it. It is not patronising to want to retain opportunities for some people to participate in the community. [ 
Interruption 
] It is very interesting that the perky Mr David Benson-Pope has popped his head up from his stupor to make a comment. In his electorate he has the disabled workshop on Hillside Road and the people there are very unhappy about this bill because they think it could put them into a position of having to close it. 
In looking at this bill I think that one of the problems the Government has is that it thinks it is about workplace legislation. It is not. For a lot of these places and facilities it is not just about work; it is about participation. It is about people doing something with their day—meeting people making friends and doing some productive work. Nobody in this House would suggest that simply because people have a disability they should work in places where it is unsafe. I mean no one here would not support the idea that a workplace should adhere to health and safety legislation and be a safe workplace. No one is suggesting that the people who work in those facilities should not have the same care the same interests and the same management as other employees. But these places are not just workplaces; they are also places where people go to participate in a community and do some productive work at their different paces. They are seeking some kind of fulfilment and some kind of achievement. 
The workshops I have visited seem to be places that people are very happy to attend. People I have spoken to have said that they like getting up in the morning and going to work to make a contribution no matter what level of contribution that is. It is patronising of members on that side of the House to suggest that just because someone has a disability he or she does not share the same feeling of fulfilment and achievement as others when they go along and take part in the activities of that kind of facility. No one is suggesting here that people work in unsafe conditions or work with equipment that is unsafe. The same legislation will apply to these places as to anywhere else. Some of the workshops I visited do some quite detailed work involving the use of equipment where safety is very much an issue. People need to recognise that it is more than just about work. For a lot of people it is about participating. 
We are talking here of putting in place the  
Pathways to Inclusion: Improving Vocational Services for People with Disabilities 
 strategy but for many people I think this potentially could be a “pathway to exclusion”. If some of the places we are talking about have to pay the minimum wage then some of the people currently working in them would not make the cut and be able to go along and participate. That would be very very sad. I suggest that members on the Government side of the House go and talk to some of the families of the people at these workplaces and to some of those people themselves about the opportunities that many who participate in them are currently enjoying and about the fulfilment and achievement they feel in being able to do the small amount of work they do. We are not talking about a straight employer-employee relationship here because some people who participate in these facilities need additional management and assistance and they need a bit more involvement from the people who run the facilities than do those who are in a standard employer-employee relationship. We should recognise that. 
I have been told that if the minimum wage is made the standard the workshops will not be able to include some of the people who work for them any more. Paul Adams in his speech—and he made a very good contribution—said that people work at different productive levels. We only need to visit one of those places to realise that that is the case. These people have a right to be there to do something that makes them feel fulfilled and to ensure that their self-worth is being built on. If anything I think that what we have here is a “pathway to exclusion” because some of the people involved simply will not have the opportunity to go along to some of these places and take part in the activities there. 
It is interesting to hear people say that some of the work done in the workshops is demeaning. I have seen a little of the work and yes some of it is repetitive. It is putting letters in envelopes packing bags and in our facility in Dunedin making boxes. But in talking with people who do that with their day I have found that they are just as proud as anybody I have spoken to who is involved in a profession or in any other form of work. Who the hell are we to start making judgments about whether their work is valuable? The value of work is very much in the eye of the beholder and some of the people who carry out work in these facilities are very proud of what they do. If we move to the minimum wage then some of them simply will not have the opportunity to participate. We need to look at the value of the work and at whether people are paid in relation to their productivity and we need to recognise that in some cases the employer-employee relationship is not the same as in other workplaces. Then we should be able to strike a balance between common sense and the practical implementation of a philosophy of mainstreaming within the community. 
We also need to look at minimum standards. If there are examples of people being exploited let us hear them. We have not had any evidence from the Government that exploitation has taken place. If we listen to some of the speeches from the other side of the House we get the impression that some of these workshops are sweatshops. I do not know whether Government members are still living in the 1940s but that is not what we find to be the case when we go out to see a number of examples around the communities we all live in. We need to look at something that is not driven just by ideology or that is the politically correct approach of this Government—a bunch of trade unionists who now want to unionise everyone. Gee that will help! Some disabled people will be put in a position where they will just be sitting at home—not participating not working with their friends not feeling any sense of achievement and not getting any payment at all. We get the impression that these places are dark corners and something to be embarrassed about. Well I have met some really positive people working in our facility in Dunedin and they feel proud of what they do. 
We will see some of these places shut down as a result of this legislation and it has nothing to do with making a better place for people with disabilities. I think that the Government just wants everyone to sit at home. As opposed to being a “pathway to inclusion” this is a recipe for having people sitting at home staring at a wall and doing nothing while the Government feels very pious about it. 
Hon Murray McCully 
: Just like the Minister of Customs. 
