Volume 702 Week 4 - Wednesday 26 November 2014Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 702 Week 4 - Wednesday 26 November 2014[Sitting date: 26 November 2014. Volume:702;Page:833. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Wednesday 26 November 2014Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.Questions to MinistersEconomy—Savings and Export Sector Performance1.TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty)to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received about the latest trends in savings levels by New Zealand households?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance):Last week Statistics New Zealand issued the national accounts income and expenditure data for the year to March 2014. It shows that New Zealand’s household savings rate has now been positive for 5 consecutive years—something that has not happened since the early 1990s. In fact before 2010 household savings had been negative in all years but one since 1995. Household savings totalled $2.8 billion in the year to March 2014 a positive rate of 2.1 percent of disposable income. This is a result of the resilience shown by households supported by Government policy encouraging savings and reducing their dependence on debt and more moderate consumption therefore assisting in rebalancing the economy.Todd Muller: Over the past 6 years what measures has the Government taken to encourage households to save a bit more and to reduce borrowing and consumption?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well a number of measures. One of those was a comprehensive tax package in 2010 which included across-the-board reductions in tax on savings and work and an increase in tax on consumption and property investment. In addition to that the Government has built on the work of the previous Government in reregulating our capital and finance markets and that is now leading to a reinvigorated capital market with more opportunities for New Zealanders to invest in owning a range of companies.Todd Muller: What else did the latest national accounts data confirm about the savings trends in other sectors of the economy?Hon BILL ENGLISH: It showed that the total value of the New Zealand economy is now $231 billion of GDP up 7.3 percent from 2013. This is the largest increase in per capita growth since 2008. National savings totalled $15.5 billion. That is up $8.4 billion from the previous year and was positive for all sectors of the economy. Two notable contributors were improved net exports and higher business profits. Revised estimates show that 2013 was the first year since 2000 that all sectors had positive savings.Todd Muller: How do the positive household savings over the past 5 consecutive years compare with the previous trends in household savings rates?Hon BILL ENGLISH: At the moment we have improving household savings rates in a growing economy. However when the economy was growing between 1999 and 2008 the opposite occurred. In fact household savings were negative 0.6 percent—negative 0.6 percent—by 2006. But this was hardly a surprise. At that stage Government spending had gone through the roof the current account deficit was a record 8 percent of GDP house prices were on track to double and household borrowing soared by more than 150 percent in the 9 years to 2008. We do not think that any of those excesses are going to accompany this current period of economic growth.Grant Robertson: Under the national accounts that he has just cited in real or nominal terms are exports above or below 30 percent of GDP for the year to March 2014?Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is interesting that the member should raise that issue because—[Interruption] Well I cannot give the member—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I will decide. Certainly a question was asked and I want to hear the answer so for the answer to be heard it requires less noise from my left.Hon BILL ENGLISH: I cannot give the member that answer in detail. I cannot give the member that answer in detail but I have to say that when you take GDP as a whole we are in a phase where house prices have been high and the Christchurch rebuild has pushed up house prices so resources are tending to flow to construction. We are in a phase where our largest dairy export has low prices. So it would not surprise me if exports as a percentage of GDP are not the same as they were a few years ago. But the Government’s objective is clear and that is to raise exports as a percentage of GDP by doing things like reducing taxes and the size of the Government.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. To help out the Minister of Finance I seek leave—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! If the member now wants to table a document he rises to his feet asks for a point of order and then seeks leave to table that document.Grant Robertson: I seek leave of the House to table a document prepared by the Parliamentary Library that shows that the national accounts show that in the year ended March 2014 in both nominal—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! That document has now been well and truly described. The document from the Parliamentary Library—leave is sought to table it. Is there any objection? There is not; it can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Grant Robertson: Is the fact that exports as a percentage of GDP are languishing below 30 percent in both nominal and real terms despite his promise that they would reach 40 percent a sign of success or failure in rebalancing the economy?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I would make a technical point first. There has been a rebasing of GDP which I am sure—Grant Robertson: Both of them.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes yes I know but the member will need to go back and see how those figures are calculated. Secondly if the member regards the current state of the New Zealand economy as failed economic policy I would hate to see what success looks like because actually this economy is growing as strongly as anywhere in the developed world. That growth is looking sustainable households are getting higher incomes more jobs are being created and unemployment is dropping. We call that success and I suspect that when the member is more familiar with his portfolio he will regard it as success.SIS—Report on Release of Information2.ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition)to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that parts of the Gwyn Report are “highly contested”; if so which parts are contested and by whom?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):Yes. For example in yesterday’s urgent debate Winston Peters contested the inspector-general’s decision not to interview me as part of her inquiry. Cameron Slater has also been in the media contesting the inspector’s finding in relation to him. Another thing that was contested yesterday—but appears not to be today—is that Phil Goff leaked the inspector-general’s report and broke his confidentiality agreement. That is not contested.Andrew Little: What does he contest about paragraph 154 of the Gwyn report which states that his then deputy chief of staff initiated contact with the SIS to seek information about any briefings the SIS may have given to Phil Goff?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Nothing.Andrew Little: What does he contest about paragraph 218 of the Gwyn report which states that his then deputy chief of staff passed a detailed description of the SIS briefing to another prime ministerial staffer suggesting that it would make a good Official Information Act request?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Once again I do not contest that. It may well have happened.Andrew Little: What does he contest about paragraph 218 which states that the second staffer—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am going to invite the member to start his question again.Andrew Little: What does he contest about paragraph 218 which states that the second staffer provided SIS information to a blogger and that blogger then requested the information under the Official Information Act while on the phone with his staffer?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The point that is contested there is a point where Mr Slater emphasised that he had already—it says that he had decided to make the Official Information Act request himself. That point is therefore contested.Tim Macindoe: Has the Prime Minister seen any reports about the view of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security regarding the release of her report?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I have. I have seen a report in which the inspector-general says that the parties who received her report were “subject to express confidentiality orders” made under the New Zealand Security Intelligence Act. I also saw her report that said the premature disclosure of some details was “grossly unfair to others”—that would be me. Some of the coverage—this would also be about me—was not accurate. I want to know whether the Leader of the Opposition—he might like to answer this—condones the leaking of the report which Mr Goff admitted to on Radio New Zealand today.Andrew Little: Does he contest paragraph 193 which states that his then deputy chief of staff discussed with the SIS director the timing of when to release information to Cameron Slater?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No but I will make it quite clear though from the inspector-general’s report paragraph 225 that she “did not find any indication of collusion by or direction to NZSIS.” I know it does not fit the narrative of the Opposition but the bad news is that there was no influence by my office. That was the absolute finding. My office was fully exonerated.Mr SPEAKER: Supplementary question Tim Macindoe. [Interruption] Order! Every member has a right to ask a supplementary question without that sort of howling coming from a couple of members to my left.Tim Macindoe: Is the Prime Minister aware of any issues in the report that were contested but no longer appear to be?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am. Just this morning I heard someone say on Radio New Zealand that they did not release or show the inspector-general’s report to anyone except their party leader and party whip. When that was contested by Radio New Zealand the same person finally fessed up and admitted that he had rung journalists and given them a heads-up—that would be a briefing—about parts of the report. But there you go—having admitted that he did I guess what that sort of person would do. He blamed the journalists for running it to try to get the positive spin the day before. That person was Phil Goff.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is the Prime Minister aware that Cameron Slater had already leaked the findings of that report over 8 days ago?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No.Andrew Little: Why is he showing contempt for the report of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and undermining her integrity by denying what the whole country has seen in black and white?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Quite the opposite. I have absolutely accepted the findings of the report and the findings of the report unfortunately for the Opposition do not fit its narrative. The findings of the report are quite clear. They say in relation to any exchange or discussions between my office and Mr Slater—and I quote—that they “did not breach any obligations of confidentiality owed to the NZSIS on the part of the PMO staff member.” The information was not classified. She says in her report—and I quote—that she “did not find any indication of collusion by or direction to the NZSIS over the request.” She says in her report—and I quote—that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security found quite clearly that my involvement was limited to only one phone conversation on 22 July. What is quite clear is that the report does not say what the Opposition was desperate for it to say. That is why Phil Goff leaked it a day earlier and Cheryl Gwyn is very unhappy about that.Andrew Little: Why will he not admit the truth—that his office worked with his blogger to use information held by his security agency to attack his political rival and the buck stops with him?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Because that is not the truth but what I will admit is the following truths. I am not part of a political party that went out there and impersonated a researcher to go through my personal financial records. I am not part of a political party that impersonates someone to go to a National Party conference to secretly tape us. I am not part of a political party that leaked an embargoed document. “Black ops” is alive and well—in the Labour Party. That is where it is.Andrew Little: Why does he not cut the crap and just apologise to New Zealand for running a smear machine out of his office? [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question has been asked. I will hear the answer.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It is going to be a very interesting 3 years and I cannot wait for the debates because if we are starting there we are going to end up here. It is pretty simple. The report from Cheryl Gwyn makes it clear: the SIS made its own decisions and there was no indication of collusion or direction. I will say it one more time: if this report was so damning and if it so much backed up what the Labour Party had said weeks before the 2014 election Phil Goff would have let it run. But he ran right over the top of his own leader he bumped him off the news—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That answer is sufficient.Christchurch Recovery—Housing New Zealand Properties3.NUK KORAKO (National)to the Minister for Social Housing: What progress is Housing New Zealand making on rebuilding and repairing properties damaged in the Christchurch earthquakes?Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Housing):Housing New Zealand is making great progress in repairing or rebuilding the 95 percent of its homes that were damaged in the Christchurch earthquakes. It is ahead of schedule on the repair of 5000 earthquake-damaged homes by the end of 2015 with more than half of the repairs completed already; $67.2 million has been invested in the repair programme so far; and the target of building 700 new homes by the end of 2015 is also well on track.Nuk Korako: Kia ora. How is the rebuild programme getting more tenants into homes that better suit their needs?Hon PAULA BENNETT: What Housing New Zealand has been able to do is think about a programme of sensible intensification that is able to get far more Christchurch people housed in the right-sized homes in the right place. So for example nearly three-quarters of people on the social housing register in Christchurch need a one or two-bedroom home and many existing homes are simply too big. Just last week I visited a site in Spreydon where Housing New Zealand is building five modern two-bedroom homes on a site where there was only one three-bedroom home. On another site in Riccarton it is replacing three old homes with 19 two-bedroom homes. That will make a huge difference for the people there.Prime Minister—SIS Release of Information and Inquiry into Hon Judith Collins’ Compliance with Cabinet Manual4.Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram)to the Prime Minister: Does he agree with Judith Collins that Cameron Slater “manufactured a story and he wanted to believe it” and the findings of the Chisholm Inquiry that Cameron Slater is “prone to exaggeration”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):I am not in a position to give the member a yes or no answer because I was not a party to the discussions between Cameron Slater and Judith Collins. My role as Prime Minister was to establish the Chisholm inquiry which Ms Collins had requested that I set up. I accept the findings of the inquiry and I am delighted that it has cleared Ms Collins.Dr Megan Woods: Why does he believe Cameron Slater’s recollection of events regarding the Gwyn inquiry but does not believe Cameron Slater regarding the Chisholm inquiry?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not believe all of them but what I do know is that where Mr Slater has said that it was his idea to put in an Official Information Act request in relation to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security’s report one of the reasons why I think it is highly likely that he made that call was that a lot of other media decided to do exactly the same thing. It was based on the public comments that Mr Goff and I had made.Dr Megan Woods: Which findings if any of the Chisholm inquiry does he contest?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The document is 110 pages long so I do not have it with me. I am sure there would be things that would be contested by others but I would say this though: I do not contest—Iain Lees-Galloway: Haven’t you read it?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I actually read the whole thing. I do not contest paragraph 3 where it says there is no probative evidence that Ms Collins undermined or attempted to undermine Mr Feeley and that the implication that she was so involved is untenable.Dr Megan Woods: Did his office have communications with Cameron Slater between 23 and 25 November regarding the Chisholm inquiry or the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security’s inquiry?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not think so. I am not aware of that no.Dr Megan Woods: Did he have communications with Cameron Slater between 23 and 25 November regarding the Chisholm inquiry or the inspector-general’s inquiry?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No.Mr SPEAKER: Would the Prime Minister please repeat his answer? [Interruption] Order! I was calling the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister actually gave the answer so I did not hear it. I am calling the Rt Hon Prime Minister.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No.Health Targets—Progress and Changes5.BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country)to the Minister of Health: What reports has he received on progress on the National Health Targets?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health):The National Health Targets first quarter results have been released and are very strong. District health boards across the country provided 42343 elective surgery discharges from July to September 2120 more than planned. Emergency departments also had the strongest winter performance since health targets were introduced with 93 percent of all emergency department patients admitted discharged or transferred within 6 hours.Barbara Kuriger: What changes are being made to the National Health Targets to deliver faster treatment for cancer patients?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: This quarter all 20 district health boards ensured that all patients ready for treatment received their radiotherapy or chemotherapy treatment within 4 weeks. From 1 October the Government introduced and will be reporting against a new faster cancer treatment target. Our goal is to ensure that by June 2017 90 percent of patients will receive their first treatment within 62 days of seeing their general practitioner. That is the international gold standard for cancer treatment.Prime Minister—Staff Members’ Release of SIS Information6.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green)to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):Yes.Dr Russel Norman: Why did he say that the inspector-general’s finding was contested specifically the finding that “Information which he received from the NZSIS was used by Jason Ede a senior adviser within PMO to assist Mr Slater in making the OIA request.”? Why did he say that that finding was contested?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Because parts of it at least if you read the fuller part of it Mr Slater contests.Dr Russel Norman: So to be clear is the Prime Minister saying that he contests that finding by the inspector-general on the basis of Mr Slater’s evidence?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I cannot fully answer that because I do not know the answer to that question. There have been a number of discussions. But what I can say is that Mr Slater makes it clear in the report that he contests the view that the Official Information Act request was driven by my office. He himself says that he was putting in the Official Information Act requests. It is not contested that my office and Mr Slater had a discussion but of course the main point there is that is of no relevance because as the inspector-general says it did not breach any obligations of confidentiality owed by the SIS on the part of the staff member. The information passed was not classified. They were free to have that conversation.Dr Russel Norman: Does the Prime Minister contest the finding in the inspector-general’s report that Jason Ede assisted Mr Slater in making the Official Information Act request?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I cannot be sure of that. I do not contest that they had a discussion. They obviously had that and they had a number of discussions I suspect. But what I do hold the view of is that when Mr Slater said he was putting in an Official Information Act request I believe that to be right. That would have been based on the back of the public comments that were made. The reason I know that is that other media did exactly the same thing.Dr Russel Norman: Does the Prime Minister accept the inspector-general’s finding that Mr Jason Ede a senior adviser within the Prime Minister’s office assisted Mr Slater in making the Official Information Act request?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I cannot be sure of that because I do not know but I certainly am strongly of the view that Mr Slater came up with the idea of an Official Information Act request. I certainly accept the view that Mr Ede and Mr Slater had a discussion. But I go back to the main point that that was in breach of no protocol and he was quite free to do that. Actually it is quite standard I think for members—I certainly am aware of journalists who have told me that they have rung political staffers and rung Ministers and asked them for direction in putting in an Official Information Act request.Dr Russel Norman: Does the Prime Minister accept the findings of the inspector-general’s report that Mr Jason Ede working for him in his office assisted Mr Cameron Slater to prepare the Official Information Act request?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I accept the findings of the overall report. I was not party to the conversation that Mr Ede and Mr Slater had. I am not contesting that they had a conversation.Dr Russel Norman: So the Prime Minister does not believe the inspector-general?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No that is not what I have said. What I have said is it is clear that there was a conversation between the two and it is clear from the inspector-general’s report that that was no breach—he was quite free to do that. But I tend to accept the view of Cameron Slater that he came up with the idea of putting in an Official Information Act request. That is what he said and I tend to accept that view.Dr Russel Norman: So Prime Minister just to be clear are you telling this House that you accept the word of Mr Cameron Slater ahead of the word of the inspector-general and her report?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: That is not what I said.Dr Russel Norman: Does the Prime Minister believe it is purely coincidence that while Mr Ede was on the phone to Mr Slater the Official Information Act request was put in to the SIS by Mr Slater? Was it just a coincidence?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I would not want to offer the House a view on that. I do not have a view.Dr Russel Norman: What is it about Cameron Slater a man who celebrated the death of a car-crash victim whose hate blog has generated death threats for public servants that inspires the Prime Minister to back a reprobate like that over the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security?Mr SPEAKER: That is a very marginal question. I will leave the Prime Minister to answer it.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am not. I accept the findings of the report. I accept that there was a discussion between Mr Ede and Mr Slater. I also accept the findings of the report that said there was no breach in doing that and there was no reason for them to do that. What I do know is that the very strong claims made by the Green Party and made by Labour and Phil Goff prior to the 2014 election that the Official Information Act process was tampered with through my office politicising the SIS are absolutely proven incorrect and everybody who reads that knows that. Unfortunately it just was not payday for Russel Norman.Corrections Department—Management of Phillip John Smith Case7.KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau)to the Minister of Corrections: Does he have confidence in his department’s management of Phillip Smith?Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister of Corrections):I have confidence in the department but mistakes have been made in the Smith case and I am not happy that they were made. The recent review into this incident has given us 13 recommendations to improve temporary releases and the department is adopting all of them. As Minister I will be keeping a close eye on their implementation.Kelvin Davis: How did the Department of Corrections allow a prisoner out for 74 hours without electronic monitoring when the Parole Board had found a year earlier that “prisoner Smith remains at high risk of posing a serious danger to the community.” ?Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: The review shows that Mr Smith’s release plan was misinformed and that as a result monitoring was inadequate. As a result of the review it is now the default position for GPS to be used for all prisoners on temporary release.Kelvin Davis: How can he continue to have confidence in the Department of Corrections when it allowed Phillip Smith while incarcerated to obtain a passport in his original name which was used in his escape?Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: The retrieval of the passport was a legitimate request by Mr Smith. It will be covered in the Government inquiry that has been announced by Minister Bennett.Kelvin Davis: How can the Minister say that the passport was a legitimate request?Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: I am not responsible for the processing of passports but—[Interruption] It is not my responsibility.Kelvin Davis: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I was referring to the previous response that the Minister had made.Mr SPEAKER: I accept that the member was and he certainly made those comments in the earlier answer when the member asked how he could have confidence when this particular gentleman was able to get a passport through the process. The Minister’s response was that he had got it through a legitimate process or words to that effect. You have then taken the opportunity to raise a legitimate supplementary question which the Minister has chosen to answer by saying he is not responsible for the processing of passports. That is a satisfactory answer to the question. I invite the member to continue with his supplementary questions.Kelvin Davis: Does the Minister believe that interdepartmental communications relating to prisoner release visits is adequate; if not why has the Department of Corrections failed to put forward any recommendations to correct that?Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: The review was to determine what happened when Phillip Smith absconded from the country on temporary release. The review did not cover the matter that the member is asking about.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question had nothing to do with the review.Mr SPEAKER: I can make fast progress on this by asking Mr Davis to repeat his question for the benefit of the Minister.Kelvin Davis: Does the Minister believe that interdepartmental communications relating to prisoner release visits is adequate; if not why has the Department of Corrections failed to put forward any recommendations to correct that?Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: The issue of cross-agency cooperation is being covered by the Government inquiry that was commissioned by Minister Bennett.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There was a very clear question to the Minister as to whether he regarded it as sufficient. He could say that he is awaiting the outcome but simply saying that it is being covered by a review is not an answer.Mr SPEAKER: There have now been two answers to the question. Effectively what the Minister is saying is that the review will sort it out. The Minister is responsible for his answer not me. I have got to decide whether he has addressed the question. On this occasion I think he has. I clearly accept that it is not to the satisfaction of members to my left.Broadband Ultra-fast and Rural—Progress8.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki)to the Minister for Communications: What recent reports has she received on the number of end users able to connect to the Government’s Ultra-Fast Broadband and Rural Broadband Initiative?Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for Communications):Last week I was pleased to announce that at the end of September 536000 end users were able to connect meaning that the ultra-fast broadband build is now 40 percent complete. We have seen a 39 percent increase in connections taking connections across New Zealand to now more than 10 percent ahead of projections at this stage. A further 2259 schools are fully fibred and ready for service. Te Awamutu recently became our second fully fibred town after Whangarei. For the rural programme the build is now 70 percent complete with 282 towers having been upgraded 98 new towers having been built 213000 premises able to receive fixed wireless broadband and an additional 75000 fixed lines having been upgraded.Simon O’Connor: What additional benefits has the upgrade to rural broadband services brought for New Zealanders?Hon AMY ADAMS: Over the past 3 months alone we know that on just one mobile network more than 1.2 million unique users used the new Rural Broadband Initiative towers to make mobile calls showing the versatility of the programme in providing a range of connectivity benefits. Improving mobile connectivity is key to driving productivity which is why during the election campaign we announced that a further $50 million would be committed to a mobile black spot fund part of this Government’s nearly $2 billion investment in telecommunications infrastructure.Farming—OVERSEER Nutrient Management Tool9.RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First)to the Minister for Primary Industries: How much will it cost to make the nutrient management tool OVERSEER fully fit for purpose across all agricultural land users in New Zealand?Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries):That depends on your definition of “fully fit for purpose”. Increasing funding to cover every soil type and every variation of every farming system is not economically feasible or required by stakeholders. However we are confident that we can find ways of using OVERSEER and other tools to create an enduring framework for nutrient management that drives change and behaviours to achieve better environmental performance.Richard Prosser: What steps has he personally taken as Minister since 2012-13 to ensure that OVERSEER is fit for purpose when AgResearch’s annual report stated: “With the requirement for Regional Councils to apply nutrient limits Overseer is playing an important role in Regional Plans Environment Court hearings related to nutrient limit setting and compliance monitoring and it will need significant development to be fit for these intended uses.”?Hon NATHAN GUY: There are about three questions in one there. What is happening is a huge amount of work in science. That science is feeding in to OVERSEER. The member needs to understand that OVERSEER has been around for 20 years. It is evolving it is going to be very important into the future and science is playing a big part in that.Richard Prosser: What confidence can farmers have that this is not going to become a gravy train given that Country-Wide magazine reported earlier this year that it took Ravensdown Fertiliser Cooperative consultant Charlotte Glass who is an experienced OVERSEER operator 22 hours to carry out just 1 year’s nutrient budget at a potential charge to the farmer of somewhere between $4000 and $6000?Hon NATHAN GUY: That is just anecdotal. What I will say is that farmers realise that there is a challenge as do all of the professionals who are providing a valuable service in the primary sector. They all realise that their nutrient performance and how they are managing their nutrients inside the farm gate and elsewhere in primary sector systems are going to have to improve. OVERSEER will play an important role in that.Richard Prosser: I seek leave to table a document showing that the cost to a farmer—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I need the source of the document.Richard Prosser: It is from a farming paper that is not widely available.Mr SPEAKER: I will accept the member’s word that it is not widely available and therefore I will put the leave and the House can decide. Leave is sought to table that particular publication. Is there any objection? There is not. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Anzac Day Centenary—Commemorations at Gallipoli10.Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei)to the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs: What progress is being made in preparation for Gallipoli 2015 commemorations?Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Veterans’ Affairs):Good progress has been made on the 100th anniversary Anzac Day commemorations at Gallipoli next year. After the first tranche of the ballot 632 double passes were accepted. The second tranche of the Gallipoli 2015 ballot is now under way with just over 300 double passes to next year’s Anzac Day commemorations being reallocated this month. Australian and New Zealand officials are in constant communication with each other about preparations for the event. Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet with trans-Tasman officials taking part in the Gallipoli bilateral meeting and I recently discussed the preparations during a bilateral meeting with the Turkish foreign Minister. I am very encouraged to see that all effort is being made to ensure that this will be a fitting reflection of the huge sacrifice made nearly a century ago.Dr Shane Reti: How long do applicants have to accept the tickets they were offered in the second tranche of the ballot?Hon CRAIG FOSS: New offers of tickets were made to the next group on the waiting list earlier this month. Those people allocated passes have until 7 December to complete their details—[Interruption] You might want to show some respect for this topic members opposite. Those people allocated passes have until 7 December to complete their details and details of their accompanying persons. It is essential that those who have been offered passes in the second tranche of the ballot act quickly and make arrangements if they want to be part of what will be a significant commemoration to honour New Zealanders who took part in the Gallipoli campaign.State Services Commissioner—Management of Harassment Complaint11.KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana)to the Minister of State Services: Has she discussed with State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie why he organised a press conference to announce the departure of the CERA Chief Executive Roger Sutton; if so what was his response?Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister of State Services):Yes; his response was that he held the press conference because he believed it would be a high-profile resignation.Kris Faafoi: Does she think Iain Rennie made the correct judgment in allowing Mr Sutton to present his case at that press conference?Hon PAULA BENNETT: No.Kris Faafoi: Does she believe that Iain Rennie has treated the complainant at the centre of the State Services Commission investigation with professionalism and compassion by allowing Mr Sutton to present his case at that press conference?Hon PAULA BENNETT: I believe that throughout the investigation I have had assurances from him numerous times that he did but I do not believe that Monday’s press conference was right in any way shape or form and it was not fair to the complainant.Kris Faafoi: Can the Minister rule out the complainant at the centre of the inquiry being awarded further compensation because Iain Rennie allowed Mr Sutton to speak at that press conference?Hon PAULA BENNETT: I have no control over what either party does.Kris Faafoi: What justification does she give for Iain Rennie staying in his role as commissioner one of our most senior civil servants given her answers?Hon PAULA BENNETT: Because he made an error of judgment. He has accepted responsibility for that and has given me an absolute assurance that nothing like it will ever happen again.Earthquakes Christchurch—CTV Building Collapse12.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First)to the Minister of Internal Affairs: Does he agree with Nigel Hampton QC who acted for several of the victims of the collapse of the CTV building who said “One is forced to the conclusion that in New Zealand the ability to determine responsibility and accountability in any search and rescue response is directly related to the political will and motivation at cabinet and governmental level.”; if not why not?Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Internal Affairs):Although I have great sympathy for the families who lost loved ones in the CTV Building collapse I do not agree with Mr Hampton’s comments for the simple reason that that particular earthquake was an event that would have stretched any emergency service in the world on that day. The coroner’s report that was released in March was a full account of the challenges and the complexities that were faced during the rescue from the CTV Building and it noted that none of the actions taken by Fire Service personnel would have in any way contributed to the deaths of any of the people who lost their lives there. Subsequently the Fire Service has carried out two reviews of search and rescue operations on the day including one independent review. It has made a number of changes as a result of those reviews which address the issues raised. I have also just recently announced a wider review of the Fire Service in terms of its ongoing role in emergency management services.Denis O’Rourke: In addition to what the Minister has just said what else has the Government done to ensure that in future urban disaster rescue operations the loss of life caused by command and communication ineptitude at the CTV Building will never be repeated?Hon PETER DUNNE: I am not the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery so I can speak only with regard to those matters that come within my portfolio. What I can say is that there has been full input into the coordinated incident management systems review that was carried out by the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management. I have already indicated that all of the changes recommended by the coroner in his report are in the process of being implemented by the New Zealand Fire Service. I think it is fair to say that one of the big learnings out of that horrific event was that there is a need for much greater on-the-ground coordination and communication during an incident and that lesson has been learnt in a very sad and hard way.Denis O’Rourke: Is the Minister satisfied that the Government has done enough to ensure that responsibility and accountability for the inept rescue response immediately following the collapse of the CTV Building have been precisely identified and published; if so why?Hon PETER DUNNE: Absolutely. I have indicated in my answers already the steps that have been taken in response to the coroner’s review. Can I say to the member that had he had the privilege that I did a few months ago of attending the awards ceremony in Christchurch where those firefighters who fought so gallantly on that day to carry out those rescues at a time when they did not know the status of their own families in the earthquake and when they did not know the status of their own properties or jobs he would have the hugest respect—Denis O’Rourke: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise to the Minister. [Interruption] Order! This is a point of order and it will be heard in silence.Denis O’Rourke: Although I am interested in what the Minister has to say he was actually asked—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat immediately. I heard the question. I heard the answer. The Minister was answering a question with a lot of compassion and the member should do the House a service by allowing the Minister to complete his answer.Denis O’Rourke: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You did not hear my point of order and that was not the subject—Mr SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. If he wants to raise a new point of order a fresh point of order I will hear it. If it is an irrelevant point of order or it contests my ruling I will ask the member to immediately leave the Chamber.Denis O’Rourke: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The fresh point of order is this. The Minister has been talking about the firefighters who attended the CTV Building collapse. The question was as you will see about the Government being satisfied concerning responsibility and accountability for the whole operation—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have heard enough. The member needs to look at his original question which was about the responsibility and accountability of the rescue response. Subsequent questions have then asked of the Minister something that is not his responsibility and the Minister has told the member that. That is the end of the matter.Denis O’Rourke: Is the Minister satisfied that those who are responsible have been appropriately held to account; if so why and if not what will he do about it?Mr SPEAKER: In so far as there is ministerial responsibility the Hon Peter Dunne.Hon PETER DUNNE: With regard to the search and rescue services particularly those provided by the Fire Service I am satisfied that every lesson to be learnt from that event has been learnt that the recommendations from the coroner will be implemented and that in the unlikely and unfortunate repetition of such an event we will deliver a high-quality service.Urgent Debates DeclinedCorrections Department—Management of Phillip John Smith CaseMr SPEAKER: I have received a letter from the Rt Hon Winston Peters seeking to debate under Standing Order 389 the escape from New Zealand of convicted murderer Phillip John Smith. In order for an urgent debate to be held there must be a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility. Although the escape is no longer a matter of recent occurrence the Government yesterday released the chief custodial officer’s review of the failure to return from temporary release of Phillip John Smith. However the Government has also initiated an inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2013 into matters concerning the escape of Phillip John Smith the draft terms of reference of which were released on Monday. This inquiry is to be informed by other reviews including that of the chief custodial officer and is expected to run over the next 6 months. In these circumstances I am not convinced that I would be justified in setting aside the business of the House today to debate the escape. The application is therefore declined.General DebateANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition):I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Well we are at a very interesting time in our political history. Prime Minister John Key is desperate to secure his legacy. He has got only 3 years to do it and he knows he has got only 3 years. He tried in his first 3 years. He had natural disasters and he had disasters of other people’s making to preside over and he got through it and some say he did reasonably well.Hon Simon Bridges: You’ve got less time to deal with your legacy.ANDREW LITTLE: Then in the last term—Mr Bridges—he wanted to grow the economy and produce a surplus. Well that has gone and so now we are up to the next phase. He has tried changing the flag at a cost of $27 million—but nobody wants it—but now we know what the legacy is. Now we know what John Key’s legacy to New Zealand is. It is the sleaziest grubbiest filthiest dirtiest smear machine in the history of New Zealand politics and every New Zealander knows it. Every Government member knows it which is why those members look down. They lower their heads in shame because they are embarrassed to be part of the John Key Government. It has reached its nadir. It has reached the bottom of the pits and they all know it.We now have a Government that has mastered the art of manipulating the Official Information Act request using prime ministerial staff—not the junior staff but the senior staff; oh the senior staff as this is serious stuff—and the “black ops” operator Jason “Two Doors Down” Ede is doing his job. He is doing his job of ringing up the bloggers manipulating the Official Information Act and getting the attack lines out. That is John Key’s legacy. That is John Key’s legacy to New Zealand politics and here is the pity of it. You see they know no bounds. When you have got no ethics—when you have been a money trader you do not have to have ethics because it is the deal that counts. It is the deal that counts. And when you turn a money trader into a Prime Minister there is only one thing that matters. It is the deal that counts—getting the outcome.So what has he done this time? What he has done this time is an Official Information Act request not about finance or about the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment but about our security agencies. It is about our security agencies which have huge powers: powers of intrusion powers of invasion powers to break our privacy rights. Oh yes there are no limits. There are no bounds when it comes to doing the deal and getting the outcome when you are a trader.So what does he do? He sets up his senior office staff and his “black ops” operator Jason “Two Doors Down” Ede and says: “Just manipulate it. Hold it up. Share the national security secrets. It doesn’t matter.”—and that is what he has done—“Use your private email accounts.” If it is good enough for Judith Collins it is good enough for John Key’s office too because that is the way they operate—that is the way they operate. Now we have in 1 day—1 day—two reports from independent agencies telling us just how this Government operates and just how low it goes.We have the Prime Minister’s office and Judith Collins’ office and who is the common rogue amongst them all? Cameron Slater—Cameron Slater. A great friend of Judith Collins; not such a great friend of John Key but enough to ring him up on a daily basis. And they know exactly what they are doing. They are using prime ministerial staff to carefully draft the Official Information Act request for Cameron Slater—using the taxpayer-funded prime ministerial staff to draft the blogs for Cameron Slater’s blog.Hon Amy Adams: Phil Goff just broke the law.ANDREW LITTLE: Where are the limits? Where are the limits Amy Adams? Where are the limits Amy Adams? There are none.You want the top job Amy. You want the top job Amy; we know it. Where are your bottom lines? Where are your ethical limits? It is all over for Steven Joyce. Simon Bridges—he was a lawyer once. He knows about ethics. Where are the ethics? Who in the National Government is going to stand up and say: “Prime Minister John Key we want to have some ethics. We want to have integrity in this Government. Please Mr Key—please Mr Key—let your legacy be honest Government. Let it be honest Government for the last remaining 3 years you’ve got in office. Please let it be honest Government.”?That is not what we have got now. That is what New Zealanders want. They want something better. They want a better Government. They want a better Prime Minister and in 3 years’ time they are going to get that. They will get a Government that operates by principles of honesty of ethics and of integrity. They do not have that now.This is a bad time for New Zealand. There is one thing this Government must do: stand up and say sorry. Stand up and say: “Sorry we didn’t mean it. It was wrong and we will do better for the next 3 years before we hand it over.”Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development):I thought I might start with a quote this afternoon. This is a quote from a parliamentarian last week: “My focus will be on the issues that actually New Zealanders are telling me that they’re most concerned about which is their jobs and whether they can increase their income and earn better and do better and get ahead.” Who was that? Who was that just 1 week ago? It was Andrew Little on his election by the unions of New Zealand to the leadership of the Labour Party last week. And what has his focus been on since then? It has been on dirty politics it has been on bloggers and it has been on the Prime Minister being a devil beast. It is actually a rerun of the last two election campaigns and it worked so well—so well—the first two times that Labour has decided to run it a third time. This time in the House this week he has had days of questions general debate and urgent debate—nothing on the economy and nothing on jobs. It is all about dirty politics and that is his problem. That is his first problem.Andrew Little’s second problem it has to be said is that little anger issue which I think we need to talk about. It is a little anger issue. Yesterday I turned the television on the news and there was this guy doing his best impersonation of a vein-popping Phil Goff—a vein-popping Phil Goff. We know how well that worked in 2011. But Andrew Little is away and he is going to cut the crap. He is pointing the finger at everybody already. He is as angry as he can be. His fuse is so short. Mr Little’s fuse is so short he actually goes off before you get a match near him. That is Labour’s problem. This guy has got a big problem and the Labour Party has got a big problem.So what are they thinking? What are they thinking the Labour Party caucus? It is only a week in. It is a bit early for the reviews. It is only a week in. But Labour Party leaders do not actually hang around for long so you have got to do your reviews quite quickly. So where are all those in the caucus who voted for him? Where are all those people in the caucus who selected Andrew Little? Where are they and what are they thinking now? Where are all those backbenchers all those people all four of them who voted for Andrew Little? All four of them what are they thinking now? Well one of them is David Cunliffe. He has not been here this week. He has not actually—Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I was waiting for you to raise the issue. There are very clear rules about referring to the absences of other members in the House for very good reasons and I think that Steven Joyce should respect that.Mr SPEAKER: And I agree. It is not appropriate to refer to the absence of any member on any occasion.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: But what is he thinking? What is he thinking? He brought 25 percent of the caucus votes that voted for Andrew Little to the Labour Party and how is he feeling now? And of course how is Carmel Sepuloni? She is very quiet. She has brought 25 percent of the caucus votes for Andrew Little. Four of them voted for him and of course the rest did not.So who did vote for Andrew Little?Hon Member: How many voted for you Steven?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Who did make him the leader of the Labour Party? It was not the caucus no. Do not worry Grant your chance is coming soon. It was not the caucus. It was not the Labour Party. It was six unions. The Labour Party has gone back and delivered us worse than 1970s-style democracy. This time the Labour Party is blatant. The unions selected its leader. As a result Labour has got a cloth-cap unionist who is straight out of the 1950s with his little cheese-cutter hat on yelling and angry and pointing his finger at the Opposition. That is what we have got. I suppose that if you hand your leadership election to the unions if you refuse to back your caucus if you refuse to back your party instead you get what you have got which is Andrew Little.So just think: it could have been Grant Robertson. It just could have been Grant Robertson. Just one vote in the caucus and we might have somebody a little more sensible as the leader of the Labour Party. But that is all right. It is going to be a short run. I predict the ides of March 2015. The ides of March 2015 is when Grant Robertson will finally get his third chance to lead the Labour Party when “Mr Angry” Andrew Little gets asked to step aside.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green):The wheels are falling off this Government. John Key has started his final term as Prime Minister actually in the same way that Helen Clark started her third term: very badly indeed. The creeping arrogance and the cockiness of “third-term-ism” have taken root in National and have been on full display in recent days in the House. First there are dirty politics and the “black ops” smears being run from the Prime Minister’s own office by his own staff. The Prime Minister has been looking increasingly nervy in the last 24 hours as the full extent of his staff’s involvement in dirty politics and abuses of power has been laid out for the country to see. That affable smile-and-wave image is eroding before our eyes. The public are finally getting a glimpse of the real John Key and the real National Party and it is not pretty.The Prime Minister is making a fool of himself with his absurd denials and political obfuscations. What kind of Prime Minister uses his security intelligence agencies for political purposes to discredit his opponents? What kind of Prime Minister employs “black ops” staff in his office to feed dirt to National-aligned bloggers? And most important what kind of Prime Minister refuses to own up and take responsibility for what he has done and set it right again? John Key’s refusal to face facts to take responsibility for the conduct of his own office and his staff is a response akin to that of a child—a puerile child—who has been caught with his hand in the lolly jar. John Key was like that yesterday like a child who had been pulling the wings off flies and thought he had got away with it.But I will give the Prime Minister some credit. I will give him credit that he has come a long way from the days when he did not even bother to read the reports that damned his Government and his Ministers. He did read at least this one; although his comprehension of it would fail any National Certificate of Educational Achievement English examination that you might want to set him. I am not sure how you can describe the findings of a dispassionate accurate record of events as contested. That is a piece of logical gymnastics that could take place only on “Planet Key” because the reality is that the only people contesting the report’s findings are John Key and his bestie Cameron Slater. John Key and his bestie Cameron Slater are like this and are contesting the findings of the report—nobody else in the country is because on “Planet Key” black is white wrong is right and Cameron Slater is a good guy on “Planet Key”. And given there are no toilets on “Planet Key” as John Key once confessed I do wonder about the stench that must be piling up there with all the tiko.Of course the other dirty politics report released yesterday was the investigation into Judith Collins. Clearly the Prime Minister was nervous about the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security’s report because he wanted to divert attention away from it. But having read the Judith Collins report I think she should not feel vindicated by it. It is not a vindication because it was not an investigation. To describe it as a once-over-lightly really is an understatement. Key players including Mark Hotchin and Cathy Odgers were not even interviewed. No Facebook messages between Collins and Slater were examined. Only Collins’ phone calls to Slater were looked at—not vice versa—and key emails from Cameron Slater were never examined by the judge.The report was short on hard facts but big on accepting the version of events presented—who by—by Collins herself and Cameron Slater.The smug arrogance displayed by Judith Collins at her press conference yesterday was typical of the arrogance setting in with this Government. There is a deteriorating economy. New Zealanders are feeling the pinch at every stage whether it is in housing or in electricity prices. Bill English is now softening up the country for failing to maintain the economic goal of running a Budget surplus. We know that we can see the Muldoon arrogance in John Key and the Muldoon financial failings in Bill English. Muldoon stalks the land yet again through this Government. All this is bad news for New Zealanders because when a Government is thinking mainly about itself it is not thinking about you; when a Government is preoccupied with watching its own back it is not watching yours. The wheels are falling off this Government. Thank you.Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister of Local Government):I do pick up actually on the member Metiria Turei’s last point. This Government is focused on the people of New Zealand and it seems that the Opposition did not knock on enough doors. It did not actually listen to the people of New Zealand. We have heard many times over the last 4 weeks as those members have been going around talking about their leadership and what that meant which is that they wanted to listen to New Zealanders and here we have evidence this week of not a skerrick of that. So instead what they are doing is thinking quite proudly and quite smugly that New Zealanders have an interest in a blogger and that New Zealanders have an interest in the Opposition trying to besmirch the good name of the Prime Minister when we know that the report simply does not state that. So I just encourage Labour. I encourage you.Hon Annette King: Thank you.Hon PAULA BENNETT: I encourage you to stay—“Mrs Beltway” it is great to see you here with the new “Mr Beltway” and of course with the “Prince of Beltway”; so that is the top three. Stay beltway I say. So think that what you are actually standing on—that very wobbly pedestal I might say—is of relevance to New Zealanders. Do not ask about the economy and the fact that we have more jobs and that we are having to do job fairs overseas and everything else. Stick with trying to besmirch and do your dirty politics because remember we have been hearing for the last 4 weeks about how you are wanting to listen and listen to what New Zealanders really want so that you can learn the lessons after such a great tragic response.Ask yourself Mrs Mahuta do you think the people of Huntly are mildly interested in what the Labour Party has been talking about for the last 24 hours? They are mildly interested but those members think that they are—they think that they are. What people are actually interested in is housing that they can actually live in and that will make a difference for them and the fact that people are getting off welfare and into jobs and that there is something better for them and their kids down the road and that is what this Government is focused on every minute of every day. So stick with your sideshows and think that that is winning.We are on leader No. 5 now. I will take bets that this Prime Minister will hit a six you know. It is just a matter of the timing of it. [Interruption] You would go for seven? I will see you seven. I am not going to defend that one because I think you could be quite right. Actually I am hoping that Andrew Little sticks with his past performance and hits it out in the next couple of years for his future because we will remember that actually our very good National MP in New Plymouth against Andrew Little doubled his majority. So if we could take that across the country under “Mr Beltway’s” leadership then I think that that will actually get us into a great place and see us making a difference. So I have bets on the Prime Minister—well hitting a six it is a matter of when of how many months shall we go for as we then get to No. 7 and we see the difference that that can actually make.How is it going to be though when you are sitting there as the new leader of the Labour Party and you are thinking: “Who are the four who actually backed me?”. With all actual respect Mrs Mahuta more of her colleagues backed her to be the leader of the Labour Party than backed Mr Little. Far more backed Mr Robertson and actually saw him there. So those members are having a bit of a week there concentrating on themselves. “Mr Beltway” “Mrs Beltway” and the “Prince of Beltway” are deciding that this is the issue that really matters to New Zealanders after going out there and telling us how much they want to listen and take lessons from the election result and they have not had them. They have not heard those lessons. They still want to actually sit there and talk more about what they perceive to be the myth of dirty politics—you know the myth of dirty politics.Hon David Parker: The “myth”—the “myth”?Hon PAULA BENNETT: Yes. Keep going Mr Parker. Bring it on—bring it on. It is fantastic. Let us keep you talking about what it really means and what is of significance to New Zealand. So while we concentrate on the economy while we concentrate on those New Zealanders who are now no longer leaving but are wanting to come back to New Zealand and while we are concentrating on welfare reforms and social housing and actually on how the children who are currently living in hardship can do better you keep listening to what you think New Zealanders really said during that campaign and stick with your beltway issues which have zero relevance to them. Good luck!Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour):I have to say that I was very very disappointed in Steven Joyce’s speech today because he seems to have had a big dose of amnesia. He seems to have forgotten that it was he who brought in Jason Ede—“Mr Black Ops”—into the Beehive one of his ex - radio station workers; that it was Jason Ede who worked with Mr Joyce for the election campaigns of 2011 and 2014; and that it was Mr Joyce who made Jason Ede disappear when things got very nasty indeed. Mr Joyce has kept his head down until today but I think today he made a terrible terrible mistake. I would also say that I have to tell Paula Bennett who has gone from “Ms Fake Fur” to “Ms Dior” while her former constituents have gone to the camping ground that her contribution today was pathetic.You see there is something quite rotten in the State of “Planet Key”. You know it has been brewing and festering away there for the past 6 to 8 years and now the rot has been exposed for everybody to see even those who wear Key-coloured spectacles. You see this rot has permeated its way down from the ninth floor of the Beehive to infect all those who have been caught up in the sludge and sleaze campaign operated out of the Prime Minister’s own office. We have seen neutral public service advice become political cover-ups. That is what we have seen. In the last 2 weeks we have seen what used to be given as political advice—neutral political advice—being used as political cover-ups in this country.Although the Prime Minister and his “black ops” rubbish Nicky Hager and his book on dirty politics what the Prime Minister cannot hide from and what he cannot bluster his way out of is the report from the office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security—a report that shows that dirty politics by the National Party was and is condoned by the man who is the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Not just dirty politics but grubby filthy unprecedented politics and all aimed at undermining political opponents and holding on to political power at any cost.If you were in the United States it would be called moral turpitude. That is what it would be called. It would be conduct that is considered contrary to community standards of justice honesty or good morals—acts of vileness and baseness. I believe it is contrary to honesty and community standards of justice and good morals to employ people paid by the taxpayer to dig up dirt and to pass their filth on to others to disseminate and to undermine your political opponents. That is exactly what happened with Jason Ede two doors down from the Prime Minister’s office.When you read that report this is what shocked me the most. This is what the inspector-general said: “Jason Ede had destroyed information to avoid any public record.” Does it not shock the people of this House that someone working in the Prime Minister’s office destroyed information that should have gone to an inquiry in order to avoid any public record to misuse and abuse the Official Information Act to smear and blame others to use malicious fabrications to make political points?But on the radio this morning the Prime Minister said that he approved of the practices and processes run out of his office by people who were just two doors down. That is morally bankrupt—morally bankrupt—to know that such behaviour was taking place two doors down and doing nothing about it saying: “There’s nothing to see here. You can’t blame me.” and then to denigrate a report by saying that it is contestable. There is nothing contestable in that report. What is true about it is that the Prime Minister allowed one of his own staff members to work in a way that is despicable and not seen in New Zealand before.DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East):Thank you Mr Speaker—Pita Paraone: This is going to be interesting.DAVID BENNETT: It will be and you want to listen. I do not want to take too long on the Labour Party and its leadership vote but the first thing New Zealanders need to know is that the Labour leader Mr Little did not win because the unions voted for him. He did not win because the unions voted for him. He won because selected members of the unions voted for him. Under that union vote not every member of the unions got to vote. In a democratic party and in a democratic Government and in a democratic country you would think that every unionist would have the ability to file a vote. It is not the case. Under the Labour Party rules 14 unionists make one voter. And those “one voters” for each of those people for all those unions were the mates of Andrew Little. His mates are not here; they are the people out there who run the unions.It is the hierarchy of the unions that determines who the leader of the Labour Party is. It is not the actual workers out there. It is their hierarchy—the people who are taking advantage of them. That is a shame for New Zealanders and that is a shame for the Labour Party. Grant Robertson—go and get a recount. Go and do it. Go and get a recount. Get all the union members to vote not just the one of 14 whom Andrew Little controls under your proposals and under the democracy of the Labour Party. Let us have a look.Hon Annette King: Why isn’t that man a Minister? How many votes did you get for Cabinet?DAVID BENNETT: We have got the new deputy leader of the Labour Party asking how many votes. Well I will tell you how many votes. We had over 10000 in Hamilton East and that is because National delivered for that city. Mr Macindoe had over 5000 votes in that seat against Sue Moroney and that is because National has delivered for that seat. We have built roads in that city that the Labour Party could not even commit to. The Labour Party was asked year after year whether it would commit to the Waikato Expressway and no it would not. It would not commit to it. Then at the last moment—this is a month before the election—the Labour members came down and gave a hollow promise saying that they would think about doing it. The Greens actually controlled the Labour Party’s transport policy. Julie Anne Genter to her credit stood up and said that they were not building the Waikato Expressway. The voters of Hamilton knew that. The voters of Hamilton knew what they would get after the election.You have a Labour Party in trouble that does not know who its leader is and that has capitulated on internal politics since that time. You have got a Green Party that is now licking its wounds because it thought it was going to do better than it actually did. You have got a New Zealand First party where no one actually knows who the members are and where the leader still does not know who the members are and he will never know who the members are by the end of the next 3 years. But that is OK. It is unfair to pick on New Zealand First. I will not do it because it is too easy. We will leave them to speak next. Ron Mark—I am going to love to see what is going to happen in 2 years’ time with you and Tracey. Who is going to win—you know? The old boy might be going but who is going to take over? That will be interesting eh? So we will look forward to seeing what happens with New Zealand First.The voters out there are smart. They know there is a country that has got a Government that is delivering a strong economic base. They know there is a Government that is actually looking forward for New Zealanders and that is looking at economic growth in the most testing of economic conditions. It is a Government that is actually trying to make sure that we are part of this modern international world.If we do not take our opportunities if we do not embrace immigration if we do not embrace trade then we will miss out to Australia. Look at what was happening in Australia last week. Australia embraced those things. Australia embraced India Australia embraced China and that is the balance that we need to meet as well because we are a trading country.New Zealanders have low interest rates and they have a strong economic base and they see that investment in health and education that is going on—new schools in Hamilton. Sue Moroney when she was in the Labour Government could only come and have a look at a bit of land and say: “This would be a lovely place to build a school.” Well we actually went out there and we bought that land and then we actually committed to building that school. Thank you very much to Mrs Anne Tolley in front of me who did a great job as Minister then. We are delivering for New Zealanders and that is why they vote for us because they see what is coming. They see the infrastructure that is needed for New Zealand to grow and prosper. Thank you.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First):Kids that was a low point in this House. The Prime Minister is full of puffery and bovine scatology. Claims that he did not know about his office giving SIS information to Cameron Slater to smear Phil Goff are impossible to believe. The media in this country sometimes get it wrong but on this issue they can see through the Prime Minister’s dopey denials. TheDominion Post’s Vernon Small yesterday said: “Key took aim squarely at his own foot and fired at will.” He went on: “Key chose to completely ignore what was patently obvious …” from the report of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. The New Zealand Herald’s John Armstrong went further. He said: “The Key administration has plumbed new depths of arrogance and contempt …”. I could not have said it better. Mr Armstrong said: “The report’s findings should be cause for a full prime ministerial apology to Parliament …”.The fact is this: the report of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security has confirmed what is in the book Dirty Politics. It is now fact—it is uncontested—that Mr Key’s office for which he and he alone is responsible used security information to smear Phil Goff. His office used State security information for political point-scoring. This is reprehensible. But what is worse is the Prime Minister is refusing to confess that he knew about it or to take responsibility for his office staff—those who work for him. He should confirm to the nation that his office staff were either directly doing precisely what he wanted them to do or were acting beyond their brief. Either way they were doing something for the benefit of one man and one man alone: John Key.Ms Gwyn states in her report: “Had it been necessary I should also have sought the Prime Minister’s appearance before the inquiry. However had I found that the Prime Minister’s involvement in these particular events was limited to a briefing given by the Director to the Prime Minister by phone on 22 July …”. That is a farce. How could she know about the Prime Minister’s involvement without first asking him? That is the No. 1 thing any simple inquirer would have done. The Prime Minister was the Minister responsible for the SIS at the time. These matters concern his office and to excuse the Prime Minister from this inquiry does not suggest a whitewash; it confirms it. Ms Gwyn had a very difficult job to do. See she was being warned off by an army of lawyers acting for the Prime Minister’s staff—warned to not dig too deep because she had they claimed no responsibility.Look at the facts. Mr de Joux the Prime Minister’s deputy chief of staff is so trusted has so much authority that he can speak on behalf of the Prime Minister and attend meetings on the Prime Minister’s behalf. This man gave State security information that was downright wrong and misleading to the Prime Minister’s “black ops” man to then give to Whale Oil for the sole purpose of smearing the then Leader of the Opposition. It is dirty politics. Mr de Joux gets the bullet from the SIS and gives it to Jason Ede to give to Whale Oil who then fires it at Phil Goff. We must remember here that the deputy chief of staff works directly with the Prime Minister. If he is acting either unethically or illegally then when he does the Prime Minister is responsible. The buck stops with him.Once the Prime Minister’s windy rhetoric has blown away what are we left with? A Prime Minister who behaves like a mendacious sybarite. Worse still the National Party’s two key campaign managers are the man who opened the debate today for the National Government Steven Joyce and Mr de Joux’s wife. This is filthy American-type politics that has no place in this country and “Mr Spray and Walk Away” has been caught out telling porkies over and over again. You can always tell because he sucks the air in so rapidly he can almost whistle. He could almost whistle on the way in. You can always tell by his body language that he ain’t telling the truth. Even those kids could see that today. I saw them shaking their heads. They were horrified. It was appalling behaviour from the Prime Minister who said when he got the job that he wants to raise parliamentary standards. Well they are so low now they could parachute outside the backside of a snake and still have room. That is how bad his behaviour is and he should have gone. He has been caught out for the umpteenth time.MELISSA LEE (National):I shall start my contribution by not offending that senior member of the Opposition Winston Peters—I am a good Korean girl. But I shall just say as Mr Peters actually started that children listen: that is not how you actually do it. That is an example of how you should have quit a long time ago. That is what happens if you stay here a little too long. He is a little too long in the tooth and he should have perhaps actually quit when he was out the last time. As I said I am a good Korean girl and I do not like to actually insult an elderly gentleman.I just want to say in support of my colleagues from this side who talked about Mr Little and the leadership of the Labour Party that I would just like to actually start by saying congratulations to Mr Little and commiserations to Mr Robertson. But Mr Robertson take heart. Here on this side we actually love wearing our T-shirts saying “I’m a Key person”. I do not know too many of you who might actually like to wear “I’m a Little person” so perhaps you would be forgiven for not wearing one of those T-shirts.This side wants to talk about what is actually good for our country. This side is actually focused on growing our economy and this National Government has actually delivered for New Zealanders. Our economy has grown by more than 3.9 percent in the last term and we have actually provided more than 72000 jobs in the last year. But when we are talking about all the lovely trade we have overseas one thing somebody reminded me of was that we do not as a nation become rich by trading by ourselves. We need to trade with overseas nations. I am very very proud of the work done by our Minister of Trade our Minister of Foreign Affairs and our Prime Minister—and also I have played a little part in it as well—in bringing together the free-trade agreement with Korea.There are 50 million people in South Korea alone who could be eating our food and using our products. Immediately once we actually sign it the $65 million in tariffs we pay will be gone. We currently pay more than $200 million in tariffs alone. It is unproductive for our producers to be competing against EU countries Chile and the United States which Korea already has free-trade agreements with. So it is not just about trading with Korea but trading and competing on the same footing as those nations who already have a free-trade agreement with Korea. Kiwifruit growers’ tariffs are 45 percent going into Korea and that will be a saving of millions and millions of dollars. And for milk producers Korea is one of the biggest importers of our cheeses. As a Korean who is actually a little bit lactose intolerant I do not know why but they do actually take a lot of our cheese. We export a lot.Also I want to say that when we have this kind of free-trade agreement with a country like this we actually reduce the cost of the products we use in New Zealand. I know that many people will be using Samsung whiteware such as washing machines and dryers. I know that many people use Samsung telephones. Samsung even sponsors lots of our sporting codes as well. But many years ago before the free-trade agreement I remember having to pay $6000 for a mobile phone.Tim Macindoe: How much?MELISSA LEE: $6000 for a mobile phone. I was a bit silly paying that—actually my mother paid for that. Nowadays it costs way less than that. I remember when the MicroTAC II first came out—and it did nothing like the technology we have now—people were paying $6000 for a mobile phone. Now we pay a heck of a lot less and that is all due to the free-trade agreements we have managed to get so it is way cheaper for New Zealanders.The relationship we have with foreign countries has also developed things like technology. In the Selwyn retirement village in Mount Albert robotic technology was trialled. It was a joint venture between Auckland University and a Korean technology company. I celebrate that and this is as a result of the good work that the National Government is doing.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central):It is quite clear which politician John Key would aspire to be. He wants to be Keith Holyoake. He wants to be the National Party leader who goes on and earns a fourth term who gets a moniker like “Kiwi Keith”—Hon Annette King: And becomes Sir.GRANT ROBERTSON: And becomes Sir—absolutely. He wants to become pragmatic and go on to become Governor-General be somebody whom New Zealanders across the divide respect and like. That is whom John Key wants to be.But the politician whom John Key resembles most today is not a New Zealand politician; it is Richard Nixon. That is the politician John Key is becoming. Make no mistake—this work is John Key’s work. This sleaze is John Key’s sleaze. He is the person who employed these people. Any argument that Phil de Joux or Jason Ede are somehow or other doing something that John Key has no knowledge of is rubbish. These people—Jason Ede and Phil de Joux—are doing the job that John Key employed them to do: to run a smear machine out of the Prime Minister’s office. That is what John Key asked them to do. He cannot walk away from this responsibility.So the National Party the once-great National Party of Keith Holyoake is now mired in sleaze and smear in a campaign to undermine a political opponent by using security intelligence information. That is why he is Richard Nixon and not Keith Holyoake—because he is prepared to take the information from the Security Intelligence Service which has the right to spy on New Zealanders and hand it on down the chain to Cameron Slater to use to advantage him; to give that information out as Cheryl Gwyn said for political purposes. That is what the National Party has become.Then they take on a further Nixonian element—they destroy it. To put it into the modern age they have to burn a phone like a character from Breaking Bad which they throw away. They delete the personal emails. They hide their tracks. This is the work of our Prime Minister’s office. This is what is authorised by our Prime Minister. This is how low the National Party has sunk.One of the things that Cheryl Gwyn says in the report is how concerned she is that the Prime Minister’s deputy chief of staff a political appointment is the person for whom the SIS was the direct contact in that office. John Key has effectively outsourced security intelligence work in his office. This is a change from any Prime Minister before now and the result of that is that the information kept on behalf of New Zealanders taken in a privileged manner by the SIS is then used for political purposes because John Key says that is what he thinks of it.John Key has let New Zealanders down. When they look to the office of the Prime Minister they look to find somebody who will stand up for New Zealanders. How many times when Helen Clark was Prime Minister did people say: “I might not agree with her policies but I respect her.”? What John Key has done through this episode is demean the office of Prime Minister. He has demeaned every single one of us in this House. Yesterday in question time and today in question time I felt embarrassed for this Parliament because we had a Prime Minister who chose to divert and diminish and demean what is one of the most shocking episodes in New Zealand political history.This Prime Minister is in the gutter. This Prime Minister is at the lowest ebb of politics with people like Cameron Slater and Jason Ede directed to smear a political opponent. It is an abuse of the power and knowledge of the office of the Prime Minister to use security intelligence information in a political way to destroy evidence and to try to attack an opponent using the offices of the Security Intelligence Service.This Government has sunk lower than any Government in New Zealand’s history when it comes to smearing people. It has lost the respect of New Zealanders. There is no dignity in the office of the Prime Minister today and that should hurt every single one of us in this House. John Key should be ashamed of himself. He is responsible for the actions of these people—of Jason Ede of Phil de Joux and of those in his office. He is the person who should be apologising to New Zealand. His failure to do so means he is not worthy of the office of Prime Minister.ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa):I would like to talk about the Westpac Stadium and more specifically I would like to talk about the number of people one can fit into the Westpac Stadium. More specifically I would like to talk about the number of people we can fit into three Westpac stadiums because that is the number of people who left New Zealand to go to Australia between 2000 and 2005. They did that because they chose to leave this country because of the situation they found themselves in and the Government they were having to deal with.The trend has been changed. Today there are not three stadium-loads of people leaving—or two or even one. In fact people are arriving. People are voting with their feet and returning from Australia to choose to live in this country. Why is that? Because things are on the up. Things are going well. We know the economy is performing at a rate of close to 4 percent and that 72000-odd jobs have been created in the last 12 months. That is why people are coming back. Inflation is lower than wage growth. That means that people have more buying power in their pockets. Unemployment is lower than it has been and Government debt is well under control.The way we have got there is because this Government has invested in infrastructure. We are continuing to roll out ultra-fast broadband and the Rural Broadband Initiative. I can say that the guys over in the Wairarapa with their blue cables are flat out up and down the streets of the Wairarapa—through Masterton and soon to be in Carterton Dannevirke and even in a small town like Waipukurau. These people will be connected—connected to the rest of the country and connected to the world so that they can communicate with those offshore communities to sell their products and their services.The other thing we are doing and it has been touched on by my colleague Melissa Lee is negotiating and completing free-trade agreements. The Korean free-trade agreement is not just about the $80 million tariff here or the $65 million worth of savings there; it is about the opportunity. It is about the ability to let businesses get on with business. It is about creating an environment where people can take the opportunity that is laid up for them by this Government.Look at the Chinese example of a free-trade agreement multiplying the number volume and value of exports—not just dairy but forestry fisheries and wines going across to China. And that is what we are going to be doing into Korea. So it is not just about $43 million worth of kiwifruit; it is the opportunity to enable them to double triple or quadruple their value. I know the kiwifruit industry is well set up to take advantage of that opportunity. It is about creating demand. It is about creating demand for our primary products. That is what we are about. We can feed only 40 million - odd people so we need to make sure that the food that we are supplying to those people is safe and has the technology associated with it so that it is traceable. That is why Chinese and Korean people are paying top dollar for our products. The opportunity is there for all.This infrastructure growth continues to contribute to the positive growth in my electorate of Wairarapa. The South Wairarapa district is one of the fastest-growing districts in the country. That is because this Government is building roads and infrastructure to enable people to get on. I encourage more people to join us in the Wairarapa with those people who see the benefits of the Wairarapa—the people the climate and the commutable distance that we have from Wellington. This enables rural electorates to prosper under this Government. Thank you.JAN LOGIE (Green):We have just heard from the last speaker Alastair Scott about how the Government is creating an environment where people can take the opportunities that the Government is laying down for them as if we are living in some utopia of opportunity and engagement.I would like to talk this afternoon a little bit about some concerns I have from what I have been hearing in the community. I have recently been quite worried by the number of very senior well-respected community leaders who have been saying at public events that basically there is no point expecting anything from the Government or even in engaging with the Government. Of course we are hearing this sentiment every single day on talkback radio in the media and in our communities. We saw this sentiment realised in the last two elections with our appallingly low voter turn-out.I get it but it worries me and it worries me deeply because it threatens my hope in change. I get it because sometimes I struggle to get through question time without despairing of the hope of the future of this country. I get it when in just the last week we have seen male senior public servants including the chief of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet standing alongside Roger Sutton while he breached confidentiality around a decision that found him guilty of misconduct—a huge mistake with national consequences but one not condemned proactively by a Minister.We have seen a report that clearly says the SIS released partial information and misinformation that was used to discredit an Opposition politician—another mistake apparently but nothing to do with the culture of this Government. The Prime Minister has publicly condoned the use of his office for smear campaigns suggesting that that is just politics. There is now a possibility that if a gap arises in Cabinet Judith Collins will be back despite her socially irresponsible decision to shelve the Law Commission work on sexual violence in the face of massive public demand and evidence and the now established fact that she closely associated with and fed information to attack bloggers who were trying to take down a senior public servant.The public is now being told that everything is fine this is acceptable this is politics. We have been told that a 1-week consultation is perfectly acceptable for a piece of legislation that is 45 pages long and curtails core civic and civil rights and provides increased surveillance because our Government has our best interests at heart because that is what good leadership looks like! No wonder people are giving up. It makes me tempted to give up.Underlying all of this is something that is almost invisible: the erosion of some of our core democratic structures. Research that came out this week from Victoria University found that now 10 percent of community organisations believe debate is actively silenced compared with less than 1 percent in 2008. Almost 60 percent of them believe that an organisation’s funding is at risk if it criticises the Government. Over a quarter of community organisations now have gag clauses in their contracts preventing them from criticising the Government and 70 percent—up from only 42 percent in 2008—believe that New Zealand has positive attitudes that encourage public debate in this country.This is the foundation of our society. If a Government is to function effectively it needs to listen. Every single citizen has the right to a voice and we need to be encouraging them or we are going to lose our democracy. Where is the point going to be where suddenly people tip over and lose total confidence? This Government—every Government—has a responsibility to our people to all of our people to listen to respond to act with integrity. That is why the Green Party is in Parliament.CHRIS BISHOP (National):The confected outrage by the Labour Party in the debate this afternoon has been tragic and hilarious. You expect the confected outrage from the Green Party—barely a day goes by when Russel Norman is not in a state of high dudgeon down in this House accusing the Government of being the most corrupt in New Zealand history and everything like that—but we do expect a little bit better from the Labour Party.I have got to say the confected outrage is tragic and hilarious. To be lectured on this side of the House by a party that engaged in scurrilous actions when it was in Government is hilarious. This is the party that sent taxpayer-funded spin doctors to Melbourne in Australia to dig for dirt on John Key in 2007. Annette King spent 5 minutes of her speech talking about how taxpayer-funded spin doctors are terrible. That is exactly what Labour did. Annette King decried people in the Government talking to bloggers. This was the party that established The Standard blog—established the blog—out of the ninth floor of the Beehive in 2005. I suggest to members opposite that they go and visit The Standard because it is a cesspit of bile and hate—bile and hate. It was run by David Cunliffe’s campaign manager who set up the secret trust for him. It is an absolute cesspit and they over on that side of the House established it.We were lectured on leaks by a party that has Phil Goff in it who took a secret confidential Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade memo and leaked it in 2004 to try to embarrass Don Brash. Just 2 days ago Phil Goff leaked another secret document and secret report in an attempt to gain political advantage. So to be lectured by the guys on the other side about scurrilous behaviour ladies and gentlemen is just ridiculous. I predict the overblown hyperbole of the Opposition will be seen for what it is because it continues a trend of the last 6 years which is that the Labour Party and the Green Party opposite focus on what they think is important and what matters to them and not on what matters to New Zealand.So let us talk about what matters to New Zealand. There were two very significant events and pieces of data released in the last week that I think warrant some attention of the House. The first is the announcement that we have had a positive household savings rate for the last 5 years—this is the first time since 1989 to 1994—of 2.1 percent. Members opposite often talk about and decry our lack of a savings culture in New Zealand: “We don’t save enough. We borrow too much from offshore.” Well we have had a positive savings rate for the last 5 years. We are shifting this economy away from debt-fuelled consumption which is what we had under the last Labour Government towards an economy built on savings and investment. These are very important economic numbers and I think that the House should spend some time focusing on them.The second piece of important information was the migration numbers which were just highlighted by my colleague Alastair Scott. There has been the smallest net loss of people to Australia since October 1994. People are literally voting with their feet. Fewer people are leaving to go to Australia and more people are arriving.Tracey Martin: 47000 net gain—net gain.CHRIS BISHOP: Yes that is right Tracey—47000 people net gain to New Zealand. People are literally voting with their feet. They are coming from Asia they are coming from the UK they are coming from Australia and they are coming from all over the world because our economy is growing at one of the fastest rates in the Western World. I know you do not like people moving here and I know that the member opposite does not like people from other countries coming to New Zealand but people are literally voting with their feet.Over here in the National Party on this side of the House we welcome people moving to New Zealand. We welcome foreigners wanting to spend money and invest in New Zealand. We welcome people wanting to relocate here or relocate their businesses here because we are a confident multicultural nation that is outward facing not insular and closed to the rest of the world like the closed minds of members in New Zealand First. Those are the very important migration numbers released.In my area of Lower Hutt we are focused on improving the innovation in our economy. That is a key part of the Government’s economic plan to make sure that this country continues to drive our economy forward. We have got some fantastic businesses in Lower Hutt like Pertronic Industries like Tekron and like Label and Litho. This is a Government that is making a record investment in research and development so that we can get our economy going forward and continuing to grow at one of the fastest rates in the Western World. Thank you very much.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.Education Amendment Bill (No 2)Second ReadingDebate resumed from 25 November.MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party):Although we do not resile from our support for increased Māori representation to reflect that at least one member of the wānanga or university council will have Māori representation as a result of the Education and Science Committee’s feedback we duly believe that there are many other areas that will have greater detrimental effect on the rangatiratanga of tauira and staff. That is where I finished off last night and that is where I would like to continue today.Essentially what we are saying is we are not supporting this bill at this stage because there are a number of concerns that we have. Submitters told us that the changes in the new Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand represent a lack of respect for the profession of teaching. Their call to Parliament was that at least five council members should be teachers registered under new section 353 inserted by clause 38 who hold a practising certificate. Teachers were also of the view that the professionalism of teaching was undermined by the clauses that seek to replace a code of ethics with a code of conduct as another move away from the high-trust model required to maintain an aspirational profession. The Māori Party is very concerned by these responses. In all other respects we have been pleased by the confidence and commitment Minister Parata has provided to the teaching profession by means of the Investing in Educational Success initiative. A couple of weeks ago the Minister announced a fund to invest in teachers’ ideas to undertake practical research test the ideas and share successful strategies with others. We would really want to see that same commitment and faith in teachers being represented in the new Teachers Council.We are aware that the new proposed education council is being treated with some scepticism because all of the appointments to the council are being made by the Minister of Education. The question submitters have put to us is how we can encourage the potential of a participatory democracy when others are kept out of the appointment process. This was the view that was loudly expressed in the context of the wānanga and university councils with the concerns around the lack of a guarantee of student or staff representation. It was the impact of that legislation to undermine university governance that came across particularly strongly in the select committee process. Submitters consistently defended the legal definition of universities as “the critic and conscience of society”. It was their deeply held view that the tertiary institutions as strongholds of academic freedom were being undermined by the clauses that give appointment powers to the Minister and remove all powers based on badly drafted unclear criteria. Put another way this means that people who disagree with the Government can potentially be removed and this is quite simply Draconian.It is really important in the Māori Party that we support the initiatives to advance the application of knowledge but we cannot wilfully ignore the submissions of close to 1000 New Zealanders. That is why we are opposing this second reading.TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West):Although I am no longer a member of the Education and Science Committee I was a member of it during the previous Parliament and as a result I had the opportunity to read and hear many of the very large number of submissions that we heard on the Education Amendment Bill (No 2). I want to say the committee was very well chaired by Dr Cam Calder the previous chairman.We did indeed hear from a large number of submitters and it is true that many of them had very strong opinions on this bill. However contrary to the assertion of many of the speakers from the other side of the House last night I want to make it very clear that all of the submitters were heard with considerable respect at all times. Some significant changes to this bill were recommended by the committee in our report which was tabled just before the general election especially relating to the composition of the new council which is to be known as the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. I mention this because it demonstrated the value of the select committee process and in particular the merit of making public submissions. It particularly demonstrated the willingness of this Government and the two very fine Ministers in charge of the bill to listen to the people and to take their points on board. That is democracy in action and that is why I am very proud to commend this bill to the House.The question was put that the amendments recommended by the Education and Science Committee by majority be agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the question be agreed to.Ayes62New Zealand National 60; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes59New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 11; Māori Party 2.Question agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time.Ayes62New Zealand National 60; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes59New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 11; Māori Party 2.Bill read a second time.Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) BillParole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment BillSecond ReadingsHon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice):I move That the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill and the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. When the National-led Government entered office in 2008 violent crime was rising the criminal justice system lacked accountability and there was a lack of focus on victims. The Government has worked hard to regain control over law and order by focusing on crime prevention by backing the police and by improving the responsiveness of our justice system. We have increased the penalty for breaching protection orders and have improved non-violence programmes for offenders. This work has paid off. Crime is now at a 35-year low. Although this is a significant achievement there are still areas where we can better improve public safety.One such area is our ability to protect New Zealanders from the small group of individuals who pose the greatest risk to public safety. Another area is the management of high-risk sexual and violent offenders in the community following a sentence of imprisonment. These two bills—the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill and the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill—respond to these risks. They provide legislative options for managing offenders due for release from prison who pose an undue risk to society. They are to be considered as cognate bills given the operational links between the two regimes.I would like to acknowledge the work of my colleague the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga in progressing the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill. I would also like to acknowledge the members of the select committees from the previous Parliament for their careful consideration of the bills. I would also like to thank all of those who took the time to submit on both bills.I will first discuss the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill which introduces civil detention orders for offenders who pose a very high risk of imminent serious sexual or violent reoffending. With regard to the test for imposing a public protection order the bill requires that the person pose a very high risk of imminent serious sexual or violent offending if they are released or left unsupervised. This is a stringent test that officials estimate will apply to only five to 12 people over 10 years. The risk however of near-certain serious harm is an extremely compelling reason to detain these individuals in a secure civil facility until they no longer pose a serious threat to public safety.On human rights issues the bill includes a number of safeguards to protect the rights of individuals subject to an order—for example offenders will be re-evaluated regularly and can seek a court review of their detention at any time. If an offender no longer meets the test for a public protection order they will be released and placed on a protective supervision order. There will be independent oversight of public protection orders. The bill provides for the appointment of inspectors who will inspect the facilities conduct investigations and deal with complaints. The bill also gives certain office holders the right to visit and examine the residence and residents. These include members of Parliament an Ombudsman the Privacy Commissioner or a judge.The Justice and Electoral Committee recommended a number of useful changes to the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill. One of these is to make victim notification consistent with the Victims’ Rights Act 2002. This means victims who register with the Department of Corrections will be given updates on the offenders involved in the public protection order regime. Victim notification is also expanded. This is so that those victims who have registered are more informed about upcoming court proceedings under the bill and the outcome of those proceedings. To ensure the safety and security of the public protection order residence the bill now includes specific clauses about searches and visitation. The new clauses set out the different types of searches that the resident staff have the power to conduct as well as the limits on those powers. This will prevent prohibited items from entering the residence. The ability of the residence manager to set conditions on visitors is also clarified. The Justice and Electoral Committee diligently considered the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill and the proposed changes will secure better protections for the New Zealand public while balancing the importance of human rights issues.Moving on to the second bill the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill this bill contains amendments proposed to ensure that the public are protected from high-risk offenders who finish a finite prison sentence but who do not meet the criteria for detention under a public protection order. The Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill enhances the current regime in two main ways: firstly the amendments enable extended supervision orders to be renewed for as long as they are needed; and secondly the scope of extended supervision orders which currently can be used only for child sex offenders is expanded to include adult sex offenders and very high-risk violent offenders.The Law and Order Committee carefully considered a report from the Attorney-General on the consistency of the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The committee considered the implications of bringing extended supervision orders under a civil regime similar to the public protection order regime. The committee found that it would have little practical effect and the best option is to leave extended supervision orders under the current criminal regime.The Law and Order Committee also recommended a number of useful changes to the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill. One such change is that the extended supervision orders regime apply to overseas offenders who continue to pose a serious risk to public safety on their return to New Zealand. The committee recommended a change to the amendments to the Privacy Act to authorise the Department of Corrections and New Zealand Police to share information about an offender subject to a protection order restraining order or non-contact order while also subject to an extended supervision order. This is so that each agency will know who is on the orders that the other agency administers.I would like to conclude by signalling that the Government intends to make some additional enhancements to the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill via a Supplementary Order Paper at the Committee stage. These will ensure three things: firstly that any contact between the offenders on extended supervision orders and children is strictly controlled; secondly that consistent decisions are made about the most appropriate order for high-risk offenders when applications are made to the court; and thirdly that interim extended supervision orders can be granted where special circumstances delay a full extended supervision order application.The Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill and the further enhancements that I have signalled are a graduated and proportionate response to the risk to the public posed by a very small number of offenders who at the end of their sentence pose an extreme risk to the safety of the New Zealand public. Together the bills will make New Zealand a safer place. I commend the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill and the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill to the House.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):It is my pleasure to rise to speak on these two bills that have been brought together. I have to start by saying that it is a shame that the Minister of Justice began her speech on an issue on which I think there has been some very good collaboration between both sides of the House with such inconsistency and false statements. To claim that the previous Labour Government had no focus on victims for instance was actually disproven in her own speech given that she made reference to bringing alignment between the bills that have been put before the House today and the Victims’ Rights Act which was brought into place by one Phil Goff as Minister of Justice in 2002. A very good piece of legislation it was as was the Sentencing Act 2002 which ensured that we did not have automatic parole which was brought in by that Government as was the Parole Act 2002 which ensured that the safety of the community was the paramount consideration for the Parole Board. It is a very good piece of legislation which this Government has continued to build around because it is such a good foundation piece of legislation. So it is a shame that the Minister would make such a false statement.But in respect of the bills that we have before us today the Minister is right. They do plug some gaps that exist currently in our justice system. What if we have a situation—and we unfortunately do—where serious violent offenders with sentences that are about to come to an end prove to be absolutely not ready to be reintegrated into society but their sentence is coming to an end and we have no ability to hold them? What do we do? Phil Goff was faced with this very situation. Of course we now have the ability with preventive detention to ensure that actually at sentencing—if a judge determines that an individual in question might not obviously have committed a murder that would allow a life sentence to be imposed but may have committed a crime that was so heinous that he or she thought it prudent to place preventive detention over the individual—the Parole Board is given an ongoing ability to hold that offender in prison.But what if the individual were not given preventive detention? We have been faced with this situation. Phil Goff was faced with it when he was Minister of Justice. He was presented with an individual who had committed heinous crimes against children—sexual offending against children. It was clear that that offender was not ready to be integrated and posed a risk to the community and so extended supervision orders were created. They gave the ability to monitor a prisoner in the community beyond the sentence that had been handed down. Yes it was a significant step in our justice system to be able to apply something in that manner but it was done and it was the right thing to do. It was right that it was debated extensively because it was a step away from those very important principles within our justice system.But now—I think because they really tested the boundaries—extended supervision orders have come to an end. They were set down for 10 years. They were not used too broadly and that was right. They were intended only for very particular offenders. But now that that 10 years is up some extended supervision orders are coming up for expiry in 2015 and this Government has had to face whether or not there are individuals who should have those supervision orders extended beyond that. We agree that for some offenders that will absolutely be required.But it has provided an opportunity to plug some other gaps with extended supervision orders. The bill that we have debated as a Parliament has suggested that instead of having a 10-year time limit we have no time limit but that we ensure we continue to review extended supervision orders so that we make sure they are not being used inappropriately or for longer than is required again keeping in mind that these are offenders who have served their sentence as handed down to them by the justice system.The bills also propose that we extend who is covered. As I said originally we were talking about sexual offenders specifically relating to children. The Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill extends who is covered. Clause 6 of the bill inserts new section 107B(2) which sets out under the Crimes Act 1961 the relevant sexual offences but also the relevant violent offences for which an extended supervision order can be placed. As I said it introduces 5-year mandatory reviews and it allows for intensive monitoring of up to 24 hours a day for the first 12 months.We debated this bill internally of course. Whenever we challenge the bounds of our justice system in this manner we need to make sure we have robust checks and balances in place. We have done that and have come to the conclusion that they are sensible amendments.The other group that is now covered by extended supervision orders are the offenders who are returning to New Zealand who have served a sentence abroad and whom we determine to be an ongoing threat. In the Committee stage I would be interested to discuss the practicalities around how we ensure correct information-sharing is occurring between overseas jurisdictions and New Zealand to make sure that those orders are being appropriately applied to those who are returning to New Zealand. We have seen some cases where we do not even share information properly within New Zealand—domestically—let alone with overseas jurisdictions so I think that is worthy of exploring.So we have decided that yes extended supervision orders in the form they are being put forward by the Government are something that we could support. But prior to this bill coming to the fore we were actually already debating another set of tools and that is public safety public protection orders. These are orders that go beyond extended supervision orders—which of course are placed on individuals who are in the community—and say that actually there is a group of offenders who should not even reach that stage who again do not have preventive detention or a life sentence that enables them to be kept within prison to serve a longer sentence if that is deemed necessary.One question I would raise is that it does interest me that we would have offenders who would reach that threshold but who have not been given preventive detention—whether there are cases where the judge had the ability to do that but did not and subsequently we are having to look at orders like this that at the endpoint allow for an extended order then to be placed through a civil regime. That begs the question of whether or not we should have something like a sentencing council which actually reviews cases where we would see that we would have to be retrospectively applying through civil orders measures to protect the community because perhaps the right sentence was not used in the first place. Labour has always supported a sentencing council based on the UK model which allows us to review cases and learn where we have failed where perhaps the legislation has gaps and make sure that we are not having to use these backstop measures. So I thought the question was worth raising.But the public safety public protection orders are at the best estimate of the Ministry of Justice going to cover only five to 12 individuals every 10 years. It is a reasonably small group of people and it is absolutely reasonable to expect that the threshold for those on whom these orders are placed should be very very high keeping in mind that these are individuals who have served the sentence they have been handed down. As our justice system dictates once you are convicted of a crime you are given your sentence and once you have served your sentence the usual expectation is that you are reintegrated into the community so to go beyond that we do need to ensure that we have a very high threshold.That threshold was set out in the first reading by Judith Collins who was the Minister in charge at the time. She stated the four characteristics that must be met for one of these orders to be placed because of course the order does still allow detainment—that is the difference with the extended supervision orders. The first characteristic is that there must be an intensive drive or urge to offend by the offender. Evidence for that might be for instance the fact that they have offended immediately upon release. That would beg the question that you would hope that someone would be subject to an extended supervision order in that case and if you have an extended supervision order that is one form of criterion for it to be upgraded to a public protection order.The second characteristic is an inability to control behaviour and emotions and that must be demonstrated by evidence of impulsiveness and an inability to cope with or manage stress. Third is an absence of understanding and concern for the impact of offending on the victim. The fourth is that the person experiences poor interpersonal relationships or social isolation. Obviously all of that must be demonstrated through proper analysis by professionals. These are not assessments that can be made just within the correction system without a proper assessment being undertaken by two health assessors independent legal advice and a psychological evaluation. It is absolutely right that the threshold test be that high.I do want to raise one final point. Although we are supporting these orders obviously we are always concerned that we make sure that we are not pushing the justice boundaries beyond where principles of good justice fairness and equity should be instilled within our system. We have always got to manage that and so those are the constant tests that we would like to see debated in this House given that we are going beyond what is the usual expectation of our justice system.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki):Around March or April of this year a number of the members of the then Law and Order Committee of the previous Parliament attended Parole Board hearings around New Zealand as part of our consideration of a bill before us. One of the prisoners who came before the board in Mt Eden prison where I attended a hearing was a prisoner who ended up being recalled because he was detected hanging around a mall observing young children and taking photos with a cellphone—clearly in contravention of his conditions of release. It was quite a chilling experience for a layperson and a number of us on the committee observed hearings up and down the country. He was a prisoner who clearly against the conditions of his release could not resist going to a mall even though he had been forbidden to do so. He could not resist getting a cellphone and taking photos even though he had been forbidden to do so and he was of course returned to prison.So when I look at some of the statistics and note that high-risk child sex offenders who are targeted by the extended supervision orders that we are discussing today are four times more likely to sexually reoffend against children than the lower-risk—if there is such a thing—child sex offender then I consider the two bills we are discussing today to be timely.First I will turn to the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill. This is being considered by the Law and Order Committee. It empowers the High Court to issue a public protection order that would allow for the detention of a prisoner in a secure facility. It is aimed at people who reach the end of a finite prison sentence. The question for us is what we do with prisoners who are about to reach the end of their sentence. Clearly no Government is of a mind to simply open the prison gate and say: “Good luck—don’t want to see you back again.” That has not happened for many many years. Nor do we wish to release prisoners who will then go on to reoffend very quickly. When we think about that statistic—where at the higher level or the more serious level of offending those who offend sexually against children are four times more likely to reoffend—that gives us all across this House pause for concern.The Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill provides for those at the end of their sentence who are within 6 months of being released and for those who are subject already to the most intensive form of extended supervision order. The test must be high though and the previous speaker Jacinda Ardern rightly raised the issue that we need to get the balance right between keeping society safe from these offenders and the rights of those offenders who are coming to the end of their sentences. The test is very high requiring that a person must pose a very high risk of imminent and serious sexual or violent offending. How do you test that? Well under the provisions of this bill offenders will undergo a comprehensive risk assessment. A person must have all of the following four characteristics and they must be at a very high level.So first of all they must have an intense drive or urge to enact the particular form of offending. They must have very poor self-regulatory capacity evidenced by general impulsiveness high emotional reactivity and inability to cope. They must have an absence of understanding and concern for the impacts of their offending on their victims or potential victims. And they must have poor interpersonal relationships or experience social isolation. When these prisoners are within secure facilities such as Mt Eden prison they are closely monitored; they go through a number of programmes. Although it might be argued that these thresholds can be subjective I think we need to be very careful that we set the threshold high enough—high enough—to protect the most vulnerable members of our society.I will just briefly say a few words on the other bill under discussion today and that is the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill. This bill enables the Department of Corrections to manage extended supervision orders for as long as is necessary for serious sexual and violent offenders who are at a high risk of reoffending and who do not meet the threshold required by the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill. So these bills work together.I want to come back in closing to the reason why these bills have been brought before the House: that is that although the corrections service has a focus on reintegration and rehabilitation so that prisoners have a chance of going back into society going back to their families and having a different life a productive life—and we all want that for them—at a certain point in time there are offenders within our corrections system who do pose a very very high risk to our children to women and to men and we must protect those people. I commend the bills to the House.KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau):As most people are aware across the House I have made a commitment to the elimination of sexual and physical violence across New Zealand. So it is with pleasure that I rise in support of the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill. I think it is a very important bill. But it is going to address only a small part of the problem. The problem of sexual and physical violence and domestic violence across New Zealand is huge. Let us not think that it is going to take one silver bullet to address the whole issue. This bill though plays a very small part in addressing the issue and it is targeting only a very few people.Not everybody who goes to prison is a violent or sexual offender. Of those people who are sexual or violent offenders—we are talking about a subset of all those who go to prison—only a very small proportion of them do not look like they have been rehabilitated and look like they will reoffend. Over the course of their detention in prison they would have been observed and monitored their behaviour analysed and their health looked at by various health professionals such as psychiatrists and psychologists. Basically these health professionals will have come together to make the decision that when this person is released they will have a very high chance of reoffending. This is the small group of people we are talking about in terms of the public protection orders.There is a threshold that the chief executive of the Department of Corrections must consider before he or she applies for a public protection order to be made. The offender must be over 18 years of age in the first instance—so we are not talking about young people. The person must be in prison for a serious sexual offence—so we are not talking about jaywalkers and shoplifters; we are talking about people who have committed serious sexual or violent offences and will be