KATHERINE RICH 
: Just like the Minister of Customs my learned member has just mentioned. We will be asking some tough questions when this bill goes to the select committee. We will be ensuring that those people who are involved in the sector put forward their view and we will be listening to that view. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 That was a fantastic effort from my colleague Katherine Rich as always. Yet again she hit the nail on the head. The members of this minority Labour Government are just a pack of snobs—they are job snobs. They look at the people who currently work in the sheltered workshops and think that what they are doing looks like demeaning low-grade work—following on from their Minister Ruth Dyson’s description of the work done by women in cleaning jobs as demeaning and low-grade. It is interesting that she is not taking a call on this particular issue. Labour Party members are snobs who think that unless someone has a university degree and a position in the union they are not worth anything. 
I agree with my colleague Katherine Rich that the people who work in these sheltered workshops are on the whole people who are incredibly proud of what they do. So they should be! Work—and that is something the Labour Party would not know much about—is not done just for money. It is also done because it is a good in itself. It teaches people to have self-respect to get out of bed in the morning—something else the Labour Party would not know anything about—to get clean to take responsibility and to be proud of their efforts. 
Not very long ago I saw some people from a sheltered workshop and the person running it on television saying that they would have to shut their doors if this legislation went through. We know this Government does not like families motherhood fatherhood or anything like that. We know it wants people to sit at home all day watching Sky television or some other sort of television. But why would it want to stop these people who are very disabled in many cases and not able to take a full part in other sorts of employment getting the benefit of going to work enjoying the community spirit of the workplace feeling part of a team feeling that they are doing a really good job and helping society and thinking that they are helping their workmates who might need help to do their jobs? Because that is what this bill will do. It is just more legislation that has really nice reasoning behind it except that it will actually stop these people being employed. 
One of the great things in the job of MP is constantly meeting people who overcome life’s challenges. I get to meet a number of people in my electorate who consistently view what we would call disabilities as simply challenges to overcome so that they can continue on in as normal a life as they possibly can. We know that a lot of these people are on invalids benefits and that they are still able to work in the sheltered workshops. They do not earn very much more but they feel they are contributing and that is really important. Why would we want to stop that? It just seems absolute nonsense that we would want to stop these people participating and feeling that they are adding to society rather than being a drain on it as the Labour Party would like them to be. 
How many jobs for basket-weavers is the Government trying to protect out there? How many people living in China for instance where there is no minimum wage is the Government trying to protect by stopping people in the sheltered workshops from working? The Labour Party would rather see people overseas getting the work and benefiting from it than the very disabled people it says it is protecting. It is not protecting them. All it is doing is taking away their jobs and ruining the whole sheltered workshop environment by saying: “You are not wanted because your work is demeaning and low-grade.” 
 Just because those members do low-grade demeaning work as members of the Labour Party why should they inflict that sort of provision on other people? Those people get out of the bed in the morning and go and do their work. They are good citizens; they do not cause any trouble. They are not up and down doing hikoi all over the place. They do not stop the traffic on the Auckland Harbour Bridge. They are nice decent people who are getting on with their jobs and trying to be good citizens. This Labour Party simply wants to stop them doing that. It demeans the people who do this work by telling them that their work is not important—that it is low-grade and demeaning. That term is used by this Government on a constant basis when referring to ordinary working people. 
Katherine Rich 
: It wants everyone to be a brain surgeon. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: It wants everybody to be a brain surgeon or at least a trade union official—and of course the two are at different ends of the scale. It calls those disabled people’s work low-grade and demeaning. Government members sit on the other side of the House and personally attack us every time we get up. They point out the fact that they are—we cannot say “hypocritical” so let us say that their arguments lack conviction. [ 
Interruption 
] It is all of them really Mrs Rich. They are absolutely lacking in conviction. They sit there and abuse us—even demean themselves by abusing us personally. 
Katherine Rich 
: Ruth Dyson has many convictions. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: We understand that Ruth Dyson has many convictions—as Mrs Rich rightly points out. One would think that their arguments would have more conviction. They do not care about the very people for whom they say they are putting this bill through. If it is so important to put this bill through why will it have to wait until 2007? Labour will not be in Government in 2007. I notice that most of the legislation we have these days starts in 2007. 
Phil Heatley 
: Most of the Budget. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Mr Heatley is in the know. He has seen the leaked documents and tells me that most of the Budget will not come in until 2007. That will be at least 2 years after Labour loses office so those members will not be around to see the effect of this bill will they? They will not be around to see the sheltered workshops being shut. Fortunately we will have a National-led Government that will stop this sort of nonsense going on and allow the sheltered workshops to keep going. 
We see those workshops as a benefit to the community and more important a benefit to the disabled people who currently work in them. We will not stand by and let this Government put through the sort of nonsense it does and leave us to pick up the pieces. We will have to fix this legislation as soon as the 2005 election comes around if not beforehand. 
JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui) 
: 
 I want to take a very short call. I am sure that if the bell had not rung and the member who has just resumed her seat had not been required to sit down we would have heard a phrase like: “You get out there and pick that cotton and enjoy it!”. I feel it was a very patronising speech and it is not typical of that member to give patronising speeches like that. I was surprised to hear it. 