released within 6 months.I want to move to a section of people that I do not think have really been considered as likely to reoffend: these are the partners of women who are in prison for domestic violence. Many of those offenders—those men who have beaten their wives and may have gone to prison for that—will probably not display some of the behaviours that we are talking about or a high likelihood of being observed as having mental issues and things like that. My concern is that they will be released and many of them will have a high risk of reoffending against their partners and their children despite their not having really met the test that other members across the House have described.I will just go through that test again. High-risk people display an intense urge or drive to offend. Many men who have committed domestic violence will not necessarily display this while they are in prison. High-risk people have an inability to self-regulate their behaviour. Most normal adults can regulate their behaviour depending on the context—that is the situation they are in. The behaviour we display at work is often different from the behaviour we display when we are with our mates or playing sports but most of us have the ability to regulate our behaviour. The people who will be affected by this bill do not have that ability. Many men who are convicted—the husbands and the partners of women who have been beaten up—might not necessarily display these behaviours. They will show their ability to self-regulate and they might not be picked up because of this.The third risk factor is an inability to comprehend the impact of their offending on a person or to display empathy. The people whom we intend to detain through the public protection orders probably cannot display that. Yet many husbands who are violent towards their spouses probably can display that in prison. Also the fourth risk factor is the poor interpersonal relationships or social isolation of the offenders. They will have trouble making friends in prison and they will be socially isolated in prison. However many of the men—the husbands and partners who are in prison—will probably not display poor interpersonal relationships or social isolation. So what I am saying is that I have a concern that many violent and abusive husbands and partners will go out and reoffend and yet they will not display these risk factors. To me that is a real issue especially considering that yesterday was White Ribbon Day.The legislation in its entirety—the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill and the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill—is legislation that the Phillip Smith case was designed for. This is the exact reason why legislation like this is necessary. Phillip Smith murdered the father of a boy whom he was sexually molesting in 1996. He was coming towards the end of his sentence and was given liberties—in fact probably more liberties than a drunken sailor. He was allowed to go out for a number of hours. He went out unsupervised. The length of time that he was allowed out was extended from 12 hours to 24 hours to 48 hours to 72 hours. He was able to apply for a passport under another name and he was able to use that passport to get himself over to Chile and then up to Brazil—and it is a wonder that anybody caught him at all.If the Department of Corrections had been on the case they would have noticed that his behaviour was inappropriate. Really he should have had a public protection order or at least an extended supervision order placed on him so that he would not have been able to basically roam free around the community. My concern is: if he had not been caught in Brazil who would his victims have been over there? We know that in Brazil their laws their society and their community are a bit looser than ours. We know that there are many street kids over in Brazil and those people would have been at risk from Phillip Smith.Each prisoner is going to have an assessment and it has to be done by two or more health professionals including one registered psychologist. In other words we are not going to lock up just anybody; we are locking up people who are deemed to be at most risk of reoffending. There are a number of checks and balances to make sure that this bill will apply to only those people who need it most. Kia ora.JONO NAYLOR (National):It is with great pleasure that I rise to support a bill again one coming from a Government that is continuing to show its commitment to crime reduction in our country and in particular an ongoing commitment to supporting victims of crime. This is just another part that we want to play in continuing to see victims continuing not to be revictimised and to do what we can to reduce recidivist offending. Both of these bills the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill and the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill are I think incredibly important and even though they will affect only a very small number of people—as has been discussed already—what we do know is that this very small number of people have an ability to inflict a great deal of harm on innocent people within our society. It is the nature of the offending and it is the impact of this offending that warrants taking these extra steps to protect New Zealanders from these people.It has been great to hear the level of support that we have had from the other side of the House on this but I am sure that if not in this House then in our community we will get the odd person who will talk about the impact on human rights in us imposing some of these extra supervision orders and public protection orders. But I think it is important for us to recognise that we are not looking to impose something on innocent people or even people who have not yet been proven to be guilty. These are people who have already been found guilty of heinous crimes who have already proven to us that they need some level of supervision to ensure the safety of innocent people. So it is important that we do not forsake these innocent people’s rights to that protection by getting soft and getting too concerned about the human rights of those other people. Yes they do deserve the right to be able to rehabilitate but where they have clearly shown that they are likely to reoffend it is important that we take these steps.I think it is a great step forward. It is something that as we move through in dealing with crime—we have seen offending come down dramatically to very low levels but it is in this area of violent offending and sexual offending that we still need to as a nation make some impacts. I know that this Government is absolutely committed to doing that and in passing these two bills we can start making some small steps towards helping this going forward. Thank you.DAVID CLENDON (Green):These two bills we are debating today are serious bills. They deal with serious issues of community safety of reducing crime of reducing the potential for victimisation and revictimisation of people and I am pleased to see that they are being debated in this serious manner appropriate to their gravity.The previous speaker Jono Naylor in his brief contribution did touch on one or two matters. We must seek to protect our communities and put in place appropriate controls: legislation that does ensure—or at least to the greatest extent ensure—public safety while also acknowledging that we are a country that commits itself to maintaining human rights and respects civil rights. It would be unfortunate if we revert to the very dated language of “soft on crime” versus “hard on crime”. Let us adopt the notion of being smarter about crime and doing our very best collectively to get the outcomes and the best solutions we can to assure a level of community safety.We understand and support the notion of these two bills being addressed as cognate bills to be debated together. They are so closely interwoven that it would be difficult to do otherwise. They effectively establish two new regimes: the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill obviously extends an existing regime; the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill creates a new regime. We are in a position in the Greens where we perhaps not unusually support one of these bills the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill. We are happy to give our support to that bill but we cannot support the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill. For us that latter bill simply goes a step too far. We believe that what it seeks to achieve can be achieved by other less punitive and less onerous means. That is in no way to not acknowledge or recognise the seriousness of the offending and the difficulty of the offenders who will be potentially captured by that legislation.As I said the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill does effectively allow for the possibility of extending the existing supervisory order regime. There are undoubtedly New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issues. The bill has been deemed by the Attorney-General to contravene the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and that is something that often for the Greens would be a deal-breaker. We take some comfort in this case though from the fact that firstly the courts will be intimately involved in making judgments about the imposition of these orders that there will be mandatory review by the courts and indeed by the High Court and that the Parole Board will also be obliged to review on a 2-yearly cycle at least every 2 years any of the so-called high-impact conditions imposed on a person subject to these orders—high impact being for example anybody who is obliged to remain at one address for up to 70 hours a week which is effectively a curfew and indeed clearly does put considerable constraints on an individual’s freedom. It is appropriate that when we are imposing these high-impact conditions they are regularly reviewed and measured in the context of that person’s behaviour and the possibility of their being able to earn the trust of the community within which they will be living.I think that what influenced our decision even more on this legislation was both personal interaction with people who are already subject to supervision orders and who with an admirable level of self-awareness recognise that if they had no further supervision on them they would constitute a danger to the community and indeed to themselves. I have spoken as have others to individuals who are coming to the end of a 10-year supervision order and they understand very well that they are not yet sufficiently trustworthy. If they were left to their own devices—if there was no mechanism in place to extend their supervision—they understand very well that there is a high likelihood that they would reoffend clearly would create victims and that ultimately would see those people go back into prison. So the extension of the supervision orders we see as a middle road in a sense. It does allow for very high-level supervision and monitoring of these people who have not yet earned the trust of their communities and for very good reason but it does not go that step into suggesting either way that they should be completely freed or put back into prison.There was some debate at the Law and Order Committee about whether these ought to be civil orders. Frankly we saw that as a debate about semantics. In contrast with the public protection orders whether they are civil or criminal in nature we really need to look at both the effect on the person subject to these orders and the likelihood of ensuring community safety. Points are made in the report back on the bill about the importance of including some criteria for what constitutes behavioural characteristics particularly of the violent offenders because of course this legislation expands the scope from just child sex offenders through to those who have offended sexually against adults and to very high-level violent offenders. We think it is important that there are some criteria in that some determination of what actually constitutes that level of behavioural characteristic that would make somebody eligible or liable to this quite dramatic if you like legislation. So in short we are supporting the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill because we do see that there is an existing need and as I say we have been persuaded to a large extend by actual interaction with the people who we know by their own admission could not be safely left in the community unmonitored.The Public Safety (Protection Orders) Bill we see as going a step too far. We think that to a large extent the conditions that might have led us to think it was necessary no longer apply. The fact is that judges now do have access to preventive detention for example and at a time when some of the people who might be subject to public protections orders were given their determinate sentences preventive detention was not available. It is also true of course that some offenders are so young that they are not able to be subject to preventive detention but nevertheless we believe that there are sufficient mechanisms in place including of course this new legislation—the extension supervision orders legislation—which makes it unnecessary to go down this path of imposing these public protection orders.The Law Society in its quite comprehensive submission on this legislation outlined some of the issues and it determined that in its view this legislation does create an overly punitive regime for people who have been sentenced. They have been to court a judge has imposed a sentence and in most instances these people will have served their full sentences or have been paroled or some other mechanism will have been put in place. The Law Society called for the bill to be either withdrawn or significantly modified. We acknowledge there have been some changes made to the legislation but they are really not sufficient enough for us to give it our support. This is undoubtedly a double jeopardy situation—punishment that is ongoing almost without end in a sense. There is the possibility for these public protection orders to be in place almost indefinitely and we think that that is inappropriate given that we do have other options available to us options that include a range of sentencing and parole options for serious sexual and violent offenders.I will quickly in my last couple of moments just make a comment about the context in which these debates are held. It is unfortunate—and I say this with no righteousness; as a politician I take responsibility as well—that very often these serious criminal bills become effectively political footballs and as I mentioned we have this whole “hard on crime” and “soft on crime” nonsense. I think that we need to collectively endeavour to depoliticise some of these debates—to endeavour collectively to simply get the best outcome. I think we also need to address our friends in the media and endeavour to challenge the sensationalism that often surrounds the reporting of serious offending. The latest instance is this unfortunate woman dubbed the “Black Widow” who committed a serious crime—she murdered a person—but the sensationalism around the reporting of that case the endless gratuitous media reporting has now placed that woman in danger while she is serving her sentence. Finland is a good case study of where there was a political agreement not to politicise serious criminal legislation and for the media not to sensationalise the reporting of crime and offending and I think we could take a lesson from that. If we could get a similar level of agreement in New Zealand I think we would find that the passage of this legislation would be much more refined and much more successful. Thank you.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):New Zealand First supports both of these two bills. The Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill is relatively straightforward and makes two common-sense changes. It allows existing extended supervision orders to be renewed as often as is needed and the current 10-year limitation will go. And it means that the Act will now cover high-risk sex offenders against adults and also very high-risk violent offenders. There are some more minor amendments that include court-controlled rather than Parole Board - intensive monitoring of offenders for the first 12 months and it also clarifies the criteria to ensure that only the highest-risk offenders are eligible for these orders which would then allow them to live in the community under strict supervision but with the protection of mandatory court reviews.The Law and Order Committee recommended including in clause 12 of the bill a list of behavioural characteristics of an eligible violent offender indicative of a “severe disturbance in behavioural functioning”—and New Zealand First supports that—so that the courts will have the guidance needed in making an order noting the specific context for an extended supervision order as distinct from a public protection order.New Zealand First will also continue to support the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill—a bit of a mouthful—which includes a rather more complex set of important amendments. I want to commend the Justice and Electoral Committee for its detailed work in making the alterations that it has recommended and for the collaborative effort that was made in that committee.The bill achieves a very difficult balance between protecting citizens from serious sexual or violent harm and the right of those affected to be subject to the least restrictive form of detention that is practicable. It also will ensure adequate oversight of detention through regular reviews by a review panel and the High Court independent inspector and Ombudsman visits and an annual report to Parliament. These orders will incorporate the key safeguards necessary for a civil committal regime and will successfully observe the principles stated clearly in the Act.Firstly public protection orders are not about further punishing offenders—and I disagree with my friend Mr Clendon about that—and the offence is to be only one of several factors that are relevant to assessing whether there is a very high risk of imminent sexual or violent offending. Secondly a protection order should be imposed only if the magnitude of the risk posed by the respondent justifies it. Thirdly an order should not be imposed on a person who is eligible to be detained under mental health legislation. Fourthly and lastly persons who are detained in a residence should have as much autonomy and quality of life as possible. There must be an assessment as to whether a subject poses a high risk of serious sexual violent offending requiring the application to be supported by at least two psychologists’ and/or psychiatrists’ reports. The court may also call for a report by a health assessor and a respondent can also request such a report. I think that these are very good safeguards and very appropriate.The crux is that there must be proof of whether an order is necessary and the court must not find that there is a very high risk of further offending unless it is satisfied that the respondent exhibits a severe disturbance in behavioural functioning established by evidence of specified characteristics to a high level. The select committee has added an amendment clarifying that the standard of proof is to be the balance of probabilities. As this is a civil process that standard is appropriate. The select committee also inserted new clause 96A to provide for the suspension of proceedings while the person detained is detained in a mental facility or prison. It is correct that a public protection order and application should be suspended rather than discontinued if a respondent is subsequently detained in a prison or under mental health or intellectual disability legislation.Concerning the review provisions the select committee also added new clauses to require a court reviewing a public protection order to consider whether the subject still poses a very high risk of imminent sexual or violent offending taking into account the reports provided to the court. New clause 17(2B) provides that if the court finds that the person no longer poses a very high risk it must make a finding to that effect. To clarify the process that would then apply clause 80(1) requires the court to cancel the public protection order and impose a protective supervision order on the person. New clause 80(1B) would require the person to be released from detention as soon as practicable after a protective supervision order was imposed.Amongst the other changes introduced by the select committee I am gratified to see new clause 124B which inserts a section into the Legal Services Act to make any proceedings under the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Act a specified application thus making it easier to access legal aid than is the case for standard civil proceedings. That was something that I was particularly keen on in the select committee and I am glad to see it has been incorporated.Another welcome addition to the bill amends clause 31 to allow a resident to receive visits from permitted persons subject to any conditions or restrictions imposed by the resident’s manager. One clause will permit a visit to be unsupervised if the resident’s manager considers it would meet the resident’s rehabilitative needs. Another subclause exempts visits by inspectors office holders or of course a resident’s lawyer. New clause 56(1A) requires a resident’s manager not to allow a person under the age of 18 to visit a resident unless the visit is likely to meet the resident’s rehabilitative needs. So there is a good balance there between rehabilitative needs and an appropriate detention regime.There are numerous other additions and amendments made by the select committee such as those relating to searches. One of the most important I think is the new section relating to escape from lawful custody. New clause 124A adds a new provision to the Crimes Act 1961 making it an offence for a person subject to a public protection order to escape from a residence. This would allow of course police to apprehend and arrest anyone who escaped from such a residence. That was quite a big omission from the original bill and it is very important that it be included.It is to be emphasised that the person subject to a public protection order is not being punished and that a public protection order is for public protection purposes. As such a resident in a detention facility has the rights of a person of full capacity. Specific rights of residents include retention of earnings from permitted employment the right to vote to get newspapers to have internet access to use written communications and to receive permitted visitors. So these are not people without rights. They will have their freedoms severely limited but it is not like being in prison. There is a good balance there I think. The bill provides for inspections of residents at least twice a year. An inspector can arrive unannounced at any time to make an inspection.Finally the bill confers jurisdiction on the court to order that a person be detained in a prison instead of a residence if the court is satisfied that the person detained would pose an unacceptably high risk to themselves or others. There would be very few cases where that would be necessary but that is a very important part of the bill.Overall New Zealand First welcomes both of these bills which we think are needed to fill a gap in the law a gap that the public sees as an important issue and believes should be filled. I think these two pieces of legislation are well drafted. Again I commend the select committees that have amended and improved them and what we have now is some good legislation which meets public expectations and is well balanced in terms of personal rights as opposed to the need for public protection. New Zealand First will welcome both pieces of legislation and will certainly continue to support them through the whole process.ALFRED NGARO (National):This week it was White Ribbon Day when ambassadors right throughout the country of New Zealand are wearing white ribbons as a symbol and take a pledge that they will neither commit nor condone violence towards women and children. Inside of that that commitment and that pledge is to ensure that they are champions of change in their home and their community but also secondly that they have the opportunity in their areas of influence to be able to ensure that they keep that pledge. So I am here today as a White Ribbon ambassador with my colleague Steffan Browning over there as well. I suppose that in this area of politics it is an opportunity to exercise our influence to ensure that there is public safety for women and children and for those who are vulnerable in our communities as well.The Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill and the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill ensure in the management of high-risk sexual and violent offenders at the end of their sentences in their process of reintegration that safety mechanisms are in place as well. I want to commend the work of the Justice and Electoral Committee. As my other colleague over there Denis O’Rourke said there were 12 written submissions and eight oral submissions. I want to just complete my speech by reading from the regulatory impact statement—Carmel Sepuloni: You’ve got more to say than that Alfred.ALFRED NGARO: I have had a lot to say in the first reading. I have had a lot to do with the select committee. We heard the submissions so we have actually done a lot of the work. There is common agreement across the House that this is important legislation so we are not fighting in the debates; in fact we are confirming the role of that legislation. I want to conclude my remarks by quoting from paragraph 16 in the regulatory impact statement where it states: “On balance public protection orders … appear to best meet the policy objective. Public protection orders protect the community from future harm from a very small number of high risk offenders who are clinically assessed as being at imminent risk of serious sexual or violent re-offending”. We believe that the work that has been done through the select committee and the bills that have been returned back to the House ensure that there is both a balance of safety and protection as well as the civil liberties that are also there in our communities. In their second readings I do commend these bills to the House.JAMES SHAW (Green):First of all I would just like to start by congratulating the Minister of Justice Amy Adams on her appointment. I notice that the signs are very good that she will be an excellent Minister. I would also like to acknowledge the work that this Government and indeed the previous Labour Government have done on the field of crime. I also want to acknowledge the work of the Justice and Electoral Committee on both of these bills. I do think that they have been well considered. I am going to restrict my comments to the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill. As my colleague David Clendon has said in his remarks the Greens are intending to vote to support the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill and against the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill so I am going to restrict my comments to the second of those bills.I just want to note that the bill was introduced around the time of the furore surrounding the Stewart Murray Wilson event. As David Clendon said law introduced that responds to or in conjunction with high-profile media events is rarely good law.The regulatory impact statement and a number of other submitters indicated that this legislation is likely to be inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in particular sections 22 and 26 in respect of arbitrary detention and double jeopardy. These are also in contravention of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is clear that these people will still be effectively treated as if they are prisoners even though they have already served their time for their offences. It is a central principle of our justice system that when you do the crime you do the time and when you have done the time you are released and you are a free person. This legislation proposes that when people have served their time they will actually then continue to keep serving their time perhaps indefinitely.The legislation is designed to affect between five and 12 people. Sure some might ask why we are so worried about a piece of legislation that affects such a small number of people but the point of human rights is that they are universal. And so the question is whether universal human rights extend to all humans or to all humans minus one or five or 12. The Law Society also questioned the need for the legislation pointing out that there are existing sentencing options for criminal offenders available. These include but are not exclusively confined to the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act 2003. If someone has served 10 to 15 years and at the end of that time is assessed as having a near 100 percent chance of recidivism then they are surely by definition covered by the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act 2003 and similar legislation. We also believe that the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill—which as we said we are voting in favour of—effectively negates the need for the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill particularly when in conjunction with legislation such as the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act.In conclusion this legislation was introduced not in response to but in conjunction with sensational media events. It is illiberal and contravenes core principles of our justice system. It is an unnecessary bill and it deals with a tiny population and we will therefore be voting against it.MIKE SABIN (National—Northland):I will take just a short call on the extended supervision orders component of the debate today. The Hon Phil Goff is very familiar with the regime and he was one of the architects of the legislation and its need has been well traversed and well canvassed I think in the context of this debate.In this bill the changes essentially relate to extending the supervision orders regime for as long as is necessary as distinct from the 10-year period and it is clear that for a very very small percentage of offenders versus the number of people who ultimately go to prison and serve prison sentences this is required.The bill also expands the relevant offences for adult sexual offending some of which is at the most serious end of that and the most serious violent offenders. We are talking in numbers of single digits or certainly low tens in that regard. The legislation increases judicial oversight and puts in place 12-month supervision intensive supervision provisions again with judicial oversight which I think helps outweigh the implications of the breaches of section 26 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and double jeopardy. This is certainly something that committee wrangled with with regard to the fact that there is a risk of double jeopardy when Parliament legislates in this way. The Parole Board will be required to review this every 2 years.The balance is that for these most serious-end offenders we have preventive detention public protection orders and extended supervision orders in that order in terms of severity. There are some who will require all steps in that process although all those steps in that process are required for the most high-level offending. I see the changes in the extended supervision order component of this debate today in respect of the bill as being an important mechanism in getting the balance between public safety but also recognising that there are some offenders who will require ongoing supervision for an indefinite period in some cases and this bill does achieve that. Thank you.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):This debate is an unusual debate in the sense that it is considering two bills together cognate bills—a fairly new term even for an old-timer but it is because the two bills are dealing with very similar matters. Both bills are intended to protect the community against people who have completed a finite term in jail but are still considered as being at extreme risk of reoffending. I listened closely to my two colleagues in the Green Party and I always respect where they are coming from. They take a principled stand but it is not a stand that I agree with and I will touch briefly on that.Yes human rights are a universal right—they apply to everybody—but we are dealing with people whom I had to deal with when I was Minister of Justice people who I knew were totally incapable of controlling their urge to offend and to offend seriously. The choice that I had to make at the time—and therefore I understand the choice that the current Minister is making—was that if I let that person out because they had completed their finite sentence they would offend and their breach of other people’s human rights and particularly children would be serious and fundamental.I am talking about an individual the individual who is the reason why the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill has come before the house. I brought the bill in because of him and a group of people like him. His name is Lloyd McIntosh; it is in the public arena. He has an IQ probably of 80 or 90. He is incapable of controlling his urges. He is not evil; he just cannot control his urges. He was convicted of raping a 2-year-old child with awful awful consequences. The child nearly died. Lloyd McIntosh and his mother both want to maintain a supervision regime of this nature.I am very conscious of the fact that when you serve your finite term generally you have done the crime you have done the time and you can start again. But we are talking about a particular group of people who are extraordinary and they are extraordinary because they are at imminent risk of reoffending seriously. So what the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill does is extend the legislation that I brought in in 2002 and it does that by saying that when you have reached the end of your 10-year term you can be considered for and you can have imposed on you a further term of close supervision.The interesting thing about the extended supervision orders is that the people are still in the community so we are trying to minimise the limitation on their freedoms while respecting the freedom of others to be protected. This is a bill that has applied to about 332 offenders and still applies to about 251. What will it do? According to the departmental statement it will probably affect 25 to 30 high-risk sex offenders against children a year; 25 to 30—that is a significant number. If we did nothing about that the number of victims would be multiples of that number.As well as extending the term beyond 10 years the bill extends it to two other categories of offenders both with high risks of offending. One is sexual offenders against adults: that will affect a much smaller number of people a year four to nine. And also a third category: violent offenders with extremely high levels of risk of reoffending—that will affect only one or two over a 5-year period. So there are significant numbers particularly in respect of crimes against children and smaller numbers in the other categories.Interestingly this is a bill—and regrettably this is a bill—that does breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It breached it in 2002 and it continues to breach it and we have the Attorney-General’s comment on it. I would very much like to have avoided doing that. I do not ever lightly support a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I raised it at the select committee and we considered whether we could do what the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill does—which does not breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—and that is make it a civil regime. The extended supervision orders regime is a criminal regime because people come before the Parole Board.What we found out is that you could do that but you would be duplicating the regime that was already in place and there will be certain risks in doing that. The impact on the offenders would be exactly the same but we would actually remove it from breaching in principle the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I thought: “Well I’d love not to do that but should we go to this expense and also to incur risks if the impact on the individuals is exactly the same?”. In the end I came to the conclusion that probably that was not warranted particularly because the Ministry of Justice was unable to work through the alternative regime in the time frame before this legislation would come into effect which is designed to deal with the situation of Lloyd McIntosh and others in the same position.I was not on the select committee that considered the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill but I did speak on the first reading and I have read the bill carefully. It allows again for people who have completed their finite sentence to be detained this time in a secure detention facility. So it is not out in the community like extended supervision orders. It is in a place where there are walls and fences and they are unable or unlikely to escape. This applies to a much smaller number of offenders—about five to 12 over a 10-year period. It is a tiny number but the consequences would be huge if those people were let out into the community and we were unable to prevent them from reoffending.I looked closely at what the characteristics were in order to have a person put in this position. First of all the judgment is not a political judgment; it is made by a High Court judge. There are four characteristics that a person has to have: they must have an intense drive or urge to commit a particular type of offending and much of that would be sexual offending against children; they must have limited self-regulatory capacity; they must have an absence of understanding or concern for the impact of their offending on their victims; and they must have poor interpersonal relationships or social isolation. So the Act will be quite specific. The judge will make the decision and the judge will make the decision on the basis of people who have the professional medical or psychological skills and have had the opportunity to make that judgment about the person who has been in prison.Of course there are other ways that you could do this. One is of course a life sentence—there are some offences where there is a life sentence. For murder you always get a life sentence and that can be with a minimum parole period or not. Generally it is at least 10 years. That makes it easy to deal with those people because when you let them out on parole they are on parole for life and they can be recalled at any time.We also considered at the time a much wider use of preventive detention. Preventive detention means that you can lock a person up indefinitely. It is an indeterminate sentence. In some ways that would avoid entirely the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issue because if you give them that at the time of the sentencing by the judge you would not be in breach of that Act. A sentence is imposed and the person can be locked up for life literally and if they are let out they can be recalled at any time and that happens. But in some ways it would be a more severe regime to have a much wider use of preventive detention than what we are doing with these two pieces of legislation.I support and Labour supports these two pieces of legislation. We have considered them carefully. We are not doing this for any knee-jerk populist purpose. We are doing it for the fundamental responsibility that we have in this House to protect people where we can particularly vulnerable people like children against offending that is classified as almost inevitable and against an extreme risk on the part of that offender to go on offending and to cause and inflict appalling harm on other people. I think we have got the balance right. The Labour Party is supporting the second reading of these bills.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister of Corrections):It is a pleasure to speak on the second readings of these cognate bills. I will just touch on the extended supervision orders in the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill the bill I am responsible for. The arguments for this second reading which I support have already been espoused quite eloquently by previous speakers. But I want to say that the enhanced regime that the previous speaker Phil Goff just spoke about is about ensuring that the public are protected particularly from high-risk offenders when they finish a finite prison sentence and they do not meet the criteria for further detention under a public protection order.So the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill—or the “ESO Bill” as it has come to be known—enhances the current regime in two different ways. First the amendments enable extended supervision orders to be renewed as long as they are needed—not for a 10-year finite period as has been espoused but when they are needed. Second the scope of extended supervision orders which are currently only for child sex offenders has been expanded to include adult sex offenders and very high-risk violent offenders and that is important and an issue that clearly is widely supported across this House.The Law and Order Committee received four written submissions on the bill and heard from one of the submitters. I want to thank the committee—particularly the chair Mike Sabin—for hearing these submissions and dealing with this bill in an expedient way given the urgency with which we need to pass the bill in order to meet the demand I suppose to close down this loophole which that will appear early next year.Most of the submitters supported the objective of the bill which is to protect the public from serious sexual and violent offending from a small but very dangerous group of offenders. Obviously we have heard the counterargument around the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act implications but the committee carefully considered that issue and the bill includes appropriate safeguards to mitigate those New Zealand Bill of Rights Act implications. The safeguards include orders being subject to mandatory reviews by the courts and also that the Parole Board is required to review some of the most stringent conditions every 2 years. This means that those orders are in place only for as long as is warranted by an offender’s risk of causing serious harm to the public.In the public interest clearly if offenders still pose a risk to our communities at the end of their sentence then the Department of Corrections needs that ability to be able to manage them appropriately and safely in our communities. That is what this bill does and that is why members around this Parliament are supporting this bill. It has widespread support across this Parliament and that is why I am supporting this bill.Amendments recommended by the Justice and Electoral Committee by majority agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill be now read a second time.Ayes107New Zealand National 60; New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 11; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes14Green Party 14.Bill read a second time.Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill read a second time.Parole Amendment BillSecond ReadingDebate resumed from 6 November.CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston):I was not on the select committee considering this bill the Law and Order Committee but I can see why Labour supports this particular bill. This bill amends the Parole Act 2002 to increase the maximum time between parole hearings from 12 months to 2 years. For offenders serving indeterminate sentences or sentences of 10 or more years the maximum time between parole hearings increases from 3 to 5 years. Hearings will also be aligned with the completion of core milestones in an inmate’s offender plan and this is estimated to reduce the number of parole hearings by 800 per year. We support this bill.The one thing we are very aware of is that victims of crime can often feel unnecessary stress when dealing with the prospect that their offender may be released each year when in reality there is little prospect of that. I think that each and every one of us in this House and members of the general public have seen on a number of occasions particularly with high-profile cases that there have been victims who have been traumatised by the fact that on an annual basis they and their families have had to go through these quite excruciating parole hearings. The justice system must work to support and protect the victims of crime. We do agree that putting them through this stress and trauma when there is very little hope of the perpetrator actually being released is unnecessary.Labour’s vision is of a New Zealand that guarantees civil and human rights provides equal and full access to justice and achieves real public safety rather than just delivering immediate punitive measures. Currently the Parole Board is required to consider at least once every 12 months every offender who is eligible for parole. As I said before where there is little chance an offender might be released this does cause unnecessary harm. Although we must have a fair parole system for offenders who have accepted their actions and are ready to be rehabilitated when they have not parole hearings are a waste of time. This bill builds on previous work done by Labour. The Parole Board as we know it today comes from the work of Phil Goff. Actually I think this particular bill has been sitting on the Order Paper for quite some time and could have actually been addressed a lot earlier than what it has been.There does need to be some assurances that suitable candidates for parole are not being detained longer than necessary. Changes made at the select committee with the insertion of new clauses 21A and 21B address this though. The select committee also said: “In our consideration of the Bill it became clear that information on civil protection orders was not automatically available to the Parole Board. We see value in the Board having access to information on civil protection orders which may be relevant to their decision making. We have raised this issue with the Minister of Justice for her consideration.” That was directly from the select committee and we on this side of the House are hoping that the Minister will look at that.So there have been changes to the bill made at the select committee. By majority the Law and Order Committee recommended that the bill pass with the following amendments: that we replace the term “risk milestone” with “relevant activity” as it “is more neutral and does not imply a measure of potential risk”; that we insert “clause 5A so that standard release conditions applied automatically would be treated as if they were imposed by the Board”; and that references to the Department of Corrections in clauses 10 11 and 12 be changed to “the manager of the prison in which the offender is detained” because it is unclear currently who would be responsible for judging whether an offender has completed the relevant activities. There are two additional changes: “Clause 10 would insert new section 21A which would require the Board to set a date for the next parole hearing when declining parole. It would also allow the next hearing to be brought forward if the offender completed specified relevant activities.” The final change recommended by the select committee was amending section 21A(b) “so that when declining parole the Board could specify completion of a relevant activity as a factor in bringing a parole hearing forward only when the next parole hearing was more than 12 months away.”So we do support this bill and I look forward to hearing the other speeches from the House. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The—sorry Jonathan Young. I was about to promote the member.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth):I look forward to that—especially from you! Can I just say congratulations to my colleague the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga on his work and his promotion to the corrections role and also to Carmel Sepuloni on her re-election back into the House. I am very pleased to stand in support of this bill the Parole Amendment Bill. The bill proposes a number of amendments to the Parole Act 2002. The explanatory note states that they are “to reduce the number of unnecessary parole hearings but not to increase the length of time offenders spend in prison.” and improve efficiency by simplifying pre-hearing processes and clarifying when an offender’s attendance at a parole hearing is required. The proposed changes do not affect the earliest date at which an offender would become eligible for parole nor the actual length of an offender’s sentence.What the bill does is provide for increases in the maximum interval between parole reviews and the maximum duration of a postponement order. The bill provides that if the Parole Board declines to release an offender on parole it must ordinarily specify a date within the following 2 years for the offender’s next parole review instead of every year as is currently the case. There is also a provision for the board to identify relevant activities—which as the member Carmel Sepuloni stated has been changed from that former term “milestones”—relating to the risk the offender poses to community safety for the offender to achieve before the next hearing. If the offender achieves these early the case can be brought forward.We are putting victims at the heart of the justice system and delivering on our promises. Our plans to reduce unnecessary parole hearings for offenders will reduce stress for victims of crime. Victims of crime should not have to face the very stressful prospect of parole hearings year after year when an offender is clearly not safe to be released into the community and has made little or no effort at rehabilitation. Each year there are about 5000 parole hearings. On average offenders have three hearings before being granted parole. Added to this the bill provides that a victim offender or other authorised person can attend a parole hearing remotely such as via video link or phone. Our changes are to bring efficiency into the system and also to protect the victims from ongoing trauma when it is unnecessary for this to happen. Our changes will provide strong incentives for prisoners to address their offending behaviour and that is a good thing.Just before I close all prisoners have education screening with individual learning plans designed for them now. The number of prisoners gaining qualifications has increased by 830 percent up from 197 in 2008-09 to 1833 in 2012-13. Almost 3000 prisoners have started literacy and numeracy programmes in the financial year 2013-14 up 155 percent compared with 2007-08 and there has been an almost 1500 percent increase in places on drug and alcohol treatment programmes available for prisoners since 2008. There is every opportunity for prisoners to engage meaningfully in a rehabilitation process that enables them to receive their parole hearings. So not only will this prevent the unnecessary trauma or the revictimisation—nearly—of victims through that ongoing year-by-year parole basis but it also puts an onus upon prisoners to engage in that rehabilitation process in order to qualify for those parole reviews. I am very happy to commend this bill to the House.DAVID CLENDON (Green):It is interesting that we are debating this Parole Amendment Bill at this particular point when issues around early release of inmates from prison prior to completion of sentence are somewhat topical for obvious reasons to do with a particular individual’s sort of ill-considered trip to South America.But before speaking to the specifics of the bill I would just like to make some general comments about the value of parole. We are hearing voices—misguided voices in my view—that would suggest that we ought to completely abolish parole. Clearly this is not the intention of this bill—or anything near it—but we are starting to hear propositions that people sentenced to 3 years 5 years 7 years whatever it is should serve every day of that sentence and that parole should be eliminated as has been applied in one or two constituencies I think in the USA with not particularly satisfactory outcomes I would have to say.Parole has obvious and significant value. It allows for a degree of control to be applied to people after they have been released from prison and while they are returned into the community. It does give to the State a mechanism to apply some conditions and to keep a level of control and management of those individuals that would not otherwise be possible. There has been again one proposition that judges could set release conditions at the point of sentencing which is a ludicrous proposition when you think it through. How on earth could a judge whether they are sentencing someone 3 5 or 10 years down the track possibly be prescient enough to understand what conditions would prevail in terms of that person’s attitude and behaviours and the level of rehabilitation that has occurred?Clearly parole also provides incentives for inmates to behave well while they are in prison. Behaviour in prison is a significant determinant of eligibility or not for parole and to take that away would almost inevitably lead to prisons becoming more violent and more dangerous and places where there is less likelihood of any significant rehabilitation.The Green Party is not convinced or persuaded of the necessity for this legislation or that it will be in any way a useful or an effective contribution or solution to some of the issues that do surround parole. We understand the preference for extending the parole period between reviews for inmates where the chances of those people being released are acknowledged as being very slim. Inmates themselves often recognise that albeit they are going through the motions their chances of being released are very very minuscule. However we know there are existing mechanisms available to the Parole Board that could be used in the interim.We note that there are mechanisms in this bill that allow for inmates who complete milestone events to have their eligibility for parole review reinstated. Our fundamental concern about that is that we know already that the Department of Corrections is struggling to keep up with provision of rehabilitation programmes. In its scheduling of these programmes and its ability to link offenders who wish to undergo rehabilitative programmes be they education work readiness psychological work drug and alcohol treatment or whatever it might be the Department of Corrections is struggling already to provide for these people.We know that if we imposed a regime like this where one’s continued eligibility for parole review was a function of achieving programmes for instance the Department of Corrections would be inundated with requests for people to go into programmes that it simply is not equipped to meet. So it is sort of putting the cart before the horse a bit. It is creating a major incentive for inmates to seek rehabilitation while the provision is not there for those people to be put through those programmes and to undertake that treatment. We have heard that directly from the Department of Corrections and from people in the prison service. The lesser part of the issue is around its IT capacity and its ability to actually schedule these events and these programmes but more fundamentally it is simply that the resourcing is not there. We in the Greens actively advocate for—and have done for a long time—spending a lot less of the justice dollar on punishment. We need to reinvest that justice dollar into the provision of programmes.I do have to acknowledge that the previous Minister of Justice and the existing one are putting a great deal more focus on rehabilitation and reintegration but unfortunately the spend the dollar is not following the good intentions sufficiently quickly in order to enable otherwise quite good intentions to be fulfilled.Part of the rationale that we are offered for the extension of time between reviews is efficiency and cost saving. Again I am not suggesting that this is primarily a cost-saving measure but it is projected that there would be some dollar savings. I think counter to that you would have to consider whether the outcome of this new regime will be that people actually do spend longer in prison. Every inmate we know costs on average about $95000 to keep in prison. It would not require many such instances for any dollar savings to be very quickly chewed up by the fact that people are kept in prison longer.The more fundamental purpose of this—and we heard it from a previous speaker—is that it is true that we know that there is considerable stress on victims who do feel obliged to attend parole hearings. That is not a trivial matter but again we need to put that in perspective. We know—and again these are the Department of Corrections’ figures; they may be perhaps up to a year out of date but I think they will not have substantially changed—that only about 7 percent of eligible victims actually make submissions to Parole Board hearings so about seven out of every 100 make some form of submission and often it will be a written submission. About 3 percent of victims choose to address the board in person.I think a lot of people imagine that when a victim addresses the board they are obliged to confront the person who offended against them. That is absolutely not the case. Victims are never required to be in the same room as the inmate the person who offended against them. There is no such requirement of them. We are aware that the Parole Board is very sensitive to victims and seeks to accommodate them in comfortable non-threatening surroundings and often even travels to the victim rather than obliging them to travel to the site of the prison or wherever it may be. We know this directly.I must say that the Law and Order Committee did a good job on this bill. We actually took it upon ourselves under the leadership of the former chair of the committee Jacqui Dean to visit a prison and actually sit in on some Parole Board hearings. That was a very informative and valuable exercise to go through. We saw firsthand how the Parole Board operates and how it makes its decisions. It was a very useful addition to our knowledge and understanding of what actually goes on in the real world.I think the question that can be fairly raised is the extent to which this significant but very small minority of victims do participate in Parole Board hearings—one may fairly wonder how important their voice actually is. That is in no way to diminish their involvement or their engagement with this process but I think that the Parole Board rightly makes its judgment based on its clear belief and expectation of how people will behave once they are released from prison. Quite frankly I think it would be almost taken as a given that a person who has been offended against would want that person to serve the maximum amount. In very few examples we do see people who are offended against but nevertheless express their forgiveness and I respect that but for the most part I think that the views and input of the victim would be a relatively small part in the overall mix that influences the Parole Board decisions.I think we have to consider that there is a danger that part of the requirement would be that people confess to guilt. There is a very real likelihood that people who genuinely do believe themselves to be innocent—and it must be acknowledged that people on occasion are imprisoned and later found to be innocent of the offence that they were found guilty of—would simply tell lies. They would be compelled to admit guilt simply to be eligible for one of these releases.In short finally I would say that we believe the Parole Board has existing mechanisms that enables it to not go through the motions unnecessarily. This proposal is well intentioned but we do not see that it would deliver the outcomes that are expected or that it would be intended to deliver. For that reason we will not be supporting it.Debate interrupted.Amended Answers to Oral QuestionsQuestion No. 4 to MinisterRt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):I seek leave to make a personal explanation to correct an answer I gave to question No. 4 today.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Leave is sought to make a personal explanation. Is there any objection? There is no objection.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: In response to a question asked by Dr Woods today as to whether I had had communications with Cameron Slater between 23 November and 25 November regarding the Chisholm inquiry of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security report I said no. Given the member’s primary question was regarding the Chisholm inquiry I answered in that context as that is what I thought I heard her say. Subsequently I have checked the transcript and have realised that the member had also added on to that and asked about the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security report. My corrected answer is no with regard to the Chisholm inquiry and yes in relation to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security report. On Monday 24 November I received an unsolicited text message from Mr Slater with a reference to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security report. There was a very short exchange where I briefly acknowledged that text message.Parole Amendment BillSecond ReadingDebate resumed.RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First):I am pleased to rise to speak to the second reading of the Parole Amendment Bill on behalf of New Zealand First and on behalf of my dear friend and close colleague Mahesh Bindra in whom we are fortunate to have a member with lengthy experience in and a deep working knowledge of the corrections sector.Although I sat on the Law and Order Committee which considered this bill this is the first opportunity I have had to speak to it. New Zealand First supports this bill because we believe it is a good bill a necessary bill and a piece of legislation that will tangibly improve the lot of people who have been victims of crime. Under existing parole arrangements they are forced to be revictimised entirely unnecessarily every 12 months and have to undergo the unpleasant and sometimes wholly traumatic experience of reliving the crime they were subjected to as offenders who have no realistic let alone deserved chance of gaining early release are granted parole hearings at regular and frequent intervals simply because that is what the law as it stands prescribes.There are some aspects of this bill with which New Zealand First is not entirely happy but it would be churlish of us to oppose it on those grounds. As with much of this Government’s approach to law and order issues we feel there are aspects of this bill that do not go far enough. New Zealand First takes a strong line on law and order. We are not soft on crime in the way that some parties in this House are soft on crime. I am not accusing National of being soft on crime I should say to members opposite—not at this point anyway. I cannot guarantee however that no such accusation will be levelled at any juncture throughout the 51st Parliament.National does have a bit of a track record of going a wee bit wobbly at the knees when push comes to shove. When the big stick needs to be waved and they can see the whites of the criminals’ eyes they do have a bit of a tendency to pull their punches to be a wee bit sensitive. It is our job to keep them on the straight and narrow. New Zealand First will be the voice of the people when the National Party’s conscience fails them when their collective stomach shows signs of weakness.There will be opportunity for some aspects of this bill to be improved during the Committee of the whole House and it is probable that New Zealand First will suggest some amendments by way of Supplementary Order Paper. We hope that the National Government will be open to the genuine and impartial consideration of these proposed changes. They will be reasoned and reasonable. We are like that. New Zealand First is a reasonable party. We are reasoned in our thinking. This is the approach that we believe is appropriate for constructive opposition. Members opposite and the general public may be assured that we will be just as reasoned and reasonable in Government.We have a caution with regard to this bill and that is that its name implies things that may give the general public cause to believe that the bill has aims and intentions that are in fact very much outside the scope of this bill as it has been formed. People could be forgiven for assuming that a bill named the Parole Amendment Bill might be a bill intended to correct all that is wrong with parole. It is no such thing of course. This bill will correct a singular deficiency of the parole system and that we both salute and support but it will not address the numerous other concerns that ordinary people have regarding the application of parole in New Zealand. It will not address the fact that far too many people are granted parole when they patently and obviously still pose a danger to the public. Far too many of them go on to commit further heinous crimes whilst on parole and innocent people are robbed beaten raped and murdered by criminals who ordinary common sense says should still be locked up.As much as with the ongoing deficiency of the bail system inherent faults in the mechanisms by which parole is granted in New Zealand continue to be the cause of far too much unnecessary crime and far too much real and irrevocable suffering on the part of far too many innocent people who do not deserve a bar of it. New Zealand First urges the Government to revisit the issues of both bail and parole as a matter of urgency as soon as is practicable in the new year. We accept the fact although we do not like it that it cannot be done this year but to undertake a complete overhaul of bail and parole laws is a matter of priority to ensure that these systems are able to protect innocent people to preserve justice and to keep ordinary folk safe from the actions of criminals.I know that many of these same concerns are shared by members on the Government side of the House because they were expressed by submitters during the consideration of the Bail Amendment Bill and the Corrections Amendment Bill by the Law and Order Committee of the 50th Parliament. The concerns of submitters found a sympathetic reception amongst some of the Government members of that committee. This is a matter of real importance and it is a matter of profound relevance to a great many New Zealanders. We very much hope that this Government will take these concerns on board and will respond proactively to them.This bill is a step in the right direction. It is a step along the right road. The changes that it will bring will be positive and beneficial and they will be appreciated by ordinary law-abiding people. We support it in that light. But it could be better. We will be making suggestions as to how it could be made better. We encourage the Government to consider our suggestions when the time comes as part of a commitment to improve corrections outcomes overall and to enhance the safety and security of our people and communities. New Zealand First supports this bill and we look forward to improving it during the Committee stage. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I call the next member I would like to refer members to Speaker’s ruling 47/1 and say that three out of the four speeches—and I will exempt David Clendon—that we have had on this bill today have breached that Speaker’s ruling.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei):I am almost too frightened to speak. I do want to comment on the bill but I also want to comment on a couple of other things that led up to the bill. In the last Parliament we had the opportunity as the Law and Order Committee—and it was a very valuable opportunity—to visit some parole hearings and in the course of visiting those parole hearings it gave us a very clear view of why we needed to do what we did. I am not sure whether the previous speaker Richard Prosser had the opportunity to visit those parole hearings and I am not sure that I share all of his views but I do eat red meat and I know that he does too.I also think that this bill is a very specific bill dealing with one particular piece of the parole process I guess. It gives the victim some peace from attending repetitious hearings and also gives the criminal or the person who is eligible for a parole hearing an opportunity not to have to be heard when they know clearly that they are not going to get the opportunity to get a result at that parole hearing. So it is all about efficiency. It is about protecting the victim. It is also about taking the pressure off those prisoners who know clearly that they are not going to get the opportunity to get out of prison as a result of that hearing.I think the bill is certainly worthy of support. It certainly does not deal with a broad review of the parole system or anything else. I think our parole system is working very well and I also think from the observations we had in the last Parliament as a result of those Law and Order Committee visits that a large amount of the stuff that goes on in this sector is very good. Unfortunately like everything else we have in this country there are one or two things that slip through the process and that is what gives the parole system its challenges. It is what gives our Department of Corrections a lot of its challenges.I think that this bill goes a long way towards making things easier for a few people in the system and I certainly fully support that. When you go and visit corrections facilities parole hearings and courts you get a very clear view as to why the work that has been done in the last 5 or 6 years by this Government has led to some changes in the law and order system and in the Department of Corrections which I think have done a great deal of service to New Zealand.So that is my lot. I have got no problem supporting this bill. I think it is a good little piece of legislation. Thank you.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):It is my pleasure to speak briefly on the Parole Amendment Bill. I had the pleasure of sitting on the Law and Order Committee which considered this bill. Obviously as would have been set out by previous speakers this is an amendment to the Parole Act 2002 which by and large I think was an extremely good piece of legislation. It was introduced by Phil Goff. The primary foundation of this legislation is that when the Parole Board considers any offender for parole its primary consideration is the safety of the community when determining really the reintegration of a prisoner back into society. That is the board’s primary driver. Of course in order to assess whether or not that is the case for an offender there will be a series of points at which the Parole Board will meet with an offender will have someone from the corrections service alongside them and will assess their suitability for parole. They will receive a significant amount of information when considering parole although as we have learnt not necessarily all the information that they need and I will come to that later on.But that does mean that if an offender comes up for eligibility it does not necessarily mean they are ready for release. You could say that someone like Phillip Smith may have been an example. He had come before the Parole Board and it had determined that he was not ready for release. That happens frequently. Someone who has a life sentence may come before the Parole Board many times. So what this bill tries to address is the fact that an offender who is not ready for parole who is coming back before the Parole Board frequently can actually re-traumatise a victim. If they are on a victims’ register in order to be notified of Parole Board hearings they basically can find themselves in constant preparation for Parole Board meetings and that is a significant driving force behind this piece of legislation. There is the ability to defer Parole Board hearings already but what this bill does is allow that deferral period to go from 3 to 5 years for offenders who have an indeterminate sentence or a sentence of 10 years or more those who are on preventive detention and those who have life sentences because that is indicative of the severity of their crime and the fact that there may be longer periods between those meetings and that might be appropriate. But it also allows the Parole Board to make a recommendation that a maximum time between parole hearings moves from 12 months to 2 years.There are some things that the select committee considered that I want to raise in the House. Actually it was my assumption that every offender would want the opportunity to go to a hearing and have their opportunity to make the case for them to be released. That is actually not the case. I have visited a number of prisons and actually sat in on Parole Board hearings where in one case an offender actually said: “I do not want to be considered for parole. I am not ready.” They were working through a release-to-work programme they wanted to make sure that they finished a rehabilitation programme they were in and they themselves determined they were not ready for release. That might be an example of where a deferral of 2 years from their previous meeting may have been a good thing to do. So that was one assumption that I had challenged during this process.The other is that the Parole Board does not play just one role. It is not there just to determine whether someone is ready for release. It sets out guidelines for what it would like to see the corrections service do to prepare an offender for release. This is a bit of a concern because if we remove that check and balance who then is assessing whether corrections is ensuring that the programmes that its Parole Board has recommended are being fulfilled? That is an issue that came up a number of times. The Parole Board will often make recommendations around rehabilitation programmes it wants in place or work that it wants done that corrections is not always fulfilling. We discussed ways and mechanisms to ensure that that would happen and that is something I would like to ask the Minister to address in her next speech to the House: how she can ensure that if that Parole Board is not acting as that mechanism there is another way to ensure that come the next meeting if it is 2 years away corrections is fulfilling the requirements of the Parole Board. I think that is really important.Otherwise I will use my other opportunities in the House to traverse some of the other recommendations made by the select committee because they were numerous. Otherwise this is a bill we support. We do think it will better support victims and ultimately could be beneficial to offenders in their rehabilitation also.JAMES SHAW (Green):I apologise for missing the call before. I was distracted by reading Speaker’s ruling 47/1 I believe it was and will attempt to where possible not read from notes. I will compensate by making this a short call to just restate the reasons why the Green Party will not be voting for the Parole Amendment Bill.There are three reasons. First of all the select committee process failed to assuage our concerns that the costs in terms of fairness and justice here would not be offset by the reduced costs and deficiencies.Second a number of people have said that the stress is on the importance of protecting the victims of crime and the families of victims from the trauma of having to go through repeated parole hearings. But we know that at no time are victims obliged to engage with offenders. We have also observed that the Parole Board manages the needs and the sensitivities of these people as they go through that process.Third and finally we understand and we believe that the Parole Board currently has existing tools and mechanisms in place that essentially render this legislation unnecessary. So for those three reasons primarily we will be voting against the bill. Thank you.ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa):I rise to support this bill in its second reading. I am proud to be part of a strong National Government that is building a safer New Zealand. We have embarked on a comprehensive programme of reform to protect communities reduce crime and put victims first. I am proud to be part of a strong National Government that is putting victims at the heart of the justice system and delivering on our promises. I am proud to be part of a strong National Government that has plans to reduce unnecessary parole hearings for offenders which will reduce stress for those victims of crime.The purpose of this bill is to amend the Parole Act 2002 to implement National’s post-election action plan to reduce the number of unnecessary parole hearings where the offender has little prospect of release. The Parole Act will be changed to extend the maximum interval between parole hearings from 1 to 2 years and extend the maximum postponement period for offenders serving indeterminate sentences and determinate sentences of 10 or more years from 3 to 5 years.Yet again National is delivering on its promises. National is delivering on its promise to reduce unnecessary parole hearings. Victims of crime should not have to face the very stressful prospect of parole hearings year after year when an offender is clearly not safe to release into the community and has made little or no effort at rehabilitation.Each year there are about 5000 parole hearings. On average offenders have three hearings before being granted parole. Our changes will provide a strong incentive for prisoners to address their offending behaviour. They will also provide greater flexibility for the Parole Board to set hearing dates to align with the completion of rehabilitation programmes. The changes will save an estimated $700000 per annum. National is putting victims first. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I just say to the member that he is better at reading his speech than he is at reading Speakers’ rulings.KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau):The member opposite Alastair Scott has just said that there are 5000 parole hearings a year and I believe that this bill will reduce that number by 800 and as I have just heard save $500000 in the process. I think that is a commendable part of the bill. I would like to see those resources that are being saved actually going to address the issues that David Clendon raised in that one part of this bill is to incentivise prisoners to address their offending the causes of their offending and possibly move their parole hearings forward a bit so they can get released. Yet the member David Clendon raised a really good point: if all these prisoners are motivated to have their parole hearing moved forward will there be enough resources enough money to actually support the Parole Board to make that happen? I thought he raised a very good point there about the lack of resources to support this whole process to happen but over here we are hearing of a saving of $500000 with 800 fewer Parole Board hearings and I can see how that cost if the Government is willing can actually be transferred to what David Clendon was addressing.The bill does amend the Parole Act 2002 and it does increase the maximum time between parole hearings from 12 months to 2 years. Why would we do this? Quite simply there are some prisoners who have little or no prospect of being released at a parole hearing—as many members have described today. Why would that be? The offender possibly has taken no steps to address their offending they have not acknowledged the offending or the harm that they have caused to the victims and they still pose a risk to the community. If this is obviously the case then there seems to be little point in holding a parole hearing for no reason when the conclusion is all but foregone. It seems a much better idea to meet with offenders who have addressed their offending and have a chance of being released. The hearings we have heard cause undue stress to the victims.Also listening to what David Clendon said only 7 percent actually put in a written submission and 3 percent front the offenders. All the same knowing that your offender is going to come up for a parole hearing with little chance of him being released will still cause undue stress and anxiety in the victims. It is bad enough experiencing the crime in the first instance without having to relive it emotionally every 12 months for no apparent reason—in particular if the offender has no chance of being released. For many reliving the events every 12 months is as bad as the actual crime itself. So the bill includes a process to motivate the prisoner.