This bill is about assisting disabled persons who work in what are commonly known as sheltered workshops. I say to members opposite who have spoken that there is a lead-in time in this bill to assist those who manage sheltered workshops in the transition until this legislation is fully implemented. We want to work with the employers in this industry so that they can continue to provide the very good service they do and continue to be good employers. I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts) 
: 
 I support the bill. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 83 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 33 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 5; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Bill read a first time. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for Disability Issues) 
: 
 I move  
That the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill be considered by the Social Services Committee. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 83 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 33 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 5; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Motion agreed to. 
Border Security Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 25 May. 
Clauses 1 and 2 ( 
continued 
)  
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 I want to reiterate the points I made yesterday concerning the Border Security Bill and the nonsense that this Government is leading our export sector into with an imposed tax of $20 million. It has generously said that it will give a 20 percent discount so that tax will come down to $16 million. That cost will be imposed on our importers and exporters yet there is clear evidence that this bill benefits all New Zealanders not just the export sector. All of New Zealand benefits so it is a public good not a private good. During the earlier Committee stage I made it very plain that this is the position National has adopted and that is why we are not supporting this legislation. 
I guess the question has to be asked of what is driving that response. What is driving the international response to make changes to our security arrangements? After 11 September 2001 there was strong international support for comprehensive collective action against terrorism. We know what happened during that period. On 28 September 2001 the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1373 which binds all member States and provides a framework for international response to the terrorist attacks. That is what is driving this legislation. 
We have sympathy for what it is trying to achieve. We would have supported this bill and we voted in support of Part 2 but we were not prepared—and the Minister in the chair Rick Barker might like to take a call on this—to support Part 1 which imposes costs on the wealth creators of New Zealand. That is what it does. This bill provides for a public good not a private good. The Minister has not taken a call so here is an opportunity for him to respond to that. 
The other point I made last night was very clear. In the bill as originally tabled there was absolutely no mechanism for cost recovery. Those submitters came to the Government Administration Committee in good faith. This Government talks about good faith. Those people came along in good faith and made their submissions without knowing about those clauses. 
Last night I tabled an amendment to have clauses 7B and 8C deleted. Had this Government accepted that it would have had universal support for the bill. Every party in this Parliament would have supported it but no the Government voted down my amendments. 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: Those members should take a call. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: Why has that member not taken a call? Why does he not defend the legislation? He cannot speak. The bill would have had unanimous support from all parties had those two clauses been deleted but this Government voted that down. 
That is one of the reasons why the wealth creators of New Zealand are so upset and uptight with the Government. It has sneakily moved in this tax. It is another tax in the back door like all the other taxes we have. That is why there has not been support for this legislation. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Customs) 
: 
 I have never heard so much drivel from that member. [ 
Interruption 
] Other members say that is not true and that he has spoken more drivel before but I will give him the benefit of the doubt. 
Mr Tisch is wrong on a number of fundamental facts. Firstly he said that the $20 million we are looking to recover in this area is to be paid by exporters. That is wrong. 
Hon David Carter 
: And importers. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: No he did not make that qualification. 
Hon David Carter 
: Yes he did. Tell the truth. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: I raise a point of order Madam ChairpersonThe member said I should tell the truth. I did. I object to that. I want the member to withdraw and apologise. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member should not have said that. Who was the person? The member knows he must not insinuate that another member is not telling the truth. The member will stand and withdraw. 
Hon David Carter 
: I withdraw. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: The simple fact is that three groups are affected by this legislation—exporters importers and trans-shippers. Mr Tisch is saying that the New Zealand taxpayer should pay for the security clearance costs of trans-shippers. That is what the National Party is saying. For the life of me I cannot see an argument that justifies an apple picker in Hawke’s Bay having to pay the security cost for someone who ships out of some other country and into New Zealand hubs out of here and goes somewhere else. That is of no benefit to taxpayers in New Zealand at all. 
Those members argue that this is a public good but for whom? It is not a public good for the New Zealand public that is for sure. If the National Party wanted to give New Zealand taxpayers’ money to other people overseas then it should be done through the overseas development aid programme. It should be done by other ways not this way. There is no sustainable argument for it whatsoever. 
When we get down to it even Federated Farmers does not support this. Although all their rhetoric says they do they cannot present a sustainable argument as to why New Zealand taxpayers should pay security clearance costs for people importing and exporting in New Zealand. 
Shane Ardern said that this is a public good. What is the argument for it being a public good? I say to Shane Ardern that he should look at the Treasury papers. Treasury went through this and said that the processes and the services were not a public good but a private good. 
I will explain to the member again why it is a private good. As other countries up their security arrangements they will identify goods as one of two classifications—those they consider secure and those they consider unsecured. Unsecured goods will go through the red lane. That does not mean to say those goods will not be able to get into a country but they will go through extra checks and there will be extra costs—US$350 for the X-ray of a container delays etc. If the goods can go through a green lane as we hope New Zealand goods can they will go through quickly and incur fewer costs. 
The point is that if in fact an exporter into another country can get the goods quickly and expeditiously across the border and not incur costs who benefits? It is the exporter. The exporter benefits directly. 
Progress reported. 
The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.