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.KELVIN DAVIS: We are debating the Parole Amendment Bill. We have heard some really interesting arguments here. Most of the members of the House support this bill; the Greens do not. I listened to David Clendon’s arguments and I understand them. What was really interesting to hear was the point made by the previous National speaker that there are 5000 parole hearings heard a year. This bill is going to reduce that number by some 800 parole hearings a year saving some $700000 in the process. It would be great to see that $700000 used to actually allay the issues that the Green member David Clendon raised around the number of inmates who will be so motivated by this bill that they will want to meet the conditions and they will want to have their parole hearings moved forward so they can get released. David Clendon’s concern though was that there would not be the resourcing available to support that process to happen but because we hear that $700000 is going to be saved it would be great to see that money used for that purpose.Again just to go over things the bill amends the Parole Act 2002 and it increases the maximum time between parole hearings from 12 months to 24 months—to 2 years. It does this simply because there are some prisoners who are not going to get paroled but who still have to go through this annual process. One of our concerns is for the victims who every year as the parole hearing for the perpetrator of the crime against them comes forward is going to have their anxiety their angst and their stress levels raised unnecessarily when we know that quite possibly that perpetrator will not be granted parole. It seems to be a waste of time a waste of resource and a waste of emotional energy from the victims. Why is this? Possibly because there are some prisoners who have taken absolutely no steps to acknowledge their crimes to rehabilitate and there is still a risk of them reoffending; therefore they are not really going to get parole as they should.As we say if this is obviously the case then there seems to be little point in holding a parole hearing and going through the motions simply for the sake of going through the motions. It seems a much better idea to meet with offenders who have addressed their offending and have a chance of actually being released. As I have said the hearings or the impending hearings when the hearings do happen cause undue stress on the victims even though as we have heard again from the Green member only 7 percent of victims actually put forward a written submission to the Parole Board and only 3 percent actually attend the Parole Board hearings. There is no burden on them to actually front up to the offenders. However just the whole process as I have said creates stress and anxiety for the victims and often that is unnecessary. So the length of time between parole hearings has been extended to 2 years.The bill includes a process to motivate a prisoner to address their offending and address the reasons for their offending by including a process for bringing their case forward when milestones are achieved earlier than expected. We do not want prisoners who are fit for parole to actually be denied that opportunity to seek parole when releasing them would be better for both the prisoner and their rehabilitation and social integration and also better for the criminal justice system and the community. Like I say it is better for the justice system that 800 fewer Parole Board hearings are likely to be heard because of this bill.We must work to support and protect the victims of crime; that goes without saying. They should be in the forefront of our thinking. Victims as I have said can feel this unnecessary stress from having to prepare for the pending Parole Board hearings. Labour’s vision is for a New Zealand that guarantees civil and human rights provides equal and full access to justice and achieves real public safety rather than just delivering immediate and punitive measures. It gives us pleasure to support this bill. We hear and understand the reasons why the Green Party does not support it and I respect those members’ views. But we in the Labour Party believe this is a good bill which is going to help victims. It is going to help offenders address their offending and it is going to be better for all of New Zealand. Kia ora.JOANNE HAYES (National):Kia ora. I have listened to the sound reasoning debate and arguments that have gone on with this bill over the debating period. Really there is only one thing left for me to do. This final task is to commend the bill to the House wholeheartedly. Thank you.Amendments recommended by the Law and Order Committee by majority agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the Parole Amendment Bill be now read a second time.Ayes105New Zealand National 60; New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 11; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes16Green Party 14; Māori Party 2.Bill read a second time.Commerce (Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment BillSecond ReadingDebate resumed from 24 June.CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South):Given that I spoke in I think it was June on this bill it was a bit hard to—[Interruption]—so I am now picking up where I left off.Carmel Sepuloni: 5 months to finish off.CLARE CURRAN: Five months to finish this speech.The first thing I would like to say is that—and I have to admit a slight personal note here—I am feeling very excited tonight having been part of the announcement around Welcome to Gigatown to hear that Dunedin has won the Welcome to Gigatown competition now. First of all I would just like to say a huge thank you to all of the team in Dunedin for the enormous work that they put into that and a big thank you also to the four other contestants in that competition: Gisborne Timaru Wānaka and Nelson. It was a huge effort—huge effort. I have to admit that I was sceptical about this particular competition and I was sceptical about the ability to deliver what the objectives were.In relation to this particular bill the Commerce (Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill there is a relationship that I am going to draw but I would like to say that first of all this is a huge kick-start to Dunedin which has suffered a number of blows which is not to say that other parts of regional New Zealand many of the other contestants in this competition are not suffering from regional decline and could have done with the $700000 innovation fund and the ability to kick-start new businesses. But the point is that—and this is where it becomes relevant—what Chorus has done through this competition is actually create competition in our community. Some members might be surprised to hear me say this but I really do applaud Chorus for its initiative around this and I want to have that on the record. I actually said tonight that I would eat my hat if Dunedin won and so now I guess I have got to. I am glad I did not say I would run naked through the Octagon. But I guess I will now have to make good on that promise.The other area where the competition has fallen down in the telecommunications environment is in the handling of the copper-pricing issue. We are waiting to hear the outcome from the Commerce Commission on this just next week around what that wholesale pricing will be. What this bill is attempting to address is the cartel and monopoly behaviour that can exist in a small country such as New Zealand where market capture can become a very serious issue. The effect of that is the stifling of innovation and an impact on small companies getting scale getting the ability to build and to export business and being able to develop. I think that what this bill—which the Labour Party is supporting—attempts to do is to take and address some of these issues. We have been through a pretty comprehensive select committee process. I acknowledge the role that the select committee has played and that the officials have played.However the point—going back to the issue around the copper network which is dominated by a very big player that has had quite a lot of support from the current Government to maintain its market stranglehold in that area and impacting in the new emerging fibre environment—is that we have not gone the whole way that we should have. My colleague Clayton Cosgrove put up an amendment in Supplementary Order Paper 408 which has been tabled in the House and is available to anybody who wants to go and have a look at it tonight during this part of the debate because we will have the Committee stage as well which is when that will get voted on. I do want to draw this very serious and important amendment to the attention of the House tonight. For those who have forgotten about this issue—and I do not know whether there are any existing members of the Commerce Committee present with us tonight—this issue was around addressing the effect of cartel behaviour not just the intent but the effect the actual impact of what actually happens in a market environment when there is monopoly behaviour or cartel-like behaviour and what that can actually mean.I think this is a really important issue. Essentially it was described by my colleague Clayton Cosgrove in his second reading speech back in June—and we are now in November. As the legislation currently stands the Commerce Commission has to prove the intent of monopolies abusing market power rather than the effect of their behaviour. The big gap in our law that has not been addressed in this bill is the effect. It is difficult to prove intent and that is where the gaps are: you can say that we cannot prove intent so therefore we cannot measure it and therefore we cannot do anything about it. So there is a cop-out that happens. But if we actually were able to it is much easier to measure the detrimental effects of monopolistic competition through their effect and that is what this amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 408 put up by Clayton Cosgrove actually does. It measures the effect. He used the example of applying the current law to the real world. He said that if he drove in a car that caused an accident that broke somebody’s legs then that would be OK—well it would not be OK—unless he was breaking the law in the way he drove if it was not his intent to do that. But the effect is that the victim is considerably worse off. I think that if you have the ability to measure effect then you are in a fairer environment and that is where we should be moving the law.In closing this speech I guess there is a big message that I have for the incoming Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs on this issue. The previous Minister of Commerce Craig Foss would not go near it. Essentially he kept saying: “Oh yes yes yes. We’ll have officials look at that.” The incoming Minister has been given advice. He has been given some advice around this issue saying: “Your pre-election policy plan proposed a review of the misuse of market power prohibition in the Commerce Act. Commentators have questioned whether this provision is working as intended. In addition Australia is undertaking a broad ranging review of its competition policy which raises issues of relevance to New Zealand.” Officials said: “We will brief you on the potential scope and plan for this review including the recent draft recommendations from the Australian competition review.”Well I hope that the new Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs is listening tonight because he is on notice. He is on notice around section 36 of the Commerce Act. The chair of the Commerce Commission the Productivity Commission and the telecommunications industry have all expressed the absolute need to reform section 36 of the Commerce Act. This Government needs to go into that space and look at how competition is working or is not working in this country. This party on this side of the House is watching and will not only be watching but be speaking out very loudly around the abuse if it is happening in competition in this country where monopolies and duopolies have got too much of a stranglehold. So I leave you with that thought and look forward to the Committee stage of the debate.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki):I am actually quite pleased to bring this second reading debate back to the Commerce (Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Actually I thought that in the last contribution one of the absolutely key words was “if”. The member was saying “if there are cartel operatives” and so forth. Of course the Labour Party over the last year has tried to make a number of accusations against companies in New Zealand about their behaviours and it has not actually worked out too well. In fact over recent days Labour members have tried to make accusations. That is not working out too well either. [Interruption] One of the great things about the Labour Party you see is that as soon as you say something that hits a nerve Labour members react. It is fantastic.But as I said we come back to the Commerce (Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. What we are looking at here is an important second reading. I want to acknowledge the new Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs the Hon Paul Goldsmith and the work that he has done to bring this through—actually a remarkably hard-working Minister—and I am surrounded here by some of my new colleagues on the Commerce Committee including Melissa Lee who is the chair. I am looking forward to seeing this bill progress through the House.This is ultimately a bill at the heart of what the National Party believes is a way forward for our economy. It is about a strong capital market that vital source for finance to help our businesses grow. Over the last 6 years and now into our third term we are looking at ways we can adapt and change things. I was talking actually over the last 24 hours with some people in this sector and they are very keen to see this bill progress. They are keen to see that that balance occurs here between allowing pro-competitive collaboration but also making sure that we are not going to have those sorts of hard-core cartel operations either. It is a balance and I think what the select committee has done in returning this bill to the House has struck that balance and that is a certain degree of positivity that I am hearing already out there.There are a couple of elements that I just want to draw members’ attention to. The first is what is known as the prohibition. Fortunately people will probably be pleased this is not the American Prohibition. This is ultimately around how we define hard-core cartel conduct. One of the things this bill is doing is providing a much clearer definition around such things as fixing prices restricting output allocating market and things like rigging bids as well. So this bill provides a lot of clarity in this space and ultimately as those who have operated in business or who have run a business will know certainty is absolutely critical.The other element—because I am sure that other colleagues will touch on various other aspects from the exemptions and clearance regimes—is around the notion of penalties. We want to update the penalties here to make it very clear that when there is anti-competitive behaviour particularly around cartels the penalty is appropriate. The bill is introducing criminal sanctions and this is for both individuals and companies but I will not tire the House by going into the particular details. There is though I think a change if I recall correctly that the committee has introduced basically around the tension between the criminal and the civil sides.This is a good bill. I think it is a good indication of a hard-working Minister—Paul Goldsmith—who has grabbed the bull by both horns. It is great that the bill is here before us and I look forward to the furthering of the debate.JAMES SHAW (Green):I am rising to speak in support of this bill. I will not take the full call because we think it is a very good bill and we do not really see the need to delay its passage through the House.I do want to acknowledge the work that the Commerce Committee has done on this bill on reviewing it post the select committee hearings. We feel that it has actually been substantially improved over the initial version.I do think it is important to recognise that New Zealand is a very small market. I spent most of my career living in London where the New Zealand economy would sort of fit into one of the London boroughs. I just want to note that in a large market the competition and the variety of players out there will tend to mitigate against cartel-like behaviour. Moving back to New Zealand a few years ago I noticed how in pretty much most market segments there were at most half a dozen players and I also just noticed that with regard to New Zealand prices for a number of reasons but the small number of players being the main one New Zealand consumers pay considerably higher prices than people in other markets.Just coming off of that I also noticed that the international aspect of this is really important both in terms of harmonising our regime with other similar regimes—particularly Australia; I think that is a particularly good aspect of this bill—and also in that our companies are global players. They are exposed to international players as well and it is good that this bill reaches out into the rest of the world and looks at the behaviour of our companies that are operating overseas and also at international businesses that are operating here of which there are obviously very many.The issue of criminal sanctions is the one area that we are most keen on. It is pretty significant that we are placing personal liability at the heart of this bill. It is very easy to see in most of our regulatory regimes in corporate law where a company can be fined or a company can be held liable that that does not necessarily deter bad behaviour on behalf of either the directors or management. In this case because we are actually saying that individuals will be held liable for criminal offences that is going to be a significantly greater deterrent to this kind of behaviour than just maintaining a corporate fines regime.So for those reasons we like this bill. We are very happy with the work that has been done on it and are happy to commend it to the House.FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First):I stand in support of the Commerce (Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill on behalf of New Zealand First. The amendments arise from meaningful discussion with specialist interest groups and the ministry and I too note the work of the Commerce Committee and acknowledge Melissa Lee. These amendments look to clarify the scope of prohibited behaviour introduce new exemptions and introduce criminal sanctions for hard-core cartel behaviour. Anti-competitive behaviour is usually undertaken by the big players and it usually leads to large inefficiencies in the New Zealand market and that undermines the average Kiwi household. Mums and dads suffer as the giant corporates are able to take advantage of powers that New Zealand First would argue are currently more pervasive in New Zealand than many might think. Cartels in particular are the coming together of mutually dishonest minds to literally rob New Zealanders.This amendment bill has been a long time coming. Discussions around these changes have been circulating for years—years before the amendment bill was originally introduced in the House. The backbone of this country’s economy needs to be and must be healthy competition. When organisations from different countries from different borders collude—and also as New Zealand businesses collude with one another—to increase prices or fix output they are stealing from New Zealanders. This kind of theft must be stopped. We must do all we can to look after our New Zealanders. Further to this when cartels are allowed to operate they literally steal from families’ time. They not only steal income but they steal the efforts of hard-working New Zealanders who must either work longer hours or work more jobs in order to provide the basics for their children for example.The bill’s definition of a “cartel provision” found in section 30A inserted by clause 7 is “a provision contained in a contract arrangement or understanding that has the purpose effect or likely effect of 1 or more of the following in relation to the supply or acquisition of goods or services in New Zealand: (a) price fixing: (b) restricting output: (c) market allocating.” The bill proposes sensible and meaningful amendments but we must ask ourselves whether the amended law will be enough to empower the Commerce Commission. Is the Commerce Commission adequately armed and adequately resourced to be the watchdog that this country needs to ensure we quash anti-competitive behaviour?Just a week ago the Commerce Commission made public its findings with regard to the complaints received from dozens of individual complainants directly to the Commerce Commission itself and dozens more through the Food and Grocery Council. Normally when this many individuals come together that would be an indication of a serious problem but instead the Commerce Commission found no wrongdoing. It certainly raises questions in my mind. In New Zealand we are a country that seems to encourage large players in a diverse variety of markets but importantly we can sustain only a small group of them which is what the previous speaker James Shaw was alluding to with his examples from England. The nature of our geography and the size of our country—these two factors in particular—seem to combine to create natural breeding grounds for these oligopoly or duopoly entities.So I stand here as the voice of New Zealand First in this area and say that we cannot allow any firms—or especially any group of firms—to abuse their market powers. We must empower our commission with the tools and the teeth it needs to ensure that large firms behave in the best interests of their customers. I question the availability of flights within our country especially in our regions. I question the cost of milk within our country. I question the cost of many household items. I question the cost of our electricity. We cannot afford to stand by and let large players in essential markets especially take advantage of their power to the detriment of New Zealand households—to the detriment of our Kiwi mums and dads and their children. I personally get angered when two or more large corporates can presume to join together illegally to undermine markets and the New Zealand economy.However on the other side of the same coin New Zealand First always looks to support good legislation that will encourage businesses to work together for the betterment of New Zealand households. I note that one of the previous speakers said it was a balancing act. It is not actually a balancing act; it is about having clear and decisive legislation. It is about laying down the law and establishing what those boundaries are because if you do that correctly it does not have to be a compromise; it is one or the other.There has been a history of good New Zealand businesses wanting to work together in New Zealand. When businesses want to work together for the benefit of New Zealand households our legislation needs to encourage and support this. It has been long discussed that the original bill in its current state uses ambiguous language that actually deters cooperative behaviour on the part of good New Zealand businesses. The bill would allow for the lessening of competition in the New Zealand market as long as the bill gave rise to efficiencies that benefited the end consumer—for example a lower purchase price.New Zealand First is all for good business practice. If businesses knew that by joining together for a bid on a large contract for example they might create synergies and thereby lower their costs as well as benefit the end consumer then this does need to be encouraged. But when companies work secretly together to collude and fix prices artificially to restrict supply which essentially has the same effect of increased prices then we must ensure our agencies are adequately equipped to stop this.What New Zealand First asked for and now sees in the amendments is the provision for criminal sanctions for hard-core criminal cartel behaviour in particular. There must be a large burden of proof in order to proceed with criminal sanctions—we acknowledge this—but individuals who intend to engage in conduct that seeks to undermine markets and essentially rob from New Zealanders must be pursued and must be held to account. I note that many of our trading partners have already moved down this path and in discussions it was noted quite cynically that should organisations wish to collude with one another across borders it would seem at this stage at least that New Zealand is still an economy where a cartel arrangement can be entered into without much repercussion.These organisations were clear in their analysis. When weighing the risks it was worth attempting to contravene New Zealand law by entering into these cartel arrangements. The disincentive is currently not there. It is currently not enough to dissuade this behaviour. The OECD noted the detrimental effect of cartels on society throughout the world. The effects of cartels on economies are wide reaching and have a negative effect on economic efficiency. The OECD acknowledges that cartels by raising prices above the competitive level and decreasing output have the effect of making consumers either pay a higher price for a product or actually forego the product entirely. We all know that we as consumers miss out and we are being literally robbed when we allow cartels to operate on our shores.There are also good business arguments actually as to why we should fight this anti-competitive behaviour so strongly. When a cartel is able to raise its prices it is actually undermining the efficiency of the markets in which it operates so our very limited resources are not being best directed to their most optimal allocation. A cartel will protect its members from real competition from those honest practitioners not in this cartel behaviour. This allows inefficiency in a market and allows for slow or no improvement in productivity. Investors are sent signals by those cartels that are inherently incorrect and so investment flows in directions that it otherwise might not. If you own the market you are literally less inclined to be innovative to look for increased efficiencies to reduce costs or to increase quality.I note in finishing that the counterfactual test in section 36 of the Commerce Act is logical. When good minds apply their thought it looks on the surface like a fair test. However it is insufficient in and of itself. There is much international precedent for it to be discontinued. In fact Australia the only other major trading partner of ours that still uses it acknowledges that it is not the only tool it uses to take measures against anti-competitive behaviour. As we move into a framework for criminal sanctions especially I suggest we must employ a tool that our trading partners consider to be equally robust.Additionally the new measure whereby the legislation is currently asked to focus solely on the outcomes—and the Labour member spoke well to this—has the effect of essentially missing the point. The amended bill can now focus on the form of the conduct that is illegal in and of itself. This provides a simpler test with which to establish intent to collude. I commend this bill to the House.MELISSA LEE (National):I stand to commend the Commerce (Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill in its second reading and to support it obviously. I would like to begin my contribution by actually giving my congratulations to the previous Commerce Committee members who had done a terrific job with the bill before Parliament ended in the previous term of Parliament. I see in the record of the members who are listed there that the Deputy Speaker the Hon Chester Borrows was actually part of that select committee. I would like to commend the then chairperson Jonathan Young who has done a terrific job in the Commerce Committee. I hope that I can actually live up to his high standards and expectations in our new term of Parliament.There are many members who have actually risen and spoken in favour of this bill and I just want to say a very quick word. Strong capital markets provide a vital source of finance to help our businesses grow and actually create jobs and that is what this Government is actually focused on. They are central to improving the financial well-being of all New Zealanders. We want to ensure that investors have the confidence to invest and that capital markets can broaden and deepen their base and appeal and we want to lift innovation. National is moving the economy towards savings and productive investment and away from borrowing and spending. The Commerce (Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill promotes economic growth by enabling pro-competitive collaboration between firms while also deterring hard-core cartel conduct and that has to be a good thing. I commend this bill to the House.STUART NASH (Labour—Napier):I must admit that I was a little bit concerned when I heard the new chair of the Commerce Committee Melissa Lee giving that very brief speech around what National is doing in terms of deepening and broadening capital markets. I might be wrong but I thought that member actually said that the Government is moving to put in place mechanisms that drive spending away from borrowing and into saving. The way I read things the reason we have got instruments like loan-to-value ratios in place is that New Zealanders have such a love affair with investing in the non-productive sector like housing in Auckland that we are in big trouble. In fact our capital markets are so narrow that our own superannuation fund feels the need to invest offshore because if it invested all of its money in New Zealand it would create such a distortionary effect as to completely stuff up our capital markets.I would say that there is one thing that the Government could do—and I think I have heard Mr English say this; I could be wrong—that would actually have a massive impact on broadening and deepening our capital markets and that is tax reform in a whole range of areas. But that is a conversation for another day.At this point we are talking about the Commerce (Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. It is a very important piece of legislation. As you know yourself Mr Deputy Speaker being a former chair of the Commerce Committee all parties in this Parliament have worked together to really tighten up the legislation around capital markets and business practice in this country. A lot of that was actually started by Lianne Dalziel when she was the Minister of Commerce and she put a lot of legislation through. To be fair to the Hon Simon Power when he was the Minister of Commerce he picked up a lot of this legislation and was I would suggest probably the hardest-working Minister in that Government when he was here. I think I remember at one stage looking at the Order Paper when he was the Minister of Commerce and a third of all bills on the Order Paper were sponsored by Mr Simon Power.I suppose this is why it is a little bit disappointing that I am speaking on this bill. By that I mean that this bill was introduced in 2010. I took a little bit of a break—had a bit of a sabbatical for 3 years and then came back—and of course this bill should have been well passed before I got here.Hon Member: Sent on holiday.STUART NASH: Sent on hiatus. I went and had a bit of good time and spent some time with my kids and my family had some more kids another wife and then I came back. I would have thought that when this bill was introduced in 2010—in fact it was introduced when I was here the first time. I probably spoke on it. This bill should have gone through. It really should have. It sat on the Order Paper. It had its first reading in 2012 was reported back in May 2013 and here we are doing its second reading now. It has taken too long and I think there is probably acknowledgment from that side of the House as well that it has taken too long but it is here now thank goodness—better late than never.There is one thing that we really need to do in this country if we are to attract the sort of investment that we need and that is to really tighten up the rules and the regulations around doing business in New Zealand and that is to do with our capital markets as well. I remember when I was working at Fletcher Challenge and I was speaking to the chief financial officer. He was an American chap who had worked a lot in the big American companies and he said that when he first came over to Fletcher’s and went around the world seeking capital investment into Fletcher’s he was told by a number of overseas institutional investors: “Why would we invest in New Zealand? It’s like the Wild West.” That is the sort of overseas reputation that New Zealand had at that point in time. This was the mid to early 1990s.I am very pleased to say that we have moved a long way since then but I think what we saw with the global financial crisis and the collapse of the vast majority of mezzanine finance companies was that we still had a long way to go—we had a long way to go. But this is one of the bills that is just getting us there.There is nothing more insidious than cartels. If I may say I suspect one of the reasons that this bill has taken so long to get here is that I often say that one of the big differences between the National Party and the Labour Party is that the National Party believes that the market has the outcome—leave it to the market and it will deliver optimal results for New Zealand. But what the Labour Party believes is that when there is monopolistic behaviour going on or cartel behaviour or behaviour that is occurring to the detriment of New Zealanders the Government has a very important role to play in that. This bill in a way addresses that to a certain extent. But my personal view is that the Government should be playing a much stronger role in in fact knocking monopolistic behaviour on the head well and truly. What that would do is really serve the interests of a whole lot of New Zealanders who are struggling out there at the moment.We have just had a report back from the Commerce Commission around supermarket behaviour. It did not find any sort of price fixing or any coercive behaviour going on but the fact that so many people reported or submitted to the Commerce Commission on this said that it does not smell quite right. I suppose again this bill sends a signal to any organisation that may be tempted to engage in cartel behaviour that we are watching you—we are watching you. And if an organisation engages in cartel behaviour and it is proven—and look let us be honest about this: the test is actually not that high—then it will be absolutely nailed.The thing I also like about this bill is that it holds people personally liable. So directors or chief operational members cannot escape prosecution if they have knowingly behaved in this sort of way. You know I suspect we can all think of industries that we have long suspected of operating cartel behaviour but proving it is a little bit different. I mean as we all know when we drive down the street we often wonder why the petrol is the same price at Caltex Shell BP and Gull and all those petrol stations. Some of us scratch our heads and go: “Well goodness me I wonder whether these guys catch up behind closed doors.” I suppose it is a little bit different because the Shell guys can drive down the road and they can see exactly the same thing so it is difficult to get a truly competitive pricing model in the petrol market because it is such a commodity and they do advertise their prices in the most public manner.But there have been a number of cases and I recall one having worked in the forestry industry where the Commerce Commission has taken a good hard look at some behaviour and in one instance—and I will not mention it in the House even though I am allowed to—it went very very hard against a major New Zealand company that was operating what the commission believed was a cartel.Anyway the purpose of this bill is to amend the Commerce Act 1986 to introduce criminal sanctions for hard-core cartel behaviour. It does make a number of other amendments including the provisions to govern jurisdiction and other penalties. We do operate in a globalised economy at this point in time and that just makes it easier for cartel behaviour to take place. It does not have to take place in New Zealand—it can take place overseas—but if it impacts upon the New Zealand company in any way shape or form believe me our regulatory bodies will find them and we will take the steps.What is a cartel? We often think of a cartel as five or six or seven companies operating together but actually the description of a cartel is that it can be between two or more businesses that regulate output fix prices and in general make the market less competitive. And in this day and age where that gap is growing at a huge rate between the few at the top who are doing incredibly well and a growing number down the bottom who are not anti-competitive behaviour just makes it that much more difficult for people to actually survive let alone get ahead.The banned cartel conducts include price fixing. What price fixing is—I think we probably all know what it is—is when companies agree to set a set price or a discount. Again that can happen behind closed doors it can happen offshore but if it affects the competitiveness of the New Zealand market then we will crack down on it. They include restricting output. This is a common practice where they say: “Well OK there is too much supply. Let’s restrict output and force the price up.” But it is an agreement between two companies to do this. It is not an agreement that is made in isolation given the market variables; it is done in collusion. Market allocating—that is an agreement to pursue other customers. Again I have been involved in industries where I am sure this goes on and it has got to stop. I am not saying it still happens because I was involved in those industries a little while ago. And bid rigging which is agreeing on prices to submit for tenders.The reason this bill is so important is that as we rebuild New Zealand’s second-largest city we need to have absolute confidence that it is being done at the best possible price in a manner that is completely legitimate. By that I mean that I think we would be absolutely horrified to find that there had been cartel behaviour going on in such a massive project. There has not been a project as big as the rebuild of Christchurch and I can imagine it would be tempting for some industries to sit down and engage in the sort of behaviour that New Zealanders find reprehensible. So this is a very very clear reminder and a very clear signal to those organisations that this sort of anti-competitive behaviour will absolutely not be tolerated.The great thing about this bill is that every single party and member in this House agrees with it. That is why I commend this bill to the House. Thank you very much.BRETT HUDSON (National):I am delighted with this bill. It is clearly taking on the evils the worries and the concerns around hard-core cartel behaviour but I am really delighted to see that it acknowledges what it refers to as pro-competitive collaboration between firms. In the industry I have been in for 20 years we call that co-opetition where firms will be working together with complementary technology and services to bring benefit to their shared customer. That is co-opetition. But the next day they will be fierce competitors fighting and fighting each other for another customer. In both situations those customers benefit.It is wonderful to see that this bill recognises that both states can exist in an open market such as the one we have and it in fact reflects the way the market will continue to evolve. But it does address the negatives of cartel behaviour and it is important that it does so because if it did not we could end up with that terrible situation where the tiny minority—the nameless and the faceless—are controlling outcomes delivering things that the many do not want. I would not be at all surprised to learn that Grant Robertson supports this bill. I commend it to the House. Thank you.Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North):What a fine point for the member Brett Hudson to make—about the nameless and faceless operators that drive bad behaviour in our markets. The parallels here today are both ironic and striking. The Commerce (Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill is about the properly regulated flow of information in markets. Markets generate efficient outcomes. They make sure that investment behaviour drives the best of possible outcomes for investment and for productivity for the betterment of our society. Well we have a political market place right here in New Zealand that has been subjected to some awful awful awful cartel-like behaviour in recent days. As our leader said today we need to cut that crap. We need to get on with regulating the political market just like this cartel market is being regulated because when cartels are protected they create inefficiencies and information flows that are not transparent that are not clear and that are not in the interests of our country. Today we have had a Prime Minister be dragged back down into this House to admit that he misled the House when it came to whether he had been in touch with Cameron Slater the blogger. He has been practising dirty politics out of his office. He has been dragging in Jason Ede who is two doors down from his office. We see that John Key has been donkey deep in creating a political market that behaves like a cartel that ensures that the public is not seeing good information and that is involved in a publicly funded smear machine that has driven a bad outcome. New Zealanders are now realising just how dirty this machine has become and what a new low has been plumbed by this Government when it comes to transparency and appropriate behaviour.This bill has been around for 4 years and it is no wonder with a Government that does not value transparency with a Government that hates transparency that likes to see monopolies prosper and that likes to see rules in favour of those who have power already rather than an open market that generates efficient outcomes. It is no wonder the bill has languished so long on the Order Paper—it is clearly paralleled in the behaviour we have witnessed in this Parliament. We have a Prime Minister who is prepared to be very very limited in his telling of the truth right here in the Parliament—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. This is a fairly narrow debate on the bill that is before the House. Other speakers have managed to stick within those parameters and I remind the member that the duty is on him to do the same.Dr DAVID CLARK: I will come back to the point which is that we need properly regulated markets. We need markets for information be they for political information or for typically commercially driven information like the kind we might find on a stock exchange markets that are clear and transparent and make it clear that the best information is being shared. This is so that people can make wise decisions on the basis of that information. They can form judgments on the basis of information that is shared clearly that is shared honestly and that is shared in the interests of the market it is serving. That is what this bill is about.For those who do not observe the behaviour that is expected by regulators we see some tough penalties in this particular bill. Imagine if those who traded in information incorrectly and misled the markets were facing these penalties—all markets not just the markets we are discussing right now: civil penalties of up to 10 percent of turnover during the period of cartel conduct criminal penalties of up to 7 years’ imprisonment; $10 million three times the commercial gain or 10 percent of turnover. These are strict regulations that the Government has been sitting on for 4 years for those who breach proper process for those who do collude to form cartels and this kind of sharp measure is good to introduce. It is good to ensure we have efficient flows of information and properly regulated markets and that should be true no matter where we look. It should be true whether we look here in the narrow point we are debating or whether we look more broadly in the political environment.Joint ventures are captured by this bill. The Commerce Commission has looked broadly and introduced a bill that we will be supporting. It is a bill that as I said has been dragged through very slowly. It was started many moons ago by Minister Foss I think if memory serves me correctly or it might have even been before his time.Stuart Nash: Simon Power.Dr DAVID CLARK: Right back to Simon Power—so that explains as I heard my colleague say earlier that the intent of the bill is good. A hard-working Minister brought it into the House but this Government has been very slow to move it through because of its distaste it seems for the measures in the bill. Right now Government members are under pressure. They are under a lot of pressure to make it look like they are interested in regulating the market appropriately and so they are putting this bill through this evening. But the public of New Zealand is becoming increasingly suspicious of this Government and its disturbing practices. It says yes when it means no. It says no when it means yes. We are beginning to wonder what on earth it really stands for. The public of New Zealand is no longer clear as to whether this Government can be trusted and that is on the basis of slow slow progress of bills like this and the events that we have observed today which I am not allowed to discuss at length in this speech.I do not have much more to add other than to say that Labour will be supporting this bill. The bill does make some good progress albeit slow. Goodness knows when we will see the next stages of this bill in the House. I wish the Prime Minister would be more upfront with this Parliament. That is all I have to say for this evening. Thank you.JOANNE HAYES (National):Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. I stand to take a call on this bill and it is a very short call. I am so pleased Mr Deputy Speaker that you stopped the previous member from blubbing for 10 minutes because I would have got so very very bored with it. I am also very pleased that everybody in the House is agreeing with this bill. It has taken a wee while to get here but the point is it is here and we are moving on and I commend it to the House.Bill read a second time.Animal Welfare Amendment BillSecond ReadingHon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries):I move That the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I thank the members of the Primary Production Committee and particularly I would like to acknowledge its former chair Shane Ardern officials and members of the committee for their thorough consideration of this bill.The Animal Welfare Amendment Bill enhances and reinforces a number of key components of the Animal Welfare Act. I note a press release yesterday by the global charity World Animal Protection which ranks 50 countries across the world on their animal welfare standards. This index has placed New Zealand in first place along with the United Kingdom Austria and Switzerland. As an agricultural nation with such a huge focus on animals it is extremely pleasing to see New Zealand ranked up at the top and this is something we should all be very proud of. World Animal Protection also notes that the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill which we are now considering is “a good example of how New Zealand is continuing to make positive change for animals.”The bill was referred to the Primary Production Committee in August 2013. It was reported back to the House on 26 June this year. The committee received over 4000 written submissions on the bill and heard oral submissions from a range of submitters in both Auckland and Wellington. Clearly New Zealanders wish to continue building upon their already world-class animal welfare system and I thank the many people who took the time to make a submission. The committee has recommended that the bill proceed with a number of changes some of which I would like to touch on today. I support all the changes recommended by the committee.The committee has recommended that the bill expressly recognise the sentience of animals—that is that animals can have feelings perceptions and experiences that matter to them. Animal sentience has been proven in science for some time and a number of overseas jurisdictions already recognise that animals are sentient. It is therefore appropriate that New Zealand’s primary piece of animal welfare law also recognise animal sentience. Changes have been made to the provisions and they include compliance notices as a new tool for responding to low to mid-level offending under the Act. Submitters were concerned that the original drafting of these provisions left too much discretion in the hands of individual animal welfare inspectors. These provisions will now require animal welfare inspectors to make decisions according to more objective standards that are well recognised in criminal law.There has been considerable interest in the export of live animals and a large number of submitters have called for the bill to ban the export of live animals for slaughter. Currently the export of live animals for slaughter is prohibited under a Customs Service prohibition order. There have been no live animal exports for slaughter from New Zealand since 2007. The Government intends to retain and strengthen this prohibition by moving it into regulations under the Animal Welfare Act once the bill is passed.The bill also strengthens protections for animals exported for other purposes such as breeding. The bill now enables the Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries to require exporters to report on the welfare of their animals during the journey and for up to the first 30 days following their arrival in the importing country. This information will be used by the director-general when deciding whether to approve further exports by the same exporter or to the same country.Minimum standards of animal care change over time as scientific views shift on what animal management practices are acceptable. Examples of this are the use of sow stalls and battery cages both of which are being phased out. Transitioning from one type of farming practice to another can be expensive and operationally it can be very challenging for farmers. To give farmers the time they need to make the changes this bill provides that regulations may allow the old practices that no longer meet the requirements of the legislation to continue during a transitional period. Many submitters were concerned about these provisions and as a result the committee has recommended amendments.The bill now provides that transitional regulations can give an industry a maximum of 10 years to become compliant with the Act with a once-only ability to extend this for up to an additional 5 years. The presumption will be that industries must become compliant within 10 years. It will be only in very limited circumstances that an extension could be given. Concern was also expressed by submitters about provisions in the bill allowing for regulations to authorise indefinite exemptions. The committee has recommended tightening these provisions so that an indefinite exemption will be available only for specific religious or cultural practices.The Primary Production Committee recommended some changes to the bill in response to Supplementary Order Papers in the name of Mojo Mathers MP that seek to ban the use of animals in research testing or teaching if a suitable alternative exists. The bill now expressly requires the animal ethics committees to assess whether non-sentient or non-living alternatives can be considered by applicants seeking approval to use animals. I am also aware of another Supplementary Order Paper from Mojo Mathers MP that would prohibit the testing of cosmetic products on animals. The Government is still considering its view on this matter although I note that to the best of our knowledge cosmetic testing on animals has never been carried out in New Zealand. I will discuss this matter further during the Committee of the whole House stage of this bill.The Primary Production Committee has made very useful recommendations to provide greater clarity in relation to who should perform surgical procedures on animals. Significant surgical procedures are required to be undertaken by veterinarians except where the law otherwise permits. The bill now provides a set of criteria to help determine whether a surgical procedure is or is not significant. Regulations to be made after the bill is passed will specify which of these procedures can be carried out by non-veterinarians and under what conditions.These and other changes recommended by the Primary Production Committee reflect a very balanced and careful consideration of the wide range of comments received from submitters on this bill. The changes enhance the bill and make it even more reflective of the standards and expectations that New Zealanders have as a whole. I commend the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill to the House.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman):It is always an honour to speak on any legislation. This is indeed—although this is probably not recognised—one of the most significant and important pieces of legislation this House has debated in the last couple of weeks at least! I jest but the issue is that primary industries and the rural sector still generate the largest portion of wealth created in this country. The use of animals or the management of them or the care of them—all of those things—are at the heart of our economy our reputation and our ability to survive into the future. We have as the Minister for Primary Industries has stated a good international reputation for animal welfare and it must continue.The reality is that through social media we now have an ability to spread good news or bad throughout the world in a very short period of time. One can say although not always agreeing with them that those people who are involved with animal welfare are perhaps some of the most passionate—sometimes misguided but well-meaning and passionate. If they want to spread a message you can guarantee it goes far and wide very very quickly.I have to acknowledge Shane Ardern who is not in the House today. He has moved on to greener pastures—he will be hoping so with a bit of rain up there in the King Country. He played a significant part in the Primary Production Committee for many many years and he guided this bill through. He had some firm views as a dairy farmer that we must not push too far into what you might call the domestic arena of animal welfare. He needed to have that because my colleague Trevor Mallard sat on the committee in place of myself for this piece of legislation.I will acknowledge the changes the Minister has outlined. They are all sensible changes and for the most part politics did not play a significant part in the passage of the legislation. Mojo Mathers on behalf of the Green Party contributed as well and there have been as I said Supplementary Order Papers put up.If we get this wrong we will pay dearly with our reputation in the international market place. As I said increasing levels of scrutiny and communication mean we cannot afford to get anything wrong. However I do point to an underlying and growing concern—and it is one driven I guess by animal rights groups rather than animal welfare groups—and that is that they start demanding some rights or protections for animals that in fact we do not see for humans. Personally I am someone who would like to ensure firstly that humans have the protection necessary to have fair lives to have lives free of abuse and of harm and of hurt. So this bill tries to find the balance between what realistic management is and what is inevitable in any animal management regime.Of course the bill does not specify the details that many people wanted to submit on and that many people will still be concerned about. Those will be dealt with through regulations that will be developed as a result of the legislation. I am sure that MPs will be lobbied as the Ministry for Primary Industries moves forward to develop the regulations from this piece of legislation.One thing that is connected to this but that the Government has failed to include and it ignores it is country-of-origin labelling. In doing all these great things for animal welfare for food safety and for the reputation of New Zealand it is unbelievable that the National Government is refusing to endorse mandatory country-of-origin labelling—as do our trans-Tasman partners—that would identify the products managed and produced in our country and that could be sold with a reputation that is held in high regard internationally. New Zealand consumers would also know whether the meat they were eating was from New Zealand animals or indeed from Australia which is occurring all too often in the supermarkets today.As I talk to farmers I say: “We will always need regulations we will always need to have high standards and there will be a cost to your farming operation.” But in return for that I say to them that we should then uphold promote and ensure that their good efforts are rewarded through better market place returns. Yet the National Government refuses to acknowledge the one move that would assist New Zealand farmers and producers who have worked hard and who will be working harder arguably to meet these standards in this new piece of legislation and who will do so hopefully in the knowledge that it maintains and builds further our reputation for the highest levels of animal welfare in the world. So the consumers of our animal products would then know because of the label that the food they were eating had been produced in the soundest safest and most ethical ways.The bill also enables mandatory standards for live animal exports to be set in regulations. Again another issue of some controversy over the years is that there have not always been good standards in live exports from our country or indeed from Australia more so. They have struggled with that. We are seeing more and more dairy animals in particular being exported directly from New Zealand to China in particular. There is some debate about that—I guess in the same way that we sold off our kiwifruit root stock and plant material and suffered because of that because everyone in the world then grew the same thing.Then indeed the kiwi cow which the New Zealand dairy industry has developed so well as an efficient producer of milk is now being exported—or its genetics—and through live exports are now going directly to China. I am sure those people will very astutely and very carefully maximise the value of our exports. That is OK and we are getting rewards for that but we have to be mindful firstly of the dangers in the live export trade of not looking after them properly and thereby putting our reputation at stake and then secondly and perhaps more important of course of building the capability of a country that ultimately will be competing with us in terms of dairy production in its own market and indeed perhaps elsewhere around the world. New Zealand does not have a very good record I have to say in wise long-term management in such situations but this bill will do one thing to try to safeguard that live export trade and that is to ensure that it is done in a very ethical safe way for them.If I can go back to a few other issues in the bill I will just say that in principle Labour of course will always battle for high standards of animal welfare both on the farm and in the towns. I see my colleague Mr Mallard has come here just to ensure that I keep focused on the town issues. I have to say that one of the dangers as I referred to briefly before is that if we go for a zero-hurt or zero-harm approach then we may indeed see some pretty sad outcomes in terms of animal welfare—and the issue of animals used in rodeos is one that has been topical. Sometimes we will have dogs. I have worked with and have owned some very very loyal working dogs who run and run and keep running and work to the point of going beyond pain I am sure. I hope that we do not have people running around to check that they are running no more than 10½ kilometres in any 5-hour period etc. because we are getting to that point of perhaps extreme protection in some areas of our legislation. It certainly was not the intent of the Primary Production Committee of Mr Ardern and certainly of myself that we should move to implement regulations that are bordering on ridiculous.We do have as I say the realities of an animal welfare regime overseeing an animal production regime that is built around the breeding the raising and ultimately the slaughter of animals for human consumption. We are not going to get away from that. So at points in that whole management regime although this bill attempts to minimise any negatives there will be some through any reality just as there are in human behaviour as well. I said to my colleague that if we guarantee that there can be no harm to humans I guess there will be none of us going out on the rugby pitch to play a game of rugby which often produces some hurt and some harm. So the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill is I think a sound approach towards finding a balance between sensible commercial management and protecting not the rights but the welfare of animals as they move through that system.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei):I guess the opportunity to speak on this bill has been a long time in the coming. I must commence firstly by acknowledging I guess the people who are no longer here who did a lot of work on this bill. We have a number of them. Shane Ardern who chaired the Primary Production Committee was mentioned by Damien O’Connor. Shane Jones had a large input into a lot of things to do with primary production; I will mention him a bit later in my few words on this. There was Eric Roy a very experienced man and Colin King. A number of committee members who dealt at length with this topic have now gone from the House. I also want to acknowledge the other members of that committee who spent a lot of time on this bill and who I think on the whole did a pretty good job. I think we have come up with a pretty good solution—obviously with the opportunity to change one or two things in the course of the Committee stage. None the less I think the bill has got to a good space.As the previous two speakers have said this is probably one of the most important pieces of legislation that will pass through this House. It underpins the magnificent beast that is our livestock farming industry—one that returns over half of our gross income. As we have heard this bill makes changes to the Animal Welfare Act 1999 to improve the enforceability clarity and transparency of New Zealand’s all-important animal welfare system. The teeth provided in the enactment of this bill will come via regulatory provisions which will be developed by the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee. This is a committee of extremely competent practitioners from across the sector appointed for their expertise. We can be confident that they are both competent and independent and will do their job very well. They are also required to consult widely on any recommendations they may make in this field.We received a huge number of submissions which covered five basic categories: 12 industry groups 20 animal advocacy groups 8 professional bodies such as veterinarians and the like 10 expert individuals and numerous private individuals. We heard close to 50 of those submissions over 8 weeks. The real challenges we faced related to what many consider historic practices. In fact the previous speaker Damien O’Connor referred to those. The Hon Shane Jones had much to say on this matter. Issues such as doing horses’ teeth to those of us who play with horses is a pretty simple matter but for those who were submitting on this bill it clearly was not a simple matter. Things that we have always taken for granted in our care of animals are things that challenge a lot of our community who do not have the same empathy or understanding of animals. The bill has dealt with a lot of those complex issues.In new section 183B(2) inserted by clause 56 the regulations relate to surgical and painful procedures. We had a large discussion on this contributed to again by Shane Jones in particular who historically in his time in this House had some nervousness around I guess how we comply with things in life but he certainly had some nervousness around this. The committee did discuss this at length because it is a very complex subject if you think about it. I think we did pretty well with that because we did spend a lot of time on that particular clause. Factory farming has been mentioned; it is a very topical subject. The bill will be tightened up to deal with this. I think we have got to a very good space with that as well as we move through the process of implementing this bill—and it will take some time to implement this bill.Other issues taking up much of the discussion related to live export; it is banned already for slaughter. Anyone who understands food well will understand that the best food is highly dependent on its treatment from paddock to plate. Ill-treating our animals or plants prior to their entering the food chain has no future at all for food producers. Although I fully support the banning of live export for slaughter I think there could be occasions arising in the future where we may want to in a boutique form export animals or whatever that will then enter the food chain at some future point. This bill does not exactly preclude that but our current regulations certainly do preclude it. None the less the world changes and changes in transport modes and whatever could make a significant difference to this.The committee considered research testing and teaching using animal sentience which has been very topical for some time particularly for that well known animal supporter Bob Kerridge. Whether a fish is a fish or an animal was a topic that came up for quite some considerable discussion during the course of the select committee hearings. Part 3 of the bill was changed to clearly set some parameters around this. There was much discussion particularly from the farming entities as to how far a duty of care stretched and who is ultimately responsible for the care of an animal. I guess this is topical in lots of legislation that comes through this House and I think the bill again arrived at a very good space in that area because we have come to a conclusion that I think will clearly define the person responsible for the treatment or otherwise of animals.A discussion took place on the funding of the compliance regime. Like all funding the Government has faced it is difficult but it is currently well managed by the Ministry for Primary Industries. I think there will be challenges to that funding stream as this is enacted later on but none the less I think we are getting along pretty well now. Psychoactive substances came and went during the course of the bill and cosmetic testing as mentioned by the Minister also came in for much attention.On a lighter note I struggle to see the difference really between shampooing a horse for a show or to get rid of lice and testing cosmetics—lipstick I guess—on a horse. But none the less it is an interesting topic and it will involve a lot of debate from now on. The Minister has mentioned that more will be heard on this topic. This is a very complex issue and one we must deal with with care as it is very important to us all.Finally I cannot finish without mentioning just one last thing. I notice in the course of the Labour portfolio analysis that it does not have a spokesman on agriculture. I notice that the Greens’ spokesman on agriculture is—[Interruption] We have a Minister for Primary Industries. I notice that the Greens’ spokesman on agriculture is probably out there buttering himself up with a dock leaf somewhere. I am not sure whether Winston or Richard Prosser is the agriculture spokesman for New Zealand First. Anyway I think we have done a great job on this bill and I commend it to the House.MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa e te Whare nei. It is my honour to get up and take a call on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. Clearly Labour supports the second reading of this important bill. Animal welfare is important for its own sake and for preserving the good image of New Zealand as an ethical food producer. The bill attempts to improve and strengthen the animal welfare system in New Zealand. Some will welcome the changes that have been incorporated in this second reading. Some may say this does not go far enough. But 68 percent of New Zealand households have at least one pet. I have a pet a 2½-year-old long-haired German Shepherd. Some people will say that my welfare and care of her is not the best given that I probably see her only one day out of seven so I do want to acknowledge my dad who walks her twice a day and feeds her while we are away doing other things. But in all seriousness each year 50 percent of our export earnings come from animals and animal products so our international reputation and marketing brand is absolutely critical. My senior colleague Damien O’Connor touched rather eloquently on the importance of making sure that our brand is protected particularly when we grow our market internationally.I too want to acknowledge the members of the Primary Production Committee who are no longer here. Their names have been mentioned. I myself joined the committee perhaps one month before this particular bill was introduced. I know from both pet owners and also exporters that the whole challenge in front of us is very vast to ensure that for animals be they pets or be they for export there is no doubt as to the way we treat them in terms of testing which has been raised by previous speakers. This is something that I take seriously and I know this House takes seriously.As to my own history of animal welfare in the commercial space I am the product of a shearing family and have been a rousie in a lot of the sheds up on the East Coast. A lot of the runs were very very lengthy—like 21 days. Those were the days when you started at 5 a.m. and worked until 5 p.m. They were 9½ hour days back in those days. There was fatigue with a lot of our shearers. I remember as a very young person after day 10 day 12 the images that I saw of our shearers nicking sheep—[Interruption] They were actually quite big nicks. Blood was not unusual and probably the longer you worked in the shearing shed the more likely you were to have sheep bleeding—and it raised a concern in me as a very young person. I did not know it was called animal welfare but that experience of seeing so many sheep bleeding in their pens really affected me. Of course we have all got stories and I am talking from a commercial point of view. For a lot of our people up on the East Coast that was our livelihood in terms of the shearing sheds. But the point around looking after our animals is that it was important because obviously they cannot talk for themselves. In a market where the wool and animal welfare is important I too want to ensure that we have a very good system. This bill has gone to the select committee and a number of the submissions made—and I agree with the Minister—have come back with a balanced view to ensure that we are protecting our reputation as a marketer of animals and animal products.I do want to take us down and look at the earlier contributions from our Labour colleagues. Of course now that you are in the seat Mr Assistant Speaker I was looking at your reference and that was around animal testing in terms of psychiatric drugs. I too want to add my weight. I acknowledge what the Minister has said around ensuring that we are not just using animals for testing when it comes to products. But I do want to support that we need to ensure that we keep a very close and watchful eye on that place so that animals are not subjected to the testing of psychiatric drugs and also cosmetics as has been mentioned earlier and that we explore—and I do acknowledge what the Minister said—all other non-living alternatives before we subject animals to any of that kind of testing. I want to put my support in to ensure that we make sure that the testing is robust before we allow animals to be subjected to testing to ensure that we protect animals in that sense. I want to acknowledge the work that you did Mr Assistant Speaker in terms of raising that through your Facebook page which got over 4000 hits in terms of animal testing. I want to acknowledge you for that and also the select committee for taking that on board in terms of the amendments that have been made.The other contribution from this side of the House raised by Mr O’Connor was around the lack of funding to monitor the changes in this bill in terms of the role of the Ministry for Primary Industries. I know there was an issue in the first reading of this bill around the ability of the ministry to do its job of monitoring and upholding the regulations that this bill is hoping to present. To the Minister who has introduced this bill for the second time I say that I am hoping that adequate funding is going towards the ministry to ensure that the monitoring and the upkeep under this bill will be maintained.Labour obviously wants to continue to encourage and work with all our New Zealand farm and producing groups to ensure that they take leadership on issues of animal welfare and that they are at the forefront of instituting appropriate animal welfare standards. We also continue to encourage labelling like my colleague Damien has already mentioned of animal products that create a commercial incentive to improve animal welfare standards. We will continue to introduce new codes in areas and for animals where this is appropriate. Further Labour supports the notion of a universal declaration on animal welfare. The declaration aims to achieve global consideration of the welfare of sentient animals and the recognition of animal welfare as an issue of importance as part of the social development of nations worldwide. We have a concern about the ability for regulations to allow mistreatment to continue past the commencement of this bill. We welcome the select committee’s change to close the loophole that would have allowed near perpetual extensions to one that allows a maximum of one extension of 5 years after the original 10-year period. There still could be more caution around these regulations however.Labour again supports this reading. We think on balance it has been well crafted. We look forward to the Committee stage and it being discussed in the House. I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora tātou.STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura):I promise to stay away from lipstick and horses.Iain Lees-Galloway: Why did you have to promise that?STUART SMITH: I thought it was necessary. I rise to speak on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill as someone who has worked all his life with animals—not horses. I was a sheep farmer and having gone through tailing and shearing and those normal day-to-day operations with sheep I have seen the perverse effects of overregulation. I worked on a farm in Ireland where you could not lamb a ewe that got into difficulty; you had to get a vet in. Unfortunately the delays that that led to resulted in unnecessary suffering and in some cases death. So we have to be very careful when we write rules and regulations that they actually are fit for purpose and achieve what they set out to do.I also velveted deer. I had a ticket to velvet deer under anaesthetic so I have had quite a bit of experience in that area. Also I have had experience of being involved in capturing deer out of a helicopter with a net gun using tranquiliser darts at some time and also capturing deer in pens in the bush. I think the point that was made by Damien O’Connor was a very good one about social media and the danger that offers today to us as a trading nation. I think it is very important. We actually have to balance the right to farm against the rights of animals and the right to trade. If we get that balance wrong then we are going to be in trouble. Animal welfare is very much in the mind of the consumers and our trading partners so we must get legislation that actually protects all those rights and balances them. This bill does that in my opinion and I am very pleased to see that it makes it more transparent and easier to manage and it is with great pleasure that I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.MOJO MATHERS (Green):I rise to speak to the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. This bill is very much a mixed bag with the good the bad and the ugly all mixed up. Mostly though it represents a missed opportunity. It represents a missed opportunity to get it right for the millions of animals experiencing the greatest suffering in New Zealand in factory farming and unnecessary animal testing. Animals in New Zealand work incredibly hard for us. The least we can do is ensure that they are treated humanely and with respect. We need animal welfare law to both recognise and stop the systematic cruelty and suffering of both intensive factory farming and animal testing. Quite frankly when it comes to intensive factory farming our animal welfare law is a farce.Over the last year we have seen two situations that illustrate just how inadequate our animal welfare law is. The first is undercover footage by Farmwatch shown on television that exposed the terrible conditions and abuse that goes on inside our pig factory farms. That footage was horrific showing depressed pigs confined in cramped conditions unable to turn round and deprived of anything resembling a normal existence. We cannot deny the realities of what factory farmed pigs and other animals are being subjected to in New Zealand. But what is really shocking is that most of that appalling footage and the conditions that were shown are legal. Factory farming is legal. Keeping millions of intelligent animals in cramped conditions where they cannot express natural forms of behaviour is legal and this bill does very little to improve their plight.Equally concerning is the recent proposal by Craddock Farms to build a mega-factory hen farm south of Auckland which would confine over 300000 hens in cramped cages. If that consent is granted Craddock Farms will spend millions of dollars on the development of our country’s biggest caged-hen farm.We agree with the SPCA when it says that the proposed colony cage farm is a backward step for our country which flies in the face of international animal welfare trends. It is clear to anyone with an ounce of compassion that colony cages do not provide hens with the opportunity to display normal behaviour as required by the Animal Welfare Act. They are battery cages with lipstick on them.Even the former National MP and farmer Shane Ardern who was the former chair of the Primary Production Committee has publicly agreed that factory hen farming is cruel and that the teensy-weensy tiny little bit of extra space that the hens will get in these colony cages is unacceptable. Colony cages are cruel and mega-factory farms such as the proposed Craddock hen farm are nothing more than concentration camps for hens.Sadly not only will this bill continue to sanction these cruel farming conditions it will ensure that they continue to remain legal by elevating in the bill practicality and economic impacts as factors that can be considered when developing regulations. There is already the ability to take these factors into account and these economic impacts and practicality have already been used to justify codes of welfare that allow animals to be kept in cruel cages.The explicit elevation of these factors out of the many factors that can be considered is extremely concerning. In our view it sends the wrong message about which factors are important when developing codes of welfare or regulations and it makes it more likely that factory farming systems such as intensive pig farming and colony cages will continue to remain legal on technical grounds despite the clear evidence that such systems are cruel and cause prolonged suffering for millions of animals. Animals deserve better.We were also disappointed that the Government members of the select committee decided at the last minute to vote down my amendment to reduce the number of animals used in testing and to vote down the ban on animal testing of cosmetics. So I am very pleased to hear tonight that the Government is still keeping an open mind on that and will be considering it at the Committee stage. I also welcome the support from the Labour Party for a ban on animal testing of cosmetics.Unlike what the previous National speaker Ian McKelvie said cosmetic testing on animals does not involve shampooing of horses’ fur. It involves dripping the substances into the eyes of rabbits with their eyes prised open it involves rubbing the substances on to raw skin and they are highly painful cruel tests so please get rid of any fluffy woolly notions that it is not so.The National Government and John Key in particular took great pride in excluding animal testing from the Psychoactive Substances Act. Great—they wanted to see that. But in our view it would be a double standard to not have a ban on the animal testing of cosmetics in this bill and then not requiring alternatives to animal testing to be used where such suitable alternatives exist. Animals are subjected to extremely high levels of pain and suffering in these tests and we should be doing everything we can to reduce them.Polls show that nearly 90 percent of people want to see animal testing of cosmetics ruled out in this country which brings us in line with other countries such as Israel India and all 28 countries of the European Union that have recently done the same. I am hoping that the Government will listen to the thousands of people who are speaking out for animals and want to see such a ban. That includes New Zealand manufacturers of cosmetics who want to see this ban as well because that is the ban that supports their reputation internationally so they have expressed their support for such a ban. It makes sense on both a pragmatic level and a moral level. We have had extensive legal advice on the proposed wording of the amendment that brings in a ban on cosmetic testing and we are confident that with new wording what we now have will address all the technical issues that have been raised by officials at the select committee.On a more positive note I want to acknowledge the most significant constructive change that was adopted by the select committee which was to close the loophole that allowed the development of regulations that breached the purpose of the Animal Welfare Act for an indefinite length of time. I had an amendment that removed that loophole and there were many submissions that were received in support of that amendment. After intense deliberation it is good to see that that loophole has mostly been removed and there is now provision instead for transitional arrangements to be in place for a maximum of 15 years which is 10 years plus the 5-year extension to allow farmers time to phase out a practice that has been found to be in breach of the Act. That will mainly apply at the moment to farrowing crates on intensive farms.If in future other practices such as colony cages are found to be in breach of the Act then the industry will have at most 15 years to phase them out. This is a long overdue change and I am proud to have played a part in achieving that but 15 years is really far too long and I hope the industry will not drag the chain on this.So overall this is a very mixed bag. We are voting against the bill at this stage but express our disappointment around the failure to adopt any changes on animal testing at all. We will review that after the Committee of the whole House. Thank you.RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First):I am very pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call on the second reading of the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. New Zealand First supports this bill albeit with some reservations. We are very pleased that this Government has seen fit to prioritise it as one of the first pieces of legislation to be brought forward from the 50th Parliament to the 51st. The subject of animal welfare is one that is very close to the hearts of a great many New Zealanders. This bill passed through the Primary Production Committee under the most able chairmanship of Shane Ardern now departed from these halls. I spent the term of the last Parliament as a permanent unofficial interloper on the committee and I am very pleased to be back this term in an official capacity under what thus far appears to be the equally capable helmsmanship of Mr McKelvie.This bill addresses a number of fundamental issues relating to animal welfare as it should. Not unexpectedly it will not satisfy everyone. I reiterate that we in New Zealand First are not entirely happy with some of the detail. Central to the animal welfare discussion in this country as we all know is the fate of intensively farmed pigs and battery-caged layer hens. This bill proposes limits on the time allowed for producers to move from those standards of containment for intensively farmed animals that are currently permitted to those that are proposed. As is human nature those limits are regarded as being far too long by some stakeholders and far too short by others. Personally I buy only free-range eggs because I like chooks. I have always been a country boy. We had chooks when I was growing up. I have had chooks almost everywhere I have lived and because I can afford it. The reality is that barn eggs are more expensive to produce than cage eggs and free-range eggs are more expensive to produce than barn eggs.Ian McKelvie: Can run them on the road.RICHARD PROSSER: Roll them chickens Mr McKelvie. So the nation can decide if it chooses to decree that all hens must be free-range and that in my view would be a grand thing for animal welfare. But the immediate effect would be that the price of eggs at the supermarket would double.Whether free-range chickens are actually healthier and happier than their barn or colony cousins is still a matter for some contention. To many myself included it would appear to be a given. The National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee however supported by independent studies which are perhaps not surprisingly also supported by the egg industry contend that any measurable difference is negligible. Mortality from diseases and pests is arguably lower amongst intensively farmed egg-producing chickens. Conditions of temperature and humidity are constant and controlled and nutritional requirements are met and guaranteed. Personally if I was a chicken I believe I would very much prefer to be a free-range chicken but I say that from the standpoint of not being a chicken and those who set the regulations do so on the basis of the objective science as it is presented however counter-intuitive it may seem to some.Politicians and political parties can change the rules if they wish but they must do so in the knowledge that they will have to explain the doubling of the price of eggs to the people who of course have to feed their families in what is a comparatively low-wage country with food prices that are already high. The alternative is that we go back to subsidising agricultural production as we once did and as most of the rest of the developed world still does. Since this appears anathema to the economic policies of both major parties in New Zealand it is not likely to happen any time soon. People do not feel good about hens in cages. Good ordinary people do not like the idea of battery hens being confined in tiny cramped spaces but the reality is that a combination of hungry kids and poor wages have a profound effect on human sensibilities.Pigs are in a similar situation. Sow crates were originally invented as an animal welfare measure. They prevent the mummy pig from eating her babies or rolling on them and crushing them to death. In close confinement such as is standard in intensive pig farming—even in a semi-enlightened country such as this one—both those things happen as a matter of course. Some changes have come about in recent years. Crates have become larger and pigs are not allowed to be kept in them for as long at a time or for as much of the year as used to be the case. But for the intensive pig farming model there is not an absolute alternative now or in the foreseeable future. It is not a matter of cost rather that there is nothing currently available or on the cusp of being invented. Again there are free-range farming models that allow pigs sufficient space that cannibalism and suffocation cease to be major factors in the mother-child relationship. However they require more land. As with chickens that actual cost to production goes up and with that the price of pig products to the consumer also rises exponentially.Britain moved to a free-range only pig farming regime some years ago. But the British still have farm subsidies like the rest of the EU which means that British consumers of pork bacon sausages and ham do not have to shoulder the actual costs associated with the production of their daily fare. We can choose to go the same way but again we can do so only with the agreement of the people based on their clear understanding of what it is going to cost them. Initially it will cost the taxpayer as the Government buys out or otherwise compensates pig farmers who are not able to expand their operations to free-range through unavailability of land or because upscaling is not economically viable yet who still have a great deal invested in plant machinery and stock. Then there will be the ongoing increased price of pig products. The alternative is to increase imports over present levels. New Zealand’s piggery exports are negligible at the moment and we import around half of all pig meat consumed annually. The downside to this is that most imports are from producer nations whose animal welfare standards and farming practices are less advanced and stringent than our own thus increasing imports from such countries risk putting the entire New Zealand pork industry out of business for no net gain in overall global animal welfare. So there is no free lunch available here.If we move without any transition period to what we believe are the highest standards which we believe we should be using it will mean higher prices or subsidies neither of which appeal to voters. The pigs and the chickens are sandwiched neatly between the rock and the hard place as far as politics in this country is concerned. It would take a brave politician indeed to tell the people that two of their staple foods are going to double in price so that we can all feel good about animal welfare and I say that from the position of being genuinely concerned about it. I would like to say that 5 years is long enough for compliance with animal welfare standards but as has been said there are no technological answers to the problems associated with factory pig farming on the medium-term horizon. Adhering to such a time frame will mean hardship for many and no overall improvement for anyone or anything unless you have subsidies. So it is a round and round in circles kind of a thing. We are supportive of the move to larger cages and lower occupancy rates for chickens. I believe the industry is moving in this regard and probably will meet the required deadlines and we certainly support that. So the short answer is that we would like all these things to happen but the people must understand the actual costs associated with them.Of course the lot of the pigs and the chickens is not the only issue this bill deals with neither is it the only issue with which we do not entirely agree. There is the matter of sentience. New Zealand First is mindful of majority mainstream scientific opinion with regards to animal sentience. It is generally accepted that of the wider species groups there are some namely primates cetaceans elephants horses dogs cats and pigs that display an exponentially greater predominance of sentient behaviour indicators than other animals accompanied perhaps by some species of birds—notably ravens magpies and parrots—and certain invertebrates such as octopi.Paul Foster-Bell: What about mallard ducks?RICHARD PROSSER: I cannot comment on mallard ducks but determining what may constitute humane treatment of these animals should be shaped by recognition of this measurably greater sentience. However this bill does not make a distinction as to degrees of relative sentience with regard to different animal species. In that light New Zealand First asks why this bill does not specifically disallow the keeping of cetaceans in captivity. These sentient creatures are our kin. These magnificent intelligent sociable sentient animals are our brothers and sisters of the oceans. It is barbaric and inexcusable in this enlightened day and age to keep them in captivity for the amusement of humans even under the guise of scientific research. New Zealand First contends that degrees of sentience should be recognised in this bill. New Zealand First for example supports the great apes declaration. We likewise recognise the greater sentience of cetaceans and we ask why—if however unlikely it is to remain legally permissible to keep dolphins and orca in captivity—is it not also unacceptable to keep sentient pigs and sentient chickens in conditions that many would contend are inhumane? There must be consistency or failing that there must at the very least be logic and common sense.There are a few other things with which we have some minor quibbles and without going into them all ahead of the Committee stage I wish to raise the subject of live animal exports. The bill as returned from the Primary Production Committee proposes in clause 21 that in section 43 of Part 1 subsection (2) should be inserted so that the Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries in considering whether to grant an export licence particularly for live animals for slaughter may consider the post-arrival conditions for the management of animals in the importing country. This subsection is inserted to address concerns that an outright ban could possibly put New Zealand in breach of our obligations to the World Trade Organization. New Zealand First proposes that the word “may” be replaced with “must” which would allow for a practical ban in all circumstances where one would be required. And if this not possible we ask whether in fact it is a good idea for New Zealand to be signing up to any international trade treaty that overrides or may override our sovereign rights of self-determination.All that said although this bill is still capable of improvement it is a good bill and we are happy to continue supporting it through to the next stage. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I call the next member I am going to repeat a comment I made this morning and say it specifically to the member Richard Prosser who has just resumed his seat—who is now no longer an inexperienced member; he is a front-bench member—and that is that Speaker’s ruling 47/1 does apply and I think he should consider himself warned.TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland):As the newly elected member for Clutha-Southland it is a privilege to sit on the Primary Production Committee and to speak on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill tonight. As we have heard from the Minister for Primary Industries the purpose of this bill is to make the Animal Welfare Act clearer more transparent and easier to enforce.Coming from a farming background and growing up with family pets I believe that how we treat animals is important. But not only that a large part of our international trading reputation rests on how we treat animals and the ethical standards we hold in this regard.We have around 930 dairy farms and over 3500 people employed in the dairy sector in Southland contributing around $1.2 billion to the Southland economy each year. That is just dairy and that is just in Southland.Across all of the animal product categories our country exports such as milk meat and wool New Zealand enjoys around $20 billion a year in earnings. So one of the things this bill includes is new direct protections for New Zealand’s wild animals animals being exported to other countries and animals being used for research because we cannot and we should not underestimate how important our international reputation is in respect of our animal welfare.We have one of the best animal welfare systems in the world and we should be proud of that but it is important that we keep reviewing updating and improving how that system operates. Therefore I commend this bill to the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I call Kevin Hague for a 5-minute call.KEVIN HAGUE (Green):When Sue Kedgley first raised animal welfare concerns in this House she was met with laughter. These were not considered to be important or serious matters. I report with pleasure that all members of the House speaking in this debate today at least with very few exceptions have at least considered these matters to be serious and I know that that was the tenor of the consideration in the Primary Production Committee. I did not have the pleasure of sitting on the select committee myself but I want to pick up several of the matters that my colleague Mojo Mathers has raised and also address a further one.One of the areas of concern for us is that the Ministry for Primary Industries continues to be the main agency responsible for enforcing animal welfare standards in farming. That creates a conflict of interest because on the one hand the agency responsible for animal welfare is also on the other the agency that is concerned with maximising farm production. That conflict of interest along with under-resourcing means that the Ministry for Primary Industries cannot be relied on to effectively monitor or enforce animal welfare standards especially on factory farms. Currently less than 1 percent of complaints about breaches of animal welfare standards actually result in prosecutions.The Government has already made it plain that it is not going to be addressing that under-resourcing problem by providing more resources. That very low level of prosecutions by the Ministry for Primary Industries and the lack of a proactive inspection regime for factory farms are going to mean that much animal suffering on such farms will continue to go unchecked unmonitored and unenforced. The Green Party therefore supports not only switching the responsibility for monitoring animal welfare standards away from the ministry but also increasing the resourcing for those functions.As my colleague Mojo Mathers has said the bill is a mixed bag and in particular a missed opportunity. Although there are some advances in the bill two of the most important areas—factory farming and animal testing—are largely unaddressed. Those diabolical appalling standards that exist on factory farms and result in a surge of concern from New Zealanders whenever those conditions are unmasked by usually surreptitious mechanisms from animal welfare activists—because otherwise New Zealanders would never get to see them—will continue. We are particularly concerned about the continued presence of economic impact and practicality in the matters that must be considered in the casting of regulations.Those matters remind me very much of occupational safety and health where we have adopted a regime that is based on making changes to make workplaces safer where they are practicable. What that regime has resulted in in occupational safety and health are shortcuts and failure to make necessary improvements to occupational safety and health because the company concerned would find them to be unaffordable. That is precisely what the dynamics will be that are played out as the regulations under this bill are cast. Farmers who engage in factory farming will continue to engage in those processes because they will find it unaffordable and therefore impractical and the economic impact will be too great for them to actually change their practices. So the suffering will continue unabated.There is no basis for animal testing of cosmetic products. The Minister for Primary Industries in his remarks at the beginning of this debate said that he was not even aware of whether it occurred in New Zealand. Well then for goodness’ sake Minister in your Supplementary Order Paper at the Committee stage ban it altogether.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka):I am happy to take a brief call on the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill and can I start by acknowledging the many very dedicated and passionate people around New Zealand who are interested in this issue. Like every member of Parliament I get their hundreds if not thousands of emails declaring that they care about animals and I want to send to them a very clear message: I care about animals as well. I have acknowledged all those emails I share the concerns that people have raised and I admire their passion dedication and commitment in doing so over a significant period of time. New Zealand cannot be complacent when it comes to animal welfare.When we look at our “100% Pure New Zealand” brand which our export industries tourism and so many other New Zealand companies rely upon would some of our current practices when it comes to animal welfare stack up favourably against that brand which we are so proud of overseas as being 100 percent pure? The answer to that at the moment must surely be no. Therefore extending the changes in this bill—and in fact I think going further—is very important to New Zealand and I think it is long overdue.I get a bit frustrated. I am a consumer. I look at many of these things from a consumer’s perspective and I get frustrated that the progress on these issues seems to be so incredibly slow. Kevin Hague mentioned Sue Kedgley raising these issues in the House quite some time ago and yet progress has been very very slow.I want to acknowledge people like Mike King for the work that he has done in exposing some of the worst practices in New Zealand. I think many New Zealanders would not have even been aware that those things were happening in a country like New Zealand and it took someone like him to actually shine some light on that before New Zealanders were aware of those issues.Many New Zealanders will look at this from the perspective of being a consumer. I want to pick up a concern that Richard Prosser raised and that is the impact of animal welfare measures on the potential prices that consumers pay for products—you know for food and so on. But the point that I would make is that I remember that it would not be that long ago when going and doing supermarket shopping—probably within the last 10 years—that free-range eggs were maybe two three or four times the price or significantly more expensive than eggs that came from battery hens and yet now in the supermarket the price differential is nowhere near that. The consumer has basically placed the demand on for free-range products. They want to know that their eggs are coming from free-range chickens and as a result the price has actually come down. So to say that looking after animal welfare will come at a cost to the consumer—it does not necessarily apply. Actually in many cases market forces will help to take care of that.Consumers actually want to know that the food that they are buying has been produced in an ethical manner. I want to know when I go to the supermarket that I am buying free-range eggs and I always make an effort to hunt them out. I want to know that the pork that I am buying is ethically produced and that all of the other products that I am buying are ethically produced as well. So I think that the New Zealand consuming public from a consumer perspective want to know those things and I think that New Zealand has been too slow in making sure that our laws have kept up with that and that our regulations have kept up with that. So I welcome the moves in this bill to start to move it further forward and I would like to say that I would like to see much much faster progress than we are seeing.I want to briefly commend a couple of the Supplementary Order Papers that have been put forward on this bill. I want to commend Supplementary Order Paper 341 which bans animal testing for the purposes of meeting the thresholds required for the sale of psychoactive substances. Of course according to the Standing Orders I am not allowed to mention the member who promoted that particular amendment but I do want to say that I think that is a very important amendment. I think that if the only way to prove that a psychoactive substance is suitable for human consumption is to torture animals then I think that we should take the decision as a Parliament that we will simply say that that is not acceptable and that we would rather not have those products on the market. If torturing dogs is the only way to prove that those products are safe—and actually the SPCA would argue that there are other ways to test the products without testing them on animals—then I do not think we should be doing it. I think that if those drug pedlars cannot find another way to test their products those products simply should not be on the shelves and should not be available.I think that similar things apply to cosmetics. We have to look at what is happening around the world. Other countries that we compare ourselves to have taken very principled positions when it comes to animal testing for cosmetics. Not only are they banning the testing but they are banning the importation of products that have been tested in other countries and New Zealand should be looking at that as well. These are our trading partners. These are people whom we have relationships with. If they are doing it then we need to be looking at doing that as well. We should live up to our “100% Pure New Zealand” image the brand that we are so proud of and animal welfare is an integral part of that.BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country):As a member of the agribusiness community and a new member of the Primary Production Committee I would like to acknowledge the work that has gone on.The Animal Welfare Amendment Bill is an important piece of legislation that will enable New Zealand to build a more productive economy by updating and strengthening animal welfare in New Zealand. This bill will make legislation easier to enforce and will give wider powers to those charged with dealing with people who breach welfare laws.The Animal Welfare Act 1999 sets out the correct underlying principles. However these amendments indicate that it is time to update and improve legislation surrounding animal welfare. Both for New Zealanders and for our international trading reputation it is important that the way we treat animals is correct and this bill aims to improve New Zealand’s reputation in this sector. We have one of the best animal welfare systems in the world but at the same time we are always looking for improvements. Ultimately the vast majority of New Zealanders already take great care of their animals and will hardly notice the changes made in this bill. However there will be greater sanctions for those few who do mistreat animals. Thank you.STUART NASH (Labour—Napier):You know this is an important bill because it sort of cuts to the heart of how we see ourselves as Kiwis. We all have pets. We all have dogs and cats and various pets—Chris Hipkins: Did you say kids?STUART NASH: —cats—and it is anathema to the vast majority of Kiwis to think that people would treat animals in any way except a humane way. But the irony about this bill is that during the last election there was actually a party that wanted to deprive children of the rights that we are affording animals. There was a party that wanted to remove the legislation that actually made it illegal to wallop and beat the living daylights out of children. I find this quite ironic. Here we are talking about the welfare of animals—and we get this; we understand this—and yet there was a party that got nearly 5 percent and came within a whisker of getting into Parliament that wanted to remove the same protections for children. It is quite astounding.The other thing is that it is actually illegal to have homeless stock. It is illegal to have your stock—not your stock Mr Assistant Speaker; well if you had stock it would be—wandering around outside your property but under this Government the number of homeless in our community has grown exponentially. Again all I am saying is that I think it is a little bit about getting our priorities right. Sure we must protect the welfare of our animals but let us not forget about the welfare of our children and the welfare of those in our communities who are disadvantaged as well.If there is one thing that I would really like to get across it is that New Zealand’s global competitive advantage is based on how we are perceived by our key markets. We have this very important brand—and it has been talked about by other speakers—that cannot be replicated and copied unlike other manufactured goods. This is the clean green image that sells our nation. It is the “100% Pure New Zealand” brand. When you go overseas and you see marketing campaigns about this country—in fact I think a lot of them were actually developed by a former Minister of Tourism the Hon Damien O’Connor—the iconic images of New Zealand are of bush lambs cows fjords; this wonderful utopia that is sort of at the unspoiled end of the world. What we need to do is ensure that we retain that competitive advantage because it allows us to get a premium for products that are sold into nations that value that brand incredibly strongly.It does not relate only to our environment; it also relates to the way we live our lives treat our communities and manage our key assets. In a farming sense under which a number of these brands are sold overseas these key assets include our animals. This bill not only enhances the protection afforded to animals but in a way serves to strengthen our global competitive advantage by saying to the world: “You know what—if you are buying a product from New Zealand then it will be nurtured and raised in an ethical manner as is befitting the brand New Zealand.”This is the most important thing that we have got because in this day and age it is not just companies that are seeking a competitive advantage it is actually global economies. Economies the size of ours absolutely need to go out there and create a unique selling point for our products. Certainly in an era where so many things are able to be copied our brand is not; it is unique. Therefore the ethical treatment of animals cuts to the very heart I believe of what it means to be a Kiwi.You know we have this sort of romantic image of our forebears as pioneers on horses with a pack of dogs breaking in this land. Back then the mistreatment of animals was anathema. That has not changed. After all around 50 percent of our export earnings are derived from animals in some way shape or form. So it just does not make economic sense let alone from an emotive argument. I think this was one of the reasons that there was such an outrage with the CraFarm debacle where we had images on our TV of malnourished cows wandering around in an area where we know that this sort of animal husbandry and farming should never take place. There was almost more outrage at the mistreatment of these animals than there is sometimes about the mistreatment of people in our society. But like I said it is an emotive argument.Having said that we also live in a globalised economy where changing tastes are providing greater opportunities for our primary producers. We are operating in a 21st century economy and we need to move with the times I suppose. We need to make sure that we have an ability to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves. By that I also mean that we cannot limit opportunities through legislation. I suppose that is what this bill is doing.I know it was recognised by the Primary Production Committee that the export of live animals is almost a little abhorrent. I know that when I was growing up and there were live sheep exports in the pictures we got back—and I think this might have been the reason that they stopped—we saw these healthy sheep boarding this huge transport ship and when they got there we heard that only a hundred had died of heat exhaustion and this sort of carry-on. It was absolutely dreadful. I think we decided at that time that this was not who we were as a nation and that it was not the sort of image we wanted to send overseas but also it was not how we believed we were to sell our major competitive advantage. We needed to stop that.What this bill does is that it does not close the door on exporting livestock. In fact there is an amendment in clause 21 that inserts a new section around how we deal with the exporting of live animals. What the bill does do is provide the director-general with a little bit more power around the management and welfare of animals during the journey but it places huge emphasis on the person responsible for the exporting of these live animals. The reason why this is important is that if someone has responsibility for their actions and they know that the fine for breaking the law is such a deterrent they are unlikely to commit an act that is going to lead to prosecution. What the bill also does is provide clarity and flexibility around the framework governing surgical or painful procedures. Again a number of speakers have talked about this. It is common sense. I think what it is doing is bringing us into the 21st century. Having said that it is still common sense and it needs to be done.There is one thing that I would like to just briefly mention. I have received two emails—that is all. At least two people got off their chuff and decided to email me. These were hunters who were asking what this is doing to hunting. What the bill does say is that it does not prohibit anyone from hunting a wild animal and going out there and undertaking the sort of outdoor recreational pursuits that a significant number of New Zealanders participate in.One thing the bill does do—and I am pleased about this because until I actually read the bill I did not realise that this stuff was not in place—is govern the rules around traps and the capturing of a live mammal bird reptile or amphibian. The bill affords a whole lot more responsibility if you are setting traps. I am going to quote from the bill here. It says that if you set a trap you actually have to inspect that trap within 12 hours after sunrise each day the trap remains set and if there is an animal in that trap you have got to make sure that that animal is properly taken care of without delay and you have got to kill the animal. The thing about that is if a hunter does not do this there is a fine of $5000.So this bill is actually quite wide ranging and it covers a whole lot of areas that affect different sections of society from the export of live animals right through to how we trap and kill pests and rodents but also—and we have heard about this—animal testing.I just want to sum up. What I think this bill does do is provide a further strengthening of our global competitive advantage. It does send a very clear message to our key markets that if you are buying a New Zealand - branded product it will have been raised killed and processed in an ethical manner and you can trust that. We need to ensure that we retain our global competitive advantage by ensuring that the processes and the farming practices undertaken in New Zealand are done in the most ethical way.I do commend this bill to the House. Like a number of pieces of legislation—I think all the legislation—tonight there is agreement on this right across the House. It is a good piece of legislation. Thank you very much.PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National):It is a pleasure to take a brief call on the second reading of the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. May I congratulate the previous speaker Stuart Nash on the very sensible and balanced approach he has taken and thank the Opposition for backing what is in my view a very balanced bill. It balances the need of exporters to be able to provide assurance to those valuable markets where we are sending our commodities that they are prepared and produced in an ethical manner without the unnecessary suffering of animals and it does move our country in the right direction in terms of providing the highest possible ethical standards. Animals are our valuable little cuddly friends—our pets—they are our delicious lunch or dinner and they are a valuable commodity to be sold overseas. This bill makes sense in all of these areas and for that reason I have great pleasure in commending it to the House.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill be now read a second time.Ayes107New Zealand National 60; New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 11; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes14Green Party 14.Bill read a second time.Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2)Second ReadingHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration):I move That the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time. The integrity of our immigration system is vital for the well-being of New Zealand and this bill will ensure that the immigration system operates more effectively. The bill will strengthen New Zealand’s ability to protect our borders as well as provide better protection to migrant workers who are working in New Zealand. It will mean our immigration system can respond to changes in the use of technology and it will enable immigration officers to have the powers they need to enforce the Immigration Act.The cornerstone of this bill is the package of amendments to protect against the exploitation of migrant workers. The Government takes the issue of migrant exploitation seriously and we will come down hard on employers who take advantage of vulnerable migrant workers. This is critical as we ramp up the rebuilding of Canterbury. Immigration plays a key role in the rebuild and these workers need to be protected from exploitative employers who seek to gain a commercial advantage by employing migrants below minimum employment standards. By avoiding the full cost of employing workers on a lawful basis the commercial advantage gained by exploitative employers can potentially drive compliant businesses out of the market. For example an employer who pays two workers $5 an hour less than their entitlement for a 40-hour week is saving $20000 per annum in overheads.It is clear we need to stamp these practices out.The bill includes two amendments that will protect migrant workers from exploitation. It makes the exploitation of migrants on temporary entry class visas with work conditions an offence. There is currently an inconsistency in our legislation in that employers who exploit unlawful migrant workers can face hefty sanctions through the Immigration Act whereas those who exploit lawful migrant workers face less serious penalty under the Employment Relations Act. This bill will address that mismatch by including the exploitation of lawful workers as an offence against this Act. Unscrupulous employers who exploit migrant workers on temporary visas could face up to 7 years’ imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $100000 under the Immigration Act.The second amendment will see employers who themselves hold residence class visas liable for deportation if they are convicted of exploiting migrant workers or of knowingly employing migrant workers without the right to work if the offence is committed within 10 years of their being granted a residence visa. Unfortunately employers who exploit migrant workers are often former migrants themselves. This amendment will act as a further deterrent to these employers.The bill also extends the powers of immigration officers so that they have more ability to check an employer’s compliance with the Act including where there is information that workers may be being exploited and to determine whether workers are complying with the work-related conditions of their visa.I want to thank my colleague David Bennett for his excellent work in chairing the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee I thank the rest of the committee for getting the bill to this stage and I thank the people and organisations that made submissions on the bill. The committee recommended a number of changes to improve the bill. These include a change to the commencement date of the clauses related to new powers of search and entry which were set to come into force 2 years after the Royal assent unless brought into force earlier by Order in Council. Following advice from the Regulations Review Committee the committee recommended changing this to come into force automatically after 1 year unless brought in earlier by Order in Council.The committee recommended amending clause 42 as it was noticed that the amendment to section 158 inadvertently narrowed the provision to lead to deportation liability only in cases where the fraudulent false or misleading information was provided in that person’s application. The current section 158 allows for the deportation liability of people whose visa is held on the basis of another person’s fraudulently obtained visa. It was not the intention to limit the provision in this way so the bill has been amended to allow for this.The committee recommended redrafting clause 47 which amends section 175 of the Act setting out when deportation orders may be served to make it clearer. There is no change in the policy intent.In relation to the amendment to clarify that the ability to access personal information under the Privacy Act does not apply to reasons for decisions made using absolute discretion the committee recommended that other sections of the Act also be amended to ensure consistency across the Act. The committee made two recommendations regarding the new search power provisions. One is that the thresholds for the exercise of search powers are internally consistent and where possible aligned with the model set out in the Search and Surveillance Act. Thus the bill is amended to use “good cause to suspect” regarding offences and “reasonable grounds to believe” for other purposes. The second recommendation is to change clause 65 which allows searching at the border to align the legislation with sections 85 to 87 of the Search and Surveillance Act which will allow a visual examination of the mouth nose and ears in certain situations.One of the submitters raised an issue relating to the provision addressing the exploitation of migrant workers. The submission queried how we would know that the employer was employing a temporary worker. The committee recommended an amendment to the clause to state that the employer is treated as knowing that a person is on a temporary visa if they were advised of the fact in the preceding 12 months. This aligns with the way the Act currently determines when employers are considered to know that the employee is not entitled to work for them.Finally the committee recommended a change to the bill to allow the migrant levy to continue to apply if the applicant applies before the new immigration levy is in place.I have no doubt that the bill has been enhanced through the select committee process and I commend it to the House.SUE MORONEY (Labour):I rise to speak on behalf of the Labour Party on the Immigration Amendment Bill (No 2). Regretfully the Labour Party is unable to support this bill even though it is a core issue for the New Zealand Labour Party to address the exploitation of all workers—in particular relevant to this bill migrant workers. The Government just has not got this right. It has not got this right. It just shows I think how out of touch it is with what happens in the modern workplace. Even though I am just 2 days into this portfolio even I can work out that in a workplace if employees who are migrant workers are getting ripped off probably the last people they want to report that to is Immigration New Zealand—probably the last people they want to report that to is Immigration New Zealand. That is in fact what this bill forces them to do if they want to have their exploitation at work sorted out.Why does the Government not just get real and resource the labour inspectorate properly to actually do this work instead? The labour inspectors are the people who ought to be looking after people’s rights at work. They ought to be looking after people’s rights at work but that Government will not resource the labour inspectorate properly. So what is the Government doing instead? Instead it is pretending that it will do the right thing by migrant workers by asking them to report to Immigration New Zealand if they are being exploited at work. Well immigration officers are good at all sorts of things but this is not their area of expertise. For many of these workers they will be fearful of reporting to Immigration New Zealand. Unless the Government understands that—until it gets to grips with the very real situation that these people are faced with—then it has correctly identified the problem but it has incorrectly identified the solution. So sadly the Labour Party cannot support this particular solution to the problem and yet we feel very strongly about addressing the problem.I know that the Minister of Immigration has been in this role for some months now so he is not one of the Ministers who is newly into this role and perhaps just getting to grips with it and you could excuse him for not quite understanding what the implications are of this bill. He has actually been in this role for many many months and should have been able to see the situation that is going to unfold here. Although it might look as though the Government is trying to do something to address the exploitation of migrant workers in fact it will not work. The Government does need to understand the power imbalances that go on not only in the workplace but also with people who are heavily dependent on Immigration New Zealand for their ability to continue to work in this country for their ability to actually be in this country. There are far too many issues that migrant workers would have in reporting this to Immigration New Zealand.I fail to see why it is not the labour inspectorate that is actually doing this work. I would like to hear from members opposite during the course of this debate about why it is not the labour inspectorate that is dealing with the exploitation of workers. Of course that is the very same inspectorate that is going to have its hands full dealing with this very same group of workers actually who are probably going to be the people most at risk of meal breaks and tea breaks being taken away from them. This is exactly the same group of workers who are going to suffer from that. So the labour inspectorate is already going to have its hands full dealing with that issue but it should be resourced properly to actually deal with all levels of exploitation including of migrant workers.I was not able to sit on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to hear the submissions on this but I hear that there were a number of very very good submissions that pointed out to this Government the stupidity that was going on in this bill. But of course the Government sticks its fingers in its ears because all it really wants to do is make it look as though it is dealing with the issue when in fact the Government knows that the exploitation will continue long after this bill has been passed by this Parliament. But it will not pass with the support of the New Zealand Labour Party because it is not a realistic solution to the problem that has been identified.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 10 p